Page:Wonderful Balloon Ascents, 1870.djvu/185

Rh themselves in the fog. We are alone with our wickerwork house in an unfathomable vault.

"We still ascend, however, through the compact and terrible fog, which is so solid-looking as to seem capable of being carved into forms with a knife. As we were without a moon, and had no light at all, in fact, we were unable to distinguish nicely the different shades of colour in these thick clouds. Now and then, when the clouds seemed to be lighter, they had a bluish tinge; but the thicker ones were dirty and muddy-looking. Dante must have seen some like these.

"Water trickled down our faces, hands, and clothes, and the ropes and sides of our car.

"The water did not fall in rain-drops or in flakes, as it sometimes does in the tropics; but we were as completely saturated by this heavy, penetrating mist as if we had been under a waterfall. We still continued to traverse these rainy regions. The thick fog which the balloon dislodged in forcing a passage closed immediately after it. At one moment I thought I felt something press against my cheek, which could only be compared to the points of a thousand needles, or to floating particles of ice. We were all of us too much absorbed with our situation to think of the hour or of the height to which we had attained. Suddenly the Prince of Wittgenstein, who was standing at my left hand, cried out under his breath—

"'Look at the balloon, sir! look at the balloon!'

"I raised my eyes, in company with several others, and shall never forget the magnificent sight which awaited them. I saw the balloon, for which I had been searching in vain a few minutes before. It had undergone a transformation. It looked now as if coated with silver, and floating