The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-05-03
A gfAM&aI@ EtST A fsANS

fifteen or twenty miles above sea levei, that my friend Smith could not manage his monster. tried to help him by opening the valve and broke the rope fell backward, and the rarifed air, to- gether with the terrible heat, due to our being so much nearer the sun, overcame me- so that I lay unconscious for time.
 When I recovered I found Smith 1y- ing insensible, and the hound quite dead. I seized gun and shot at the gas bag. The air was so thin that I could not hear the report; but the shot had it's effect. It tore holes into the bag and we began to descend MT. Smith recovered gradu- ally. and we both began to feel very hungry. I looked around for food and found that the fierce heat had done us one kindness at least. It had roasted the dog to brown turn.
 'I had never eaten roast dog before. but I must say that it did not taste half bad. Just as we finished our strange re- past the balloon landed on the top of date palm, which provided us with des- sert at exactly the right moment. After we had eaten a couple of bushels of these we felt refreshed enough to climb down. and discovered that we had landed in Arabia. We made our way to Europe without any notable happening. I will merely mention, as another Illustration, of the degree of heat, that all the skin came off my face in one piece had it tanned and made into a pair of shoes, which l kept on day and night for IA years. without their showing the slight est signs of wear.
 "The heat that we felt on that memor- able day reminds me of the cruise that took me into the Gulf stream some years ago. It is true that the weather hap pened to be more than ordinarily warm while 1 was there, and this may have in- creased the heat of the Gulf stream be- yond the ordinary. At any rate, on very sunny days the water always grew 50 hot at noon that it was sufficient merely to dip our meat and other food into it to have it thoroughly cooked.
 What surprised me the most were the fish that played around the ship in ehor- nous numbers. quite fnerrily and lively, only to die the moment they were pulled out with line or net By the time they reached the deck they were we'll cooked and all ready to eat.
 We were puzzled for a long time to understand how these fully cooked fish could swim and play in the boiling water. but the explanation, like the explanation of all apparent wonders. was simple enough. It was the force of habit. The fish become accustomed to the tempera- ture gradually. Then when they are hauled suddenly into the cool air, of course the heat strikes in, ends their lives and cooks them.
 "so there is nothing very marvellous about it after all E
 "On that same voyage I had an excel lent hunting dog aboard. One day when our observations showed that we were at least a thousand miles from land, I ob- served that the dog kept coming to point again and again. I told the cap tain that we must be near game of some kind. He laughed aloud and others joined him. Finally wagered 100 guneas that we would find game within nalT an hour.
 Scarcely had the wager been entered before the sailors, who had been fishing, hauled in a shark of ordinary size. The dog made a dead point at the sea mon ster. and I said: There is the gamer
 Dear friends and hunting companions, when the shark was opened we found in him six pairs of living partridge The poor birds must have been there a long time, for one of them was setting on Y eggs. During the rest of that voyage we had fresh game constantly as one or the other of the cartridges was sure to breed.
 We had a most severe storm during that voyage which is worth mentioning. It began with a phenomenon that I never observed before. A strong wind blew from the east for three minutes and then from the west for three minutes, alter hating during the whole night without pause. With the dawn came a mighty gale from the north. It lasted for whole month. We saw neither sun, moon of this wind can be better appreciated when I mention that our ship did not climb to the crest of wave and then shoot down into the trough, and so on For that whole month it was simply blown from crest to crest in perfectly horizontal line. This is something that happens only rarely to vessel like ours, that must have weighed many thousands OF tons, with her 800 men and 70 cannon.
 When the storm was over we were dis masted and quite helpless. Our provi- sions were exhausted and we were get ting worried, when suddenly everybody sniffed The air had most remarkable aroma. It was that of roast beef, oranges and cigars So powerful and nutritious was the air that we lived on the smell alone for whole week. On the eighth day we sighted land. It was Havana.
 We landed the next day and I hap pened to tell some of the tobacco planters few of my adventures. My hearers were so amazed that some of them stood on their heads with wonder, while others clutched their hair with both hands and held it down, crying that my narratives were raising their hair.
 T left their company at the first op- portunity. People who cannot distin- guish between pure fabrication and sim pie truth simply told are beyond hope. Everybody who knows me knows how utterly impossible it is for me to tell even the least of falsehoods believe that this repugnance to lies is an inser- tied trait In our family, for I have sev- eral relatives who are seized with severe