The Seine appears like a coiled snake, asleep, of which we see neither head nor tail; it crosses Paris, and the entire field resembles an immense basin of prairies and forests dotted here and there by mountains, hardly visible in the horizon.

The sun, which we could no longer see down below, now reappears as though it were about to rise again, and our balloon seems to be lighted; it must appear like a star to the people who are looking up.  M. Mallet every few seconds throws a cigarette paper into-space and says quietly:  “We are rising, always rising,” while Captain Jovis, radiant with joy, rubs his hands together and repeats:  “Eh? this varnish?  Isn’t it good?”

In fact, we can see whether we are rising or sinking only by throwing a cigarette paper out of the basket now and then.  If this paper appears to fall down like a stone, it means that the balloon is rising; if it appears to shoot skyward the balloon is descending.

The two barometers mark about five hundred meters, and we gaze with enthusiastic admiration at the earth we are leaving and to which we are not attached in any way; it looks like a colored map, an immense plan of the country.  All its noises, however, rise to our ears very distinctly, easily recognizable.  We hear the sound of the wheels rolling in the streets, the snap of a whip, the cries of drivers, the rolling and whistling of trains and the laughter of small boys running after one another.  Every time we pass over a village the noise of children’s voices is heard above the rest and with the greatest distinctness.  Some men are calling us; the locomotives whistle; we answer with the siren, which emits plaintive, fearfully shrill wails like the voice of a weird being wandering through the world.

We perceive lights here and there, some isolated fire in the farms, and lines of gas in the towns.  We are going toward the northwest, after roaming for some time over the little lake of Enghien.  Now we see a river; it is the Oise, and we begin to argue about the exact spot we are passing.  Is that town Creil or Pontoise—­the one with so many lights?  But if we were over Pontoise we could see the junction of the Seine and the Oise; and that enormous fire to the left, isn’t it the blast furnaces of Montataire?  So then we are above Creil.  The view is superb; it is dark on the earth, but we are still in the light, and it is now past ten o’clock.  Now we begin to hear slight country noises, the double cry of the quail in particular, then the mewing of cats and the barking of dogs.  Surely the dogs have scented the balloon; they have seen it and have given the alarm.  We can hear them barking all over the plain and making the identical noise they make when baying at the moon.  The cows also seem to wake up in the barns, for we can hear them lowing; all the beasts are scared and moved before the aerial monster that is passing.