Page:Wonderful Balloon Ascents, 1870.djvu/192

176 "We experienced another shock not less formidable than the first. The 'Géant' is trembling from its effects. The cable of our first anchor has just broken like a piece of thread. We could not hope for a better result. The violence of the wind which is carrying us along seems to be redoubled. A bump; another and another—then shock after shock.

"'The second anchor is lost,' cries Jules; 'we are all dead men!'

"This truth is too palpable to all of us to require expressing in so many words, for we are just commencing that furious, tearing course called 'trailing.'

"Our swift pace was considerably accelerated by the lower part of the balloon, which—limp, empty, and forming nearly a third of the whole—had been set free at the first shock, and flapped against the distended part, acting as a sail. The shocks continued to multiply so fast that it was impossible to count them. The car continued to rebound from these shocks to the height of five, ten, sometimes thirty, forty, and even fifty feet, for all the world like an india-rubber ball from the hands of an indefatigable player. Unfortunately, all our human freight, terror stricken and without advice, had crowded into one side of the car; and as this happened to be the side on which we invariably bumped, we experienced all the worst effects of the joltings.

"What a dizzy whirl! What a succession of breathless shocks! What a strain on both muscles and nerves! By the least negligence or slip, or by the loss of presence of mind for one moment, we should have been thrown out and dashed to atoms.

"Every collision tries our muscles and strains our wrists or our shoulders; and every rebound dashes us one against the other, constituting each individual a tormentor