car, while all around hung cloaks, carpet bags, barrels of wood and
copper, barometers, telescopes, lamps, spirit-flasks, coffee-warmers,
&c, for you know it would be impossible for them afterwards to supply
any thing which might have been forgotten.

Thus duly furnished, the balloon was rapidly borne away by a moderate
breeze over the fertile fields of Kent to Dover. It was forty-eight
minutes past four when the first sound of the waves on the sea-beach
broke on the voyagers' ears: the sun was sinking below the horizon, and
as the balloon was rapidly borne into the region of mist which hung over
the ocean, we must suppose something of dread and uncertainty attended
the adventurer's minds. Scarcely, however, had they completed some
arrangements, intended to render the balloon more buoyant in the heavy
atmosphere, than again the sound of waves surprised them, and below were
seen glittering the well-known lights of Calais and the neighboring
shores. Passing over Calais the aeronauts lowered a blue-light to give
notice of their presence, but could not tell whether the inhabitants
perceived it. By this time night had completely closed in, and still the
silken ball pursued its course. So long as lights were burning in the
towns and villages which it passed in rapid succession, the solitary
voyagers looked down on the scene with delight; sometimes they could
even catch the hum of the yet busy multitude, or the bark of a
watch-dog; but midnight came, and the world was hushed in sleep.

As soon as the people were again stirring below, the guide-rope was
hauled into the balloon, and the grappling-iron lowered; and after
sundry difficulties from the danger of getting entangled in a wood, and
grievously affrighting two ladies, who stood awhile petrified with
amazement at the unusual apparition, the voyagers succeeded in alighting
in a grassy valley, about six miles from the town of Weilburg, in the