ed as a most serious one, namely, the accidental dropping
overboard of their cherished coffee-boiling apparatus. With its loss
their store of lime became useless, save as ballast, and for this it
was forthwith utilised until nothing remained but the empty lime barrel
itself, which, being regarded as an objectionable encumbrance, it was
desirable to get rid of, were it not for the risk involved in rudely
dropping it to earth. But the difficulty was met. They possessed a
suitable small parachute, and, attached to this, the barrel was allowed
to float earthward.

As hours advanced, the blackness of night increased, and their
impressions appear somewhat strange to anyone familiar with ordinary
night travel in the sky. Mr. Monck Mason compares their progress through
the darkness to "cleaving their way through an interminable mass of
black marble." Then, presently, an unaccountable object puzzles and
absorbs the attention of all the party for a long period. They were
gazing open-mouthed at a long narrow avenue of feeble light, which,
though apparently belonging to earth, was too long and regular for a
river, and too broad for a canal or road, and it was only after many
futile imaginings that they discovered they were simply looking at a
stay rope of the balloon hanging far out over the side.

Somewhat later still, there was a more serious claim upon the
imagination. It was half-past three in the morning, and the balloon,
which, to escape from too low an altitude, had been liberally lightened,
had now at high speed mounted to a vast height. And then, amid the black
darkness and dead silence of that appalling region, suddenly overhead
came the sound of an explosion, followed by the violent rustling of the
silk, while the car jerked violently, as though suddenly detached from
its hold. This was the idea, leading to the belief that the balloon had
suddenly exploded, and that they were falling headlong to earth.
Their suspense, however, cannot have been long, and the incident was
intelligible enough, being due to the sudden yielding of stiffened net
and silk under rapid expansion caused by their speedy and lofty ascent.

The chief incidents of the night were now over, until the dawn arrived
and began to reveal a strange land, with large tracts of snow, giving
place, as the light strengthened, to vast forests. To their minds these
suggested the plains of Poland, if not the steppes of Russia, and,
fearing that the country further