The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1885-03-13

FLOATING OVER LONDON
at a Height Which Makes of the Great
City Toy Village.
Longman's 8Iagazine.l


City a Toy Village.
[Longman's BIagazine.l
All who have made anything like high
ascents have exhausted tropes and figures
in attempting TO describe their emotions
In the presence of what they beheId
To my thinking it is too much like trying
to describe music-when all is said the
emotion is not reproduced, or but very
family. Still we have at least to
deal with visual objects and scenic
effects. The horror and mystery of
suddenly coming to a black cloud 6, 900
feet thick-so thick that the balloon
ceased to be visible from the car-this can
be realized. 1t was Glaisher's experience
in Coxwell's big balloon. a snow storm
at high attitudes is very expressive and
lonesome. About 10, 900 feet above Cam
berwell, in the middle of q hot June, Mr..
Lithgoe told me he was refreshed with
one, and came down with his balloon in
midsummer still covered with snow. |
have noticed the strangely solid, fived and
often motionless appearance of the white
billowy clouds, treacherous pillows invit-
ing one to step out and recline upon them
without hint of instability. Presently,
smitten with a crimson cloud, their edges
may break into flame, and as one looks, a
silent rift is made, and through them
distant wilderness of the deep frma-
mental blue.
Let us ascend soon after sunset in mag
ination. Nothing can exceed the weird
solemnity of night in balloon. To float
above London and see the whole city like
one vast fame-map at ones feet, twelve
miles square of irradiated street. with the
winding river picked out by the electric
light and as one rises the whole shrunk
to about the size of chess-board This
vision in a moment reduces the mightiest
(1ify in hn To h0 Of q
toy. The earth itself, as we ascend
higher and higher, loses importance to
the clear obscure" above us, to which we
seem hurrying apace. Only the heavens
are now worthy of contemplation, but
the stars are changed, they hang more
golden and globular, as in the tropic, or
as In the poets vision.
AS cloud rolls from the "opal widths ]"
of the moon the stars grow faint. She is
light, but hangs in the blue blackness, and
seems to give no light, so greatly attenu-
ated is the light bearing ether in which we
now swim. Perhaps the physical emo
tons confuse or intensity the power of the
eye. This singing in my ears is Oppres-
sive; this constant oozing of blood in my
mouth is, to say the least, trying. am
also very cold, the thermometer many de
grees below zero; but the cold is dry and
bearable, and there is little wind; but a
black veil hangs beneath, just edged here
and there with silver and shot with moon
fakes. My head begins to swim; pull the
valve; let us descend. Down through the
night, into the moon-faked cloud; It's 500
feet thick, and seems to have formed in a
moment It hangs over us now. Still
down, down, thousands of feet The
lights of earth CLEAN feebly beneath me
like tiny sparks. The great city has van
ished. I have had no sense of travelling,
but 1 have foated clear over London.
The rapidity of our descent was terrific.
In another moment smell the hay. IT'S
midnight; the still summer fields are close
beneath US. The moonlight is now diff
fused and soft, the air is warm and
scented, The car drops silently like a
feather; we alight on new-mown hay.