f the day whose "Jane Eyre" and "Fanchon"
are still pleasant memories to old theatre-goers. Loading our balloon
with stones to anchor it, our party paid her a visit and were cordially
received. An invitation to join us hazarded by Donaldson, Miss
Thompson accepted with delight. I do not know if she is still living,
but it she is, she cannot have forgotten her half-hour's cruise in the
good airship _Barnum_, wafted silently by a gentle evening breeze, the
lovely panorama beneath her half hid, half seen through the purple haze
of twilight.

After landing Miss Thompson at 8.18 we ascended for the night, for a
night's bivouac among the stars. The moon rose early. We were soon
sailing over the Highlands of the Hudson. Off in the east we could see
the river, a winding ribbon of silver. We were running low, barely
more than 200 feet high. Below us the great drag rope was hissing
through meadows, roaring over fences, crashing through tree-tops. And
all night long we were continually ascending and descending, sinking
into valleys and rising over hills, following closely the contours of
the local topography.

During the more equable temperature of night the balloon's height is
governed by the drag rope. Leaving a range of hills and floating out
over a valley, the weight of the drag pulls the balloon down until the
same length of rope is trailing through the valley that had been
dragging on the hill. This habit of the balloon produces startling
effects. Drifting swiftly toward a rocky precipitous hillside against
which it seems inevitable you must dash to your death, suddenly the
trailing drag rope reaches the lower slopes and you soar like a bird
over the hill, often so low that the bottom of the basket swishes
through the tree-tops.

But, while useful in conserving the balloon's energy, the drag rope is
a source of constant peril to aeronauts, of terror to people on the
earth, and of damage to property. It has a nasty clinging habit,
winding round trees or other objects, that may at any moment upset
basket and aeronauts. On this trip our drag rope tore sections out of
scores of fences, upset many haystacks, injured horses and cattle that
tried to run across it, whipped off many a chimney, broke telegraph
wires, and seemed to take malicious delight in working some havoc with
everything it touched.

At ten o'clock we sighted Cozzen's Hotel, and shortly drifted across
the parade ground of West Point, its huge bat