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LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE
OF
_POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE._
AUGUST, 1880.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, by J.B.
LIPPINCOTT & CO., in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at
Washington.
Transcriber's note:
Variant spellings and unusual punctuation have been retained.
AMERICAN AERONAUTS.
[Illustration: BALLOON ENTANGLED IN A TREE.]
Scattered here and there in this matter-of-fact, utilitarian age of
Business one finds instances of that love of daring for its own sake,
with an insatiable longing for new scenes and novel sensations, which in
the days of chivalry moved the mass of men to put saddle to horse and
ride off Somewhere seeking Something--just as occasional trilobites,
lonely and misshapen, are found in ages subsequent to the Silurian. Of
such stuff are our Arctic and African explorers made; the men who run
the lightning-expresses have a touch of it; it crops out in
steeple-climbers, cave-explorers, beast-tamers; it makes men assault
cloud-piercing and ice-mantled mountain-peaks and launch their frail
canoes for voyages down earth-riving canons and across continent
sundering oceans. Sometimes action is denied, and then it strikes in and
makes poets--perhaps the most daring adventurers of all. It must be
difficult for the beaters of iron and the barterers in swine to
understand why such useless timber is allowed to cumber the great
workhouse; but then we don't know _exactly_ what the trilobites were
good for, and the utilitarians may find comfort in the reflection that
at the present rate the obnoxious family is likely to entirely disappear
with the Palaeozoic.
Aeronauts have been free and accepted members of this order of modern
knights-errant, from hot-headed, ill-fated Pilatre de Rozier down to
Gaston Tissandier, the man who still edits _La Nature_ in the lower
strata of an ocean into the treacherous upper depths of which he has
risen seven miles. Your true aeronaut is not an inventor of
flying-machines, not much concerned about what is known as the "problem
of aerial navigation." He is content to take the wings of the morning
and be carried away to the uttermost parts of the earth. Problems he
leaves to the scientists: he wooes the wilderness he cannot subdue. He
is an explorer of unknown regions, a beauty-worshipper at a shrine whose
pearly, sun-kissed portals open to him alone. People travel thousands of
miles horizontally to rest their eyes on scenes infinitely less novel,
beautiful and grand than one perpendicular mile of vantage would open to
them, little matter whence taken.
Having accepted the wind for his pilot, our argonaut seeks no
improvement upon his aerial raft. Like the bow and arrow, it long ago
reached perfection, and, though he may cherish some choice and secret
recipe for varnish or be the inventor of an improved valve, he generally
builds with a birdlike reliance on instinct and tradition. Gas-bag,
netting, concentrating-ring, basket, valve, anchor, drag-rope and
exploding cord,--what has the century of ballooning added to its
essentials? how can coming centuries improve this perfection of
simplicity? Aerial navigation is altogether another thing. A swallow
does not rise by displacing a volume of air whose specific gravity is
greater than its own, but by using the atmosphere as a fulcrum.
Otherwise it must possess a bulk which its tiny wings would be powerless
to impel against the opposing breeze. Mr. Grimley, the aeronaut, writing
of some experiments he has recently been making at Montreal with an
ingenious arrangement of revolving fans invented by two gentlemen of
that city, says: "The Cowan and Paje propelling and steering apparatus
worked as well as could be expected, but the air will never be navigated
by balloons driven by machinery. It is opposed to common sense." Few
fully appreciate the extreme mobility of the atmosphere or the intensity
of the force which wind exerts on surfaces opposed to its action. A
child with a palm-leaf fan can drive a balloon in equilibrium about at
will in an atmosphere entirely quiet, while the same balloon, under the
impulse of a lively gale, will tear itself loose from the aggregated
avoirdupois of all who can lay hands upon it, and wrench great branches
from the forest giants over which it skims. Doubtless, to the
disheartening influence of a practical knowledge of the real
difficulties in the way of aerial navigation is due the fact that the
great mass of those who have attempted it have been scientists without
practice, or fools without either scientific training or experimental
data.
However strongly, as devout utilitarians, we may feel it our duty to
disapprove, officially, of a class so little necessary to the body
politic, aeronauts are interesting talkers, being able, like
Shakespeare's Moor, to speak of "most disastrous chances, of _moving_
accidents by flood and field, of antres vast and deserts idle, rough
quarries, rocks and hills whose heads touch heaven."
Among American aeronauts none possessed a larger fund of such thrilling
incident or greater enthusiasm for his calling than he who recently paid
that last penalty which ever hovers over its followers--the venerable
John Wise. His autobiography, _Through the Air_, is a prose poem on the
glories of Cloudland. The following extract from a private letter
written by him in 1876, after an aeronautical career of forty years,
comprising nearly five hundred ascensions, illustrates this enthusiasm
and his views on the sanitary aspect of aeronautics: "I claim that the
balloon is the best sanitarium within the grasp of enervated humanity. I
can demonstrate its utility, by theory and by fact, for all chronic
diseases and for the improvement of the mental and physical functions.
Elevate a person ten or twelve thousand feet above the sea-level and his
whole texture expands: a wrinkled, cadaverous person fills out as plump
as a youth. Then the beauty and magnitude of the scenery within the
scope of vision exalt the mental faculties, soul and body become
exhilarated, the appetite is quickened and all the symptoms of
convalescence ensue. Why, my dear friend, I am bound to ascribe my
health and vigor at the age of over sixty-eight to my profession, and
only for that do I persist in it. When I make up my mind to rust and die
I will give up balloon-ascensions."
Since Mr. Wise was not of a nature to be easily reconciled to "rust and
die," can we doubt that the great transit could have come to him at no
kinder season than when it should seem but a brief pausing on his upward
flight? Though it will never be known just how or when he met the end,
we may be certain that he had walked hand in hand with Death too long to
greatly dread the final embrace. May we not think of him now as feasting
his spirit on the splendid visions of that Promised Land which,
Moses-like, it was permitted him to see prefigured in its earthly type?
Throughout his adventures, too generally known to require more than
passing allusion, one sees the same passionate devotion to the grand and
sublime in sight and sensation, the same calm disregard of danger,
whether exploding his balloon at an altitude of thirteen thousand feet
and coolly noting the "fearful moaning noise caused by the air rushing
through the network and the gas escaping above," preparing to test a
lifelong theory of a steady easterly current by attempting to make it
the medium of crossing the Atlantic, or participating with La Mountain
and others in a voyage which, begun at St. Louis at 6.30 P.M., July 1,
1859, met daybreak at Fort Wayne, extended over the length of Lake Erie,
included a view of Niagara from the altitude of a mile, and finally,
after skirmishing within thirty feet of the storm-tossed waves of Lake
Ontario for fifty miles and ploughing a tornado-track through a dense
forest, terminated in a treetop near Sackett's Harbor, Jefferson county,
New York, at 2.20 P.M.--twelve hundred miles in nineteen hours and forty
minutes! Puck's promise kept! the seven-league boots outdone!
[Illustration: JOHN WISE.]
Upon his son, Charles E. Wise, and his grandson, John Wise, Jr., he
bestowed his skill and engrafted his enthusiasm. The latter began his
aeronautical career with his teens, and though not yet out of them has
made over forty ascensions. One of these excursions, made in the autumn
of 1875 from Waynesburg, Greene county, Pennsylvania, sufficiently
demonstrates, if any demonstration is needed, that a boy's luck and
pluck are equal to anything. It had been raining the proverbial
pitchforks all day, and the hydrogen oozed into the gas-bag with even
more than its accustomed sluggishness. The curiosity of a country crowd
was not easily damped, however, and the basket was finally attached and
Master Johnny stepped on board. The aerostat sensibly refused to
consider the proposition for an ascension, although urged by the
successive relinquishment of barometer, lunch, water-bottle, coat,
drag-rope and grapnel. As a last resort, the entire lower third of the
gas-bag, which was uninflated, was cut away, the valve-cord by accident
sharing the same fate, leaving an opening about seventeen feet in
diameter. Then, "the crowd having given us room, father asked me whether
I felt timid about going. I told him I was determined to go if the
balloon would take me. He said, 'Good-bye, Johnny:' I said, 'Good-bye,'
and found myself shooting up into space on a cold, rainy October day,
coatless, without ropes, anchor or valve-cord, the rags of the balloon
fluttering in the breeze created by the sudden ascent; the multitude
vociferously cheering me one moment and the next calling me to come back
for God's sake! But I only replied by hurrahing and waving my hat,
feeling perfectly _cool_, and rather enjoying the excitement of the vast
crowd that was now fast disappearing below me. In seven minutes the
earth vanished from my sight, and I passed from a driving rain below the
clouds into a dense snowstorm above them. My feet and hands were almost
numb with cold, and the prospect was about as cheerless as it well could
be, when a thought passed through my brain that made me laugh outright.
I had heard of people coming down in bursted balloons, but I was the
first who had ever gone up in one. The idea appeared so ridiculous that
it really made me feel warmer." Think of this aerial babe in the woods,
with Nature's awful forces warring about him and the earth lost to view,
laughing himself warm over a joke at the expense of his terrible
situation! Truly, "he jests at scars that never felt a wound." Perhaps
it was the balloon, but I believe it could only have been his good
angel, that brought the boy safely down into a small cleared space in a
forest thirty-eight minutes and forty miles from the point of departure.
[Illustration: WASHINGTON H. DONALDSON.]
Another of Master John's voyages curiously illustrates the different
directions of coexistent currents. On July 4, 1878, he made an
ascension from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, landing ten miles south of the
city, while J.M. Johnston, of the _Lancaster Intelligencer_, who
ascended in another balloon at the same moment, came down at a point
equally distant in an exactly opposite direction from the city.
With the name of John Wise that of another aeronaut equally well known
is associated--not alone by their joint attempt to cross the Atlantic by
balloon, but also on account of the probably identical manner and
locality of the death of both--Washington H. Donaldson. While the
interest in the mysterious fate of Donaldson and Grimwood was yet fresh
in the public mind Mr. Wise published a pamphlet giving a fanciful
account of their adventures, as if related by the aeronaut. In the light
of the Wise-Burr tragedy its concluding paragraph has a singular
significance: "In the end I ask the world to deal charitably with me.
Should my body be found, give it decent burial and write for an epitaph:
'Here lies the body of a man whose reckless ambition and fear of being
accused of want of nerve have sacrificed his own life and betrayed a
fellow-mortal into the snares of death, with no higher object than to
serve the interests of a scheme which, to say the best of it, is but a
poor thing in the progress of art and refinement.'"
Donaldson was a man in many respects remarkable, in some admirable. With
scant schooling, his father gave him a thorough training as a
draughtsman and engraver. Allowed to choose for himself, he embarked in
the amusement business, his active and versatile temperament leading him
to become in turn a rope-walker, gymnast, actor, ventriloquist and,
singularly enough, electro-physician. For most of these varied callings
he had a certain adaptability by reason of his splendid physique,
perfect health, entire abstinence from stimulants, ready wit,
good-humor, fertility in expedients and promptitude and energy in
execution, as well as by the daring and ambition naturally associated
with such physical and mental qualifications. A friend writes of him:
"He was as ready to navigate a cockle-shell from the Battery to Long
Branch as he was to run a velocipede along a hundred yards of slack
wire." His drawings, particularly those illustrating aeronautical scenes
and incidents, were spirited and faithful. He tried his hand at
verse-making among the rest. The following brief outburst, written after
all the old loves had given place to that which became the absorbing
passion of his life, and printed on his letter-heads and
admission-cards, sufficiently illustrates the manner and matter of his
efforts in this direction:
There's pleasure in a lively trip when sailing through the air.
The word is given, "Let her go!"--to land I know not where.
The view is grand: 'tis like a dream when many miles from home:
My castle in the air I love, above the clouds to roam.
Not an ideal character certainly, but a complete one in its way, and
readily recognizable as belonging to a born aeronaut. The unromantic but
not unusual inability of a professional predecessor to pay his
board-bill, obliging him to leave his balloon with mine host as surety,
first placed in Donaldson's hands the means by which he became afterward
best known. Fearless as he undoubtedly was, an ascension was undertaken
with the misgivings which usually preface an initial stepping from terra
firma to the inconstant air. Once aloft, however, with the widespreading
splendor and endless immensity of the earth's surface unrolling beneath
him, and an exquisite physical exhilaration thrilling along his nerves,
Donaldson became heart and soul an aeronaut. The novel and sensational
expedients with which he embellished his subsequent ascensions are well
known. Becomingly dressed in tights, he delighted to sail away skyward
hanging by one hand from a trapeze-bar, generally terminating a variety
of feats thereon by poising himself a moment on his back, then suddenly
dropping backward, catching by his feet on the side-ropes--easy and safe
enough, doubtless, with his preliminary acrobatic training, but
blood-curdling to the breathless spectators beneath. He left drawings
for a jointed bar which, at the proper time, should apparently break in
two and leave him dangling to one of the pieces. For a consideration
which the citizens of Binghamton, New York, sensibly declined to give he
offered to ascend to the height of a mile in a paper balloon, there set
fire to it and descend in a parachute.
[Illustration: DONALDSON'S DANGER.]
A little incident, not generally known, illustrates the gentler side of
his nature. He had been giving one of his trapeze exhibitions at Ithaca,
New York, and was induced by some Cornell students to furnish them
captive ascensions from the university campus. As if specially for the
occasion, there came three days of delightful May weather with a
propitiously quiet atmosphere. To the natural elevation of the location
were added several hundred feet of rope, affording a bird's-eye view of
Cayuga Lake, the town and far-famed adjacent scenery. Two or three
hundred persons were "sent up," including several university professors.
Donaldson was in his element, and kept everybody laughing at his jokes
and amusing experiments. He had a crowd of children constantly at his
heels, and in the intervals of waiting for pay-passengers would tumble
them into the basket to the number of six or eight, and send them
skyward screaming with delight and pelting him with a shower of hats and
caps. Did their mothers know? Probably not, or there might have been
screaming of a less joyous kind. One diminutive but intrepid youth of
six won for himself the proud distinction of "our old experienced
aeronaut," being generally used as ballast in making up a load.
[Illustration: DONALDSON AND THE CHILDREN.]
Donaldson's fondness for proving his nerve in the face of a doubting
crowd led him into many difficulties, as it finally caused his death.
Once, when about to make an ascension at Pittsburg with a balloon that
had not been used since the previous season, his assistant, Harry
Gilbert, noticed that the ropes attaching the netting to the
concentrating-ring seemed rotten, and proposed to replace them with new.
This Donaldson insisted would take too much time, but he was finally
induced to allow eight of the sixteen to be renewed. While giving his
customary trapeze performance high above the housetops the old cords
began to snap, and before he could bring the balloon down every one of
them had parted--a startling intimation of how his rashness might have
resulted.
Among the unkilled American aeronauts undoubtedly the best known for
professional skill and experience is Samuel A. King. He seems to have
been a predestined air-sailor, for he made his first ascension
(Philadelphia, 1851) in his twenty-third year, and during more than two
hundred subsequent voyages, many of them extending over hundreds of
miles, and some adding darkness and proximity to large bodies of water
to the ordinary dangers, he has shown an intuitive knowledge of the
construction and management of the balloon and an appreciation of aerial
forces which, while they have not robbed his experiences of thrilling
incidents, have kept them singularly free from disastrous consequences.
One of the most memorable of these excursions was made from Plymouth,
New Hampshire, September 26, 1872, on which occasion Mr. King was
accompanied by his friend and frequent fellow-voyager, Luther L. Holden,
of the _Boston Journal_. The balloon used only held twenty thousand
cubic feet of gas, but was inflated with hydrogen. It was liberated at
4.18 P.M., and immediately manifested a determination to accompany some
dense black clouds which were hurrying in a north-easterly direction
toward the heart of the mountain-region on the verge of which Plymouth
lies. Over Mount Washington and across the Androscoggin Valley it flew
at the rate of fifty miles an hour. At six o'clock Lake Umbagog was
floating beneath our adventurers, and before they realized their
danger--so deceptive are time and space when reckoned from
balloons--night surprised them in the great Maine wilderness. The
alternative was between a descent in a trackless forest a hundred miles
from human habitation, with scant provisions and no firearms or
fishing-tackle, and an all-night voyage, trusting to luck and their
ballast for getting beyond the wilderness. They had taken chances
together before, and they went on now. If they failed to get out of the
woods, they could tear up the balloon, and, encasing the wicker-basket
with the waterproof material, float down some favoring stream. On and on
for hours in an unknown direction, over an unknown region, winged by the
wind and ally of the storm, they went, until, in the dismal watches of
the early morning, to darkness, uncertainty and the intensity of
isolation a new horror was added. The murmur of plashing forest-streams,
which had hitherto been the only sound greeting them from the nether
gloom, now gave place to the measured roll of the surf, and this, in
turn, to complete silence. They were drifting out to sea, and were
already far beyond the shore! The valve was opened at once, and as the
balloon slowly settled into a dense, chilly fog the occupants of the
basket momentarily expected a plunge-bath. The drag-rope, however,
behaved with distinguished consideration, holding them a few feet above
the waves, through which it whisked at a terrific rate. The weary and
anxious watchers were thus kept in suspense for nearly half an hour,
when suddenly there broke through the fog ahead the welcome outlines of
a forest-shore, and in a moment more the drag-rope had lifted them above
the tree-tops. By five o'clock it became light enough to note the time
and that they were travelling in a south-westerly direction exactly
contrary to their course of the evening before. At seven o'clock the
balloon was moored to a limb, and its passengers, climbing down the
drag-rope, made their way to a railroad-cutting which they had noticed
while aloft. It proved to be on the line of the Intercolonial Railway in
the county of Rimouski, Lower Canada, three hundred miles below Quebec.
They had been dancing along the southern border of the Gulf of St.
Lawrence, and, had they not descended from the upper current into the
water, were in a fair way to have next sighted land somewhere on the
coast of Labrador.
[Illustration: THE BUFFALO IN MONUMENTAL PARK, CLEVELAND.]
Mr. King first brought large balloons into use in this country, and has
thus been able to share the pleasures and perils of most of his sailings
up and down with one or more companions, generally journalists. Few of
the balloons in use twenty-five years ago would hold more than twenty
thousand cubic feet of gas. Of the large balloons the Buffalo became
widely known on account of its size and the number of notable voyages it
made. Capacity, symmetry, lightness and staying quality considered, it
was probably the best balloon ever built in America. When fully inflated
it contained ninety-one thousand cubic feet of gas, and would carry up a
dozen passengers. It was the Buffalo which on the memorable
press-excursion from Cleveland, September 4, 1874, gave the reporters
such a realizing sense of the pleasantness of dry land, the greater part
of the day being spent in sailing to and fro over Lake Erie, the voyage
being farther extended in the darkness of night across Essex county,
Ontario, Lake St. Clair and into Michigan. The writer happened to be on
the Cleveland steamer with the returning party, and had occasion to
notice that the amateurs were too busily engaged in writing up their
notes to thoroughly enjoy Mr. King's waggish allusions to
"sea-sickness."
A night-trip made from the city of Buffalo in its namesake on July 4,
1874, was noteworthy for the magnificent success attending the use of
the drag-rope. The balloon took a south-easterly course across the State
of Pennsylvania, going over the Alleghany Mountains and other ridges in
the southern section of the State, being kept close to the earth most of
the way. The relief of weight caused by a portion of the drag-rope lying
and trailing upon the tree-tops enabled the balloon to climb the side of
the mountain at about the same relative elevation. Swinging clear from
the crest of the ridge, the balloon would soon settle into the valley,
to repeat the same manoeuvre farther on. Sunrise met the party near
the Maryland line, and after a delightful sail across a portion of that
State, Delaware and Delaware Bay, a landing was made in Southern New
Jersey, four hundred miles and thirteen hours from the starting-point.
The Buffalo will also be remembered in connection with the ascension
from the exposition-grounds during the Centennial Exhibition.
The failure of the costly experiments undertaken by Mr. King for the
American Aeronautic Society, at Coney Island last season, simply affords
another illustration of the aeronautical axiom that "Captives are
uncertain." Under the most favorable circumstances, and at inland points
least exposed, on perhaps not more than a dozen days in the year will
the air be sufficiently quiet to make captive ascensions practicable and
pleasant, and the difficulty is of course greatly enhanced at the
seacoast. The society proposes to again thoroughly test the matter this
season, studying the velocity of the wind near the ocean from various
altitudes.
Charles H. Grimley, whose views on aerial navigation have been alluded
to, is a young Englishman who, while an expert air-sailor, has gained
his experience rather in the pursuit of pleasure than of money,
dedicating to the latter a more terrestrial vocation. His introduction
to the upper currents was in the capacity of assistant to Stephen A.
Simmonds, a wealthy enthusiast of London who made ascensions for the
British Aeronautical Society. Mr. Grimley has made between forty and
fifty aerial excursions, on one of them covering a distance of one
hundred and sixty miles in three and a half hours, and on another
occasion attaining a height of nineteen thousand four hundred feet. A
number of these voyages were made in Canada. Some of his descents have
resulted in severe bruises. One of these unpleasantly sudden landings
closed a brief trip made from Pittsburg in October, 1875, and took
place on the Monongahela River five miles above that city. Mr. Grimley
was accompanied by Harry Byram of the _Pittsburg Dispatch_. Two things
regulate the force of impact in a balloon descent--the strength of the
surface-current and the amount of ballast the aeronaut has with which to
overbalance the weight in excess of equilibrium causing the descent.
Both were against our adventurers. Most of their ballast had been
expended in getting into the air, and while they had found almost a calm
at an elevation of forty-five hundred feet, the surface-current was
terrific. The balloon approached the earth at an angle of about
forty-five degrees with fearful velocity, flew across Beck's Run and
tore into a clump of trees growing on a rocky ledge dividing the ravine
from the river. The basket was dashed from one tree-trunk to another,
and, the balloon finally impaling itself on the branches of a huge oak,
both its occupants were hurled halfway down the river-bank, the fall
rendering them insensible. With returning consciousness came a sense of
sundry bruises and cuts on their persons. A scalp-wound on Mr. Grimley's
forehead had bled profusely upon both, imparting a sad and sanguinary
cast to the countenances turned toward those who came to their
assistance.
[Illustration: INFLATING A BALLOON.]
While preparing for an ascent from Bethel, Vermont, in September, 1877,
a squall hurled the balloon over upon its side, causing a rent which
extended from the mouth upward for eighteen feet, and then along a
transverse seam some six feet. Mr. Grimley thus describes the result:
"This gaping hole caused a loss of several thousand feet of gas, but as
still enough remained to take me up, I determined to ascend, hoping that
when I was out of the disturbing influence of the wind the rent would
not extend. In this, however, I was disappointed, for, reaching an
altitude of twelve hundred feet, a counter-current struck the balloon,
causing it to sway violently and jerking the torn portion to and fro
until it ripped six feet farther around the seam. The balloon continued
to rise until it had attained an elevation of thirty-five hundred feet,
the gas meanwhile pouring in volumes from the hole. The weight of the
torn portion hanging down caused the rent to enlarge every minute, until
it extended nearly halfway round, the whole interior of the balloon
being plainly visible. I kept as still as possible, as the slightest
agitation of the car tended to hasten the ripping. The balloon had
slowly descended nearly a thousand feet when suddenly, with a sharp
crack, the rip extended upward about five feet more, until stopped by
another seam. I now began to be alarmed, fearing the balloon would
collapse entirely. I was over the roughest and most mountainous part of
Vermont, with no place in sight suitable for a landing. The balloon was
falling rapidly. I threw out everything in the car, anchor and ropes
included, to check the descent, but to no purpose. I struck the rocky
summit of Mount Tunbridge with a crash, instantly collapsing the balloon
and throwing me out of the basket, inflicting injuries from which I did
not recover for many months."
The press-excursions, originated, as hinted above, by Mr. King, and
brought into such prominence by Donaldson in connection with Barnum's
Hippodrome, produced a new and interesting class of aeronauts, peculiar,
I believe, to this country and decade. The reporter is the true author,
after all. If he have the courage and enthusiasm to plunge into the most
untried and dangerous of life's paths, and the skill to transcribe his
impressions in the freshest and most vivid colors, he possesses one form
of the only valid plea for a man's asking the world of readers to listen
to him--unhackneyed experience.
One of Mr. Holden's adventures has been described above. After
Tissandier, he is doubtless the veteran journalistic aeronaut of the
world. Beginning in 1861, he has made in all twenty-six voyages, some of
them perilously eventful, including several night-flights of hundreds of
miles. Most of his experience has been gained with Mr. King, though he
accompanied Donaldson on several occasions. At the request of Professor
Abby of the Signal Service, Mr. Holden took frequent barometrical and
hygrometrical observations in his later excursions. He has made no
ascensions for some years, his surplus time and enthusiasm being
diverted to European travel. The following bit of description admirably
illustrates his style: "It is a strange scene that bursts upon the
vision of the balloon-passenger as he rises above the housetops and
trees. There is a moment when he beholds the thousands of upturned
faces, the throngs of people in the street, at the windows and on the
housetops, teams moving lazily hither and thither, and amid all a
confused fluttering of leaves, frightened birds, waving flags and
handkerchiefs, and a general commotion quite indescribable. But in
another moment the men become mere black spots on a field of green, the
horses and carriages are reduced to toys and the houses to the
dimensions of the blocks children use at play. While all detail is
disappearing there is a seeming contraction of larger objects. Streets
have drawn nearer to each other: it is but a few steps from one
extremity of a town to the other, and remote places are brought within
slight distances of the objects beneath his feet."
Mr. Frank H. Taylor, of _Harpers Weekly_, has an aeronautical record
second only to that of Mr. Holden, having been basketed on several trips
each with Wise, Donaldson and King. Mr. Alfred Ford, of _The Graphic_,
who with Donaldson and Lunt started on the disastrous Transatlantic
voyage in the Graphic balloon, and Rev. H.B. Jeffries, of the
_Pittsburg Leader_, who officiated at the balloon-wedding over
Cincinnati, are also entitled to rank as veterans. The European
literature of ballooning, with its accurate and brilliant descriptions
by Glaisher, Tissandier, De Fonvielle and Dupuis-Delcour, has nothing
more graphic and absorbing than some of the accounts dashed off in the
white heat of enthusiasm by these and other American journalists. The
nervousness and chaffing before the start; the thrill and wonder of the
upward rush; the strange exhilaration coming with relivening confidence;
the unspeakable loveliness and grandeur of the prospect; the thousand
varied incidents of the too-brief journey; the short, sharp excitement
of the landing; the awe and curiosity of the impromptu crowd invariably
on the ground before the balloon, and reluctantly leaving it only when
the last whiff of gas is rolled out of it and the last rope thrown into
the wagon; the moonlight ride to the station with the gas-bag for a
pillow and the brain too busy with the strangeness of the day for much
talk,--all this and more, in endless diversity of circumstance and
treatment, these gentlemen have embalmed for the curious millions who
cannot or will not go "up in a balloon."
WILL O. BATES.
ADAM AND EVE.
CHAPTER XXII.
The month of December was well advanced before Eve's letter had reached
Reuben May. It came to him one morning when, notwithstanding the fog
which reigned around, Reuben had arisen in more than usually good
spirits, able to laugh at his neighbors for railing against weather
which he declared was good weather and seasonable.
The moment the postman entered the shop his heart gave a great
bound--for who but Eve would write to him?--and no sooner had his eyes
fallen on the handwriting than his whole being rejoiced, for surely
nothing but good news could be heralded by such glad feelings. With a
resolute self-denial, of which on most occasions Reuben was somewhat
proud, he refused himself the immediate gratification of his desires,
and with a hasty glance laid the letter on one side while he entered
into a needlessly long discussion with the postman, gossiped with a
customer--for whose satisfaction he volunteered a minute inspection of a
watch which might have very reasonably been put off until the
morrow--and finally (there being nothing else by which the long-coveted
pleasure could be further delayed) he took up the letter and carefully
turned it first this side and then that before breaking the seal and
unfolding the paper.
What would it say? That she was coming back--coming home? But when? how
soon? In a month? in a week? now at once? In one flash of vision Reuben
saw the furniture polished and comfortably arranged, the room smartened
up and looking its best with a blazing fire and a singing kettle, and a
cozy meal ready laid for two people; and then all they would have to say
to one another--on his part much to hear and little to tell, for his
life had jogged on at a very commonplace trot, his business neither
better nor worse, but still, with the aid of the little sum his more
than rigid economy had enabled him to save, they might make a fair
start, free from all debt and able to pay their way.
These thoughts only occupied the time which Reuben took to undo the
complicated folds by which, before the days of envelopes, correspondents
endeavored to baffle the curiosity of those who sought to know more than
was intended for them. But what is this? for Reuben's eyes had been so
greedy to suck up the words that he had not given his mind time to grasp
their meaning: "Not coming back! never--any more!"--"I like the place,
the people, and, above all, my relations, so very much that I should
never be happy now away from them."
He repeated the words over again and again before he seemed to have the
least comprehension of what they meant: then, in a stupor of dull
despondency, he read on to the end, and learnt that all his hopes were
over, that his life was a blank, and that the thing he had dreaded so
much as to cheat himself into the belief that it could never happen had
come to pass. And yet he was still Reuben May, and lived and breathed,
and hadn't much concern beyond the thought of how he should best send
the things she had left to Polperro--the place she never intended to
leave, the place she now could never be happy away from.
Later on, a hundred wild schemes and mad desires wrestled and fought,
trying to combat with his judgment and put to flight his sense of
resolution; but now, as in the first moment of death, with the vain hope
of realizing his loss, the mourner sits gazing at the inanimate form
before him, so Reuben, holding the letter in his hands, returned again
and again to the words which had dealt death to his hopes and told him
that the love he lived for no longer lived for him. For Eve had been
very emphatic in enforcing this resolve, and had so strongly worded her
decision that, try as he would, Reuben could find no chink by which a
ray of hope might gain admittance: all was dark with the gloom of
despair, and this notwithstanding that Adam had not been mentioned, and
Reuben had no more certain knowledge of a rival to guide him than the
jaundiced workings of a jealous heart. Many events had concurred to
bring about this blamable reticence. In the first place, the letter
which Eve had commenced as a mere fulfilment of her promise had grown
through a host of changing moods; for as time went on many a sweet and
bitter found its way to that stream whose course did never yet run
smooth; and could the pages before him have presented one tithe of these
varied emotions, Reuben's sober nature would have rejoiced in the
certainty that such an excess of sensitiveness needed but time and
opportunity to wear itself out.
* * * * *
It was nearly two months now since it had been known all through the
place that Adam Pascal was keeping company with his cousin Eve, and the
Polperro folk, one and all, agreed that no good could surely come of a
courtship carried on after such a contrary fashion; for the two were
never for twenty-four hours in the same mind, and the game of love
seemed to resolve itself into a war of extremes wherein anger, devotion,
suspicion and jealousy raged by turns and afforded equal occasions of
scandal and surprise. To add to their original difficulties, the lovers
had now to contend against the circumstances of time and place, for
during the winter, from most of the men being on shore and without
occupation, conviviality and merriment were rife among them, and from
Bell-ringing Night, which ushered in Gun-powder Plot, until Valentine's
Day was passed, revels, dances or amusements of any kind which brought
people together were welcomed and well attended. With the not unnatural
desire to get away from her own thoughts, and to avoid as much as was
possible the opportunity of being a looker-on at happiness in which she
had no personal share, Joan greedily availed herself of every
invitation which was given or could be got at, and, as was to be
expected, Eve, young, fresh and a novice, became to a certain degree
infected with the anxiety to participate in most of these amusements.
Adam made no objection, and, though he did not join them with much
spirit and alacrity, he neither by word nor deed threw any obstacle in
their way to lessen their anticipation or spoil their pleasure, while
Jerrem, head, chief and master of ceremonies, found in these occasions
ample opportunity for trying Adam's jealousy and tickling Eve's vanity.
Nettled by the indifference which, from her open cordiality, Jerrem soon
saw Eve felt toward him, he taxed every art of pleasing to its utmost,
with the determination of not being baffled in his attempts to supplant
Adam, who in Jerrem's eyes was a man upon whom Fortune had lavished her
choicest favors. Born in Polperro, Zebedee's son, heir to the Lottery,
captain of her now in all but name, what had Adam to desire? while he,
Jerrem, belonged to no one, could claim no one, had no name and could
not say where he came from. Down in the depths of a heart in which
nothing that was good or bad ever lingered long Jerrem let this fester
rankle, until often, when he seemed most gay and reckless, some
thoughtless word or idle joke would set it smarting. The one
compensation he looked upon as given to him above Adam was the power of
attraction, by which he could supplant him with others and rob him of
their affection; so that, though he was no more charmed by Eve's rare
beauty than he was won by her coy modesty, no sooner did he see that
Adam's affection was turned toward her than he coveted her love and
desired to boast of it as being his own. With this object in view, he
began by enlisting Eve's sympathies with his forlorn position, inferring
a certain similarity in their orphaned condition which might well lead
her to bestow upon him her especial interest and regard; and so well was
this part played that before long Eve found herself learning
unconsciously to regard Adam as severe and unyielding toward Jerrem,
whose misfortune it was to be too easily influenced. Seeing her strong
in her own rectitude and no less convinced of the truth of Jerrem's
well-intentioned resolutions, Adam felt it next to impossible to poison
Eve's ears with tales and scandals of which her innocent life led her to
have no suspicion: therefore, though the sight of their slightest
intercourse rankled within him, he was forced to keep silent, knowing as
he did that if he so much as pointed an arrow every head was wagged at
him, and if he dared to let it fly home every tongue was ready to cry
shame on his treachery.
So the winter wore away, and as each day lengthened Adam found it more
difficult to master his suspicions, to contend with his surroundings and
to control the love which had taken complete hold and mastery of all his
senses. With untiring anxiety he continued to dodge every movement of
Jerrem and Eve--all those about him noting it, laughing over it, and,
while they thwarted and tricked him, making merry at his expense, until
Jerrem, growing bolder under such auspicious countenance no longer
hesitated to throw a very decided air of lovemaking into his hitherto
innocent and friendly intercourse.
Shocked and pained by Jerrem's altered tone, Eve sought refuge in Joan's
broader experience by begging that she would counsel her as to the best
way of putting a stop to this ungenerous conduct.
"Awh, my dear," cried Joan, "unless you'm wantin' to see murder in the
house you mustn't braithe no word of it. 'Tw'ud be worse than death to
Jerrem if't should iver come to Adam's ears: why, he'd have his life if
he swung gallows-high for takin' of it. So, like a good maid, keep it
from un now, 'cos they'm all on the eve o' startin', and by the time
they comes home agen Jerrem 'ull have forgot all about 'ee."
Eve hesitated: "I told him if ever he spoke like that to me again I'd
tell Adam."
"Iss, but you won't do it, though," returned Joan, "'cos there ain't no
manin' in what he says, you knaw. 'Tis only what he's told up to scores
and hunderds o' other maidens afore, the rapskallion-rogued raskil! And
that Adam knaws, and's had it in his mind from' fust along what game he
was after. Us two knaws un for what he is, my dear--wan best loved where
he's least trusted."
"It's so different to the men I've ever had to do with," said Eve.
"Iss, but you never knawed but wan afore you comed here, did 'ee?"
"I only knew one man well," returned Eve.
"Awh, then, you must bide a bit 'fore you can fathom their deepness,"
replied Joan; "and while you'm waitin' I wouldn't advise 'ee to take it
for granted that the world's made up o' Reuben Mays--nor Adam Pascals
neither;" and she ran to the door to welcome a cousin for whose approach
she had been waiting, while Eve, worried and perplexed, let her thoughts
revert to the old friend who seemed to have quite forgotten her; for
Reuben had sent no answer to Eve's letter, and thus had afforded no
opportunity for the further announcement she had intended making. His
silence, interpreted by her into indifference, had hurt her more than
she liked owning, even to herself; and the confession of their mutual
promise, which she had intended making to Adam, was still withheld,
because her vanity forbade her to speak of a man whose affection she had
undoubtedly overrated.
Already there had been some talk of the furniture being sent for, and
with this in view the next time she saw Sammy Tucker she asked him if he
had been to Fowey lately, and if he had seen anything of Captain Triggs.
Sammy, as was his wont, blushed up to the eyes before he stammered out
something about having met "un just for a minit comin' down by Place,
'cos he'd bin up there to fetch sommit he was goin' to car'y to London
for Squire Trefry; but that was a brave bit agone, so, p'r'aps," added
Sammy, "he's back by now, 'cos they wos a-startin' away that ebenin'."
Eve made no other remark, and Sammy turned away, not sorry to escape
further interrogation, for it had so happened that the opportunity
alluded to had been turned by Sammy to the best advantage, and he had
contrived in the space of ten minutes to put Captain Triggs in
possession of the whole facts of Adam and Eve's courtship, adding that
"Folks said 'twas a burnin' shame o'he to marry she, and Joan Hocken
fo'ced to stand by and look on; and her's" (indicating by his thumb it
was his stepmother he meant) "ha' tooked on tar'ible bad, and bin as
moody-hearted as could be ever since."
Captain Triggs nodded his head in sympathy, and then went on his way
with the intuitive conviction that this bit of news, which he intended
repeating to "thickee chap in London," would not be received with
welcome. "However," he reflected, "'tis allays best to knaw the warst,
so I shall tell un the fust time I meets un, which is safe to be afore
long, 'cos o'the ole gentleman," meaning thereby an ancient silver watch
through whose medium Captain Triggs and Reuben had struck up an
intimacy. How Reuben blessed that watch and delighted in those ancient
works which would not go, and so afforded him an opportunity for at
least one visit!
Each time the Mary Jane came to London, Reuben was made acquainted with
the fact, and the following evening found him in the little cabin poring
over the intricacies of his antique friend, whose former capabilities,
when in the possession of his father, Captain Triggs was never weary of
recounting.
Standing behind Reuben, Triggs would nod and chuckle at each fresh
difficulty that presented itself, delighting in the proud certainty that
after all the London chap "'ud find the ole gentleman had proved wan too
many for he;" and when Reuben, desirous of further information, would
prepare his way for the next visit by declaring he must have another try
at him, Triggs, radiant but magnanimous, would answer, "Iss, iss, lad,
do 'ee come agen; for 'tis aisy to see with half a eye that 'tain't wan
look, nor two neither, that 'ull circumnavigate the insides o' that ole
chap if 'taint to his liken to be set agoin'."