Page:Wonderful Balloon Ascents, 1870.djvu/173

Rh from London on the 7th of November, 1836, accompanied by two friends—Monk-Mason, the historian of the journey, and a gentleman named Molland. Not knowing to what quarter of the globe he might be blown, Green provided himself with passports to all the states of Europe, and with a quantity of provisions sufficient to last him for some time, should he be driven by the wind over the sea. Shortly after mid-day the balloon rose with great grandeur, and, urged by a light breeze, floated to the south-east, over the plains of Kent. At four o'clock the voyagers sighted the sea.

"It was forty-eight minutes past four," says Monk-Mason, "that we first saw the line of waves breaking on the shores beneath us. It would have been impossible to have remained unmoved by the grandeur of the spectacle that spread out before us. Behind us were the coasts of England, with their white cliffs half lost in the coming darkness. Beneath us on both sides the ocean spread out far and wide to where the darkness closed in the scene. Opposite us a barrier of thick clouds like a wall, surmounted all along its line with projections like so many towers, bastions, and battlements, rose up from the sea as if to stop our advance. A few minutes afterwards we were in the midst of this cloudy barrier, surrounded with darkness, which the vapours of the night increased. We heard no sound. The noise of the waves breaking on the shores of England had ceased, and our position had for some time cut us off from all the sounds of earth."

In an hour the Straits of Dover were cleared, the lights of Calais shone out toward the voyagers, and the sound of the town drums rose up toward them. "Darkness was now complete," continues the writer, "and it was only by the lights, sometimes isolated, sometimes seen in masses, and