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<h2> THE UNPARALLELED ADVENTURES OF ONE HANS PFAAL (*1) </h2>
<p>BY late accounts from Rotterdam, that city seems to be in a high state of
philosophical excitement. Indeed, phenomena have there occurred of a
nature so completely unexpected—so entirely novel—so utterly
at variance with preconceived opinions—as to leave no doubt on my
mind that long ere this all Europe is in an uproar, all physics in a
ferment, all reason and astronomy together by the ears.</p>
<p>It appears that on the—— day of—— (I am not
positive about the date), a vast crowd of people, for purposes not
specifically mentioned, were assembled in the great square of the Exchange
in the well-conditioned city of Rotterdam. The day was warm—unusually
so for the season—there was hardly a breath of air stirring; and the
multitude were in no bad humor at being now and then besprinkled with
friendly showers of momentary duration, that fell from large white masses
of cloud which chequered in a fitful manner the blue vault of the
firmament. Nevertheless, about noon, a slight but remarkable agitation
became apparent in the assembly: the clattering of ten thousand tongues
succeeded; and, in an instant afterward, ten thousand faces were upturned
toward the heavens, ten thousand pipes descended simultaneously from the
corners of ten thousand mouths, and a shout, which could be compared to
nothing but the roaring of Niagara, resounded long, loudly, and furiously,
through all the environs of Rotterdam.</p>
<p>The origin of this hubbub soon became sufficiently evident. From behind
the huge bulk of one of those sharply-defined masses of cloud already
mentioned, was seen slowly to emerge into an open area of blue space, a
queer, heterogeneous, but apparently solid substance, so oddly shaped, so
whimsically put together, as not to be in any manner comprehended, and
never to be sufficiently admired, by the host of sturdy burghers who stood
open-mouthed below. What could it be? In the name of all the vrows and
devils in Rotterdam, what could it possibly portend? No one knew, no one
could imagine; no one—not even the burgomaster Mynheer Superbus Von
Underduk—had the slightest clew by which to unravel the mystery; so,
as nothing more reasonable could be done, every one to a man replaced his
pipe carefully in the corner of his mouth, and cocking up his right eye
towards the phenomenon, puffed, paused, waddled about, and grunted
significantly—then waddled back, grunted, paused, and finally—puffed
again.</p>
<p>In the meantime, however, lower and still lower toward the goodly city,
came the object of so much curiosity, and the cause of so much smoke. In a
very few minutes it arrived near enough to be accurately discerned. It
appeared to be—yes! it was undoubtedly a species of balloon; but
surely no such balloon had ever been seen in Rotterdam before. For who,
let me ask, ever heard of a balloon manufactured entirely of dirty
newspapers? No man in Holland certainly; yet here, under the very noses of
the people, or rather at some distance above their noses was the identical
thing in question, and composed, I have it on the best authority, of the
precise material which no one had ever before known to be used for a
similar purpose. It was an egregious insult to the good sense of the
burghers of Rotterdam. As to the shape of the phenomenon, it was even
still more reprehensible. Being little or nothing better than a huge
foolscap turned upside down. And this similitude was regarded as by no
means lessened when, upon nearer inspection, there was perceived a large
tassel depending from its apex, and, around the upper rim or base of the
cone, a circle of little instruments, resembling sheep-bells, which kept
up a continual tinkling to the tune of Betty Martin. But still worse.
Suspended by blue ribbons to the end of this fantastic machine, there
hung, by way of car, an enormous drab beaver hat, with a brim
superlatively broad, and a hemispherical crown with a black band and a
silver buckle. It is, however, somewhat remarkable that many citizens of
Rotterdam swore to having seen the same hat repeatedly before; and indeed
the whole assembly seemed to regard it with eyes of familiarity; while the
vrow Grettel Pfaall, upon sight of it, uttered an exclamation of joyful
surprise, and declared it to be the identical hat of her good man himself.
Now this was a circumstance the more to be observed, as Pfaall, with three
companions, had actually disappeared from Rotterdam about five years
before, in a very sudden and unaccountable manner, and up to the date of
this narrative all attempts had failed of obtaining any intelligence
concerning them whatsoever. To be sure, some bones which were thought to
be human, mixed up with a quantity of odd-looking rubbish, had been lately
discovered in a retired situation to the east of Rotterdam, and some
people went so far as to imagine that in this spot a foul murder had been
committed, and that the sufferers were in all probability Hans Pfaall and
his associates. But to return.</p>
<p>The balloon (for such no doubt it was) had now descended to within a
hundred feet of the earth, allowing the crowd below a sufficiently
distinct view of the person of its occupant. This was in truth a very
droll little somebody. He could not have been more than two feet in
height; but this altitude, little as it was, would have been sufficient to
destroy his equilibrium, and tilt him over the edge of his tiny car, but
for the intervention of a circular rim reaching as high as the breast, and
rigged on to the cords of the balloon. The body of the little man was more
than proportionately broad, giving to his entire figure a rotundity highly
absurd. His feet, of course, could not be seen at all, although a horny
substance of suspicious nature was occasionally protruded through a rent
in the bottom of the car, or to speak more properly, in the top of the
hat. His hands were enormously large. His hair was extremely gray, and
collected in a cue behind. His nose was prodigiously long, crooked, and
inflammatory; his eyes full, brilliant, and acute; his chin and cheeks,
although wrinkled with age, were broad, puffy, and double; but of ears of
any kind or character there was not a semblance to be discovered upon any
portion of his head. This odd little gentleman was dressed in a loose
surtout of sky-blue satin, with tight breeches to match, fastened with
silver buckles at the knees. His vest was of some bright yellow material;
a white taffety cap was set jauntily on one side of his head; and, to
complete his equipment, a blood-red silk handkerchief enveloped his
throat, and fell down, in a dainty manner, upon his bosom, in a fantastic
bow-knot of super-eminent dimensions.</p>
<p>Having descended, as I said before, to about one hundred feet from the
surface of the earth, the little old gentleman was suddenly seized with a
fit of trepidation, and appeared disinclined to make any nearer approach
to terra firma. Throwing out, therefore, a quantity of sand from a canvas
bag, which, he lifted with great difficulty, he became stationary in an
instant. He then proceeded, in a hurried and agitated manner, to extract
from a side-pocket in his surtout a large morocco pocket-book. This he
poised suspiciously in his hand, then eyed it with an air of extreme
surprise, and was evidently astonished at its weight. He at length opened
it, and drawing there from a huge letter sealed with red sealing-wax and
tied carefully with red tape, let it fall precisely at the feet of the
burgomaster, Superbus Von Underduk. His Excellency stooped to take it up.
But the aeronaut, still greatly discomposed, and having apparently no
farther business to detain him in Rotterdam, began at this moment to make
busy preparations for departure; and it being necessary to discharge a
portion of ballast to enable him to reascend, the half dozen bags which he
threw out, one after another, without taking the trouble to empty their
contents, tumbled, every one of them, most unfortunately upon the back of
the burgomaster, and rolled him over and over no less than one-and-twenty
times, in the face of every man in Rotterdam. It is not to be supposed,
however, that the great Underduk suffered this impertinence on the part of
the little old man to pass off with impunity. It is said, on the contrary,
that during each and every one of his one-and twenty circumvolutions he
emitted no less than one-and-twenty distinct and furious whiffs from his
pipe, to which he held fast the whole time with all his might, and to
which he intends holding fast until the day of his death.</p>
<p>In the meantime the balloon arose like a lark, and, soaring far away above
the city, at length drifted quietly behind a cloud similar to that from
which it had so oddly emerged, and was thus lost forever to the wondering
eyes of the good citizens of Rotterdam. All attention was now directed to
the letter, the descent of which, and the consequences attending
thereupon, had proved so fatally subversive of both person and personal
dignity to his Excellency, the illustrious Burgomaster Mynheer Superbus
Von Underduk. That functionary, however, had not failed, during his
circumgyratory movements, to bestow a thought upon the important subject
of securing the packet in question, which was seen, upon inspection, to
have fallen into the most proper hands, being actually addressed to
himself and Professor Rub-a-dub, in their official capacities of President
and Vice-President of the Rotterdam College of Astronomy. It was
accordingly opened by those dignitaries upon the spot, and found to
contain the following extraordinary, and indeed very serious,
communications.</p>
<p>To their Excellencies Von Underduk and Rub-a-dub, President and
Vice-President of the States' College of Astronomers, in the city of
Rotterdam.</p>
<p>"Your Excellencies may perhaps be able to remember an humble artizan, by
name Hans Pfaall, and by occupation a mender of bellows, who, with three
others, disappeared from Rotterdam, about five years ago, in a manner
which must have been considered by all parties at once sudden, and
extremely unaccountable. If, however, it so please your Excellencies, I,
the writer of this communication, am the identical Hans Pfaall himself. It
is well known to most of my fellow citizens, that for the period of forty
years I continued to occupy the little square brick building, at the head
of the alley called Sauerkraut, in which I resided at the time of my
disappearance. My ancestors have also resided therein time out of mind—they,
as well as myself, steadily following the respectable and indeed lucrative
profession of mending of bellows. For, to speak the truth, until of late
years, that the heads of all the people have been set agog with politics,
no better business than my own could an honest citizen of Rotterdam either
desire or deserve. Credit was good, employment was never wanting, and on
all hands there was no lack of either money or good-will. But, as I was
saying, we soon began to feel the effects of liberty and long speeches,
and radicalism, and all that sort of thing. People who were formerly, the
very best customers in the world, had now not a moment of time to think of
us at all. They had, so they said, as much as they could do to read about
the revolutions, and keep up with the march of intellect and the spirit of
the age. If a fire wanted fanning, it could readily be fanned with a
newspaper, and as the government grew weaker, I have no doubt that leather
and iron acquired durability in proportion, for, in a very short time,
there was not a pair of bellows in all Rotterdam that ever stood in need
of a stitch or required the assistance of a hammer. This was a state of
things not to be endured. I soon grew as poor as a rat, and, having a wife
and children to provide for, my burdens at length became intolerable, and
I spent hour after hour in reflecting upon the most convenient method of
putting an end to my life. Duns, in the meantime, left me little leisure
for contemplation. My house was literally besieged from morning till
night, so that I began to rave, and foam, and fret like a caged tiger
against the bars of his enclosure. There were three fellows in particular
who worried me beyond endurance, keeping watch continually about my door,
and threatening me with the law. Upon these three I internally vowed the
bitterest revenge, if ever I should be so happy as to get them within my
clutches; and I believe nothing in the world but the pleasure of this
anticipation prevented me from putting my plan of suicide into immediate
execution, by blowing my brains out with a blunderbuss. I thought it best,
however, to dissemble my wrath, and to treat them with promises and fair
words, until, by some good turn of fate, an opportunity of vengeance
should be afforded me.</p>
<p>"One day, having given my creditors the slip, and feeling more than
usually dejected, I continued for a long time to wander about the most
obscure streets without object whatever, until at length I chanced to
stumble against the corner of a bookseller's stall. Seeing a chair close
at hand, for the use of customers, I threw myself doggedly into it, and,
hardly knowing why, opened the pages of the first volume which came within
my reach. It proved to be a small pamphlet treatise on Speculative
Astronomy, written either by Professor Encke of Berlin or by a Frenchman
of somewhat similar name. I had some little tincture of information on
matters of this nature, and soon became more and more absorbed in the
contents of the book, reading it actually through twice before I awoke to
a recollection of what was passing around me. By this time it began to
grow dark, and I directed my steps toward home. But the treatise had made
an indelible impression on my mind, and, as I sauntered along the dusky
streets, I revolved carefully over in my memory the wild and sometimes
unintelligible reasonings of the writer. There are some particular
passages which affected my imagination in a powerful and extraordinary
manner. The longer I meditated upon these the more intense grew the
interest which had been excited within me. The limited nature of my
education in general, and more especially my ignorance on subjects
connected with natural philosophy, so far from rendering me diffident of
my own ability to comprehend what I had read, or inducing me to mistrust
the many vague notions which had arisen in consequence, merely served as a
farther stimulus to imagination; and I was vain enough, or perhaps
reasonable enough, to doubt whether those crude ideas which, arising in
ill-regulated minds, have all the appearance, may not often in effect
possess all the force, the reality, and other inherent properties, of
instinct or intuition; whether, to proceed a step farther, profundity
itself might not, in matters of a purely speculative nature, be detected
as a legitimate source of falsity and error. In other words, I believed,
and still do believe, that truth, is frequently of its own essence,
superficial, and that, in many cases, the depth lies more in the abysses
where we seek her, than in the actual situations wherein she may be found.
Nature herself seemed to afford me corroboration of these ideas. In the
contemplation of the heavenly bodies it struck me forcibly that I could
not distinguish a star with nearly as much precision, when I gazed on it
with earnest, direct and undeviating attention, as when I suffered my eye
only to glance in its vicinity alone. I was not, of course, at that time
aware that this apparent paradox was occasioned by the center of the
visual area being less susceptible of feeble impressions of light than the
exterior portions of the retina. This knowledge, and some of another kind,
came afterwards in the course of an eventful five years, during which I
have dropped the prejudices of my former humble situation in life, and
forgotten the bellows-mender in far different occupations. But at the
epoch of which I speak, the analogy which a casual observation of a star
offered to the conclusions I had already drawn, struck me with the force
of positive conformation, and I then finally made up my mind to the course
which I afterwards pursued.</p>
<p>"It was late when I reached home, and I went immediately to bed. My mind,
however, was too much occupied to sleep, and I lay the whole night buried
in meditation. Arising early in the morning, and contriving again to
escape the vigilance of my creditors, I repaired eagerly to the
bookseller's stall, and laid out what little ready money I possessed, in
the purchase of some volumes of Mechanics and Practical Astronomy. Having
arrived at home safely with these, I devoted every spare moment to their
perusal, and soon made such proficiency in studies of this nature as I
thought sufficient for the execution of my plan. In the intervals of this
period, I made every endeavor to conciliate the three creditors who had
given me so much annoyance. In this I finally succeeded—partly by
selling enough of my household furniture to satisfy a moiety of their
claim, and partly by a promise of paying the balance upon completion of a
little project which I told them I had in view, and for assistance in
which I solicited their services. By these means—for they were
ignorant men—I found little difficulty in gaining them over to my
purpose.</p>
<p>"Matters being thus arranged, I contrived, by the aid of my wife and with
the greatest secrecy and caution, to dispose of what property I had
remaining, and to borrow, in small sums, under various pretences, and
without paying any attention to my future means of repayment, no
inconsiderable quantity of ready money. With the means thus accruing I
proceeded to procure at intervals, cambric muslin, very fine, in pieces of
twelve yards each; twine; a lot of the varnish of caoutchouc; a large and
deep basket of wicker-work, made to order; and several other articles
necessary in the construction and equipment of a balloon of extraordinary
dimensions. This I directed my wife to make up as soon as possible, and
gave her all requisite information as to the particular method of
proceeding. In the meantime I worked up the twine into a net-work of
sufficient dimensions; rigged it with a hoop and the necessary cords;
bought a quadrant, a compass, a spy-glass, a common barometer with some
important modifications, and two astronomical instruments not so generally
known. I then took opportunities of conveying by night, to a retired
situation east of Rotterdam, five iron-bound casks, to contain about fifty
gallons each, and one of a larger size; six tinned ware tubes, three
inches in diameter, properly shaped, and ten feet in length; a quantity of
a particular metallic substance, or semi-metal, which I shall not name,
and a dozen demijohns of a very common acid. The gas to be formed from
these latter materials is a gas never yet generated by any other person
than myself—or at least never applied to any similar purpose. The
secret I would make no difficulty in disclosing, but that it of right
belongs to a citizen of Nantz, in France, by whom it was conditionally
communicated to myself. The same individual submitted to me, without being
at all aware of my intentions, a method of constructing balloons from the
membrane of a certain animal, through which substance any escape of gas
was nearly an impossibility. I found it, however, altogether too
expensive, and was not sure, upon the whole, whether cambric muslin with a
coating of gum caoutchouc, was not equally as good. I mention this
circumstance, because I think it probable that hereafter the individual in
question may attempt a balloon ascension with the novel gas and material I
have spoken of, and I do not wish to deprive him of the honor of a very
singular invention.</p>
<p>"On the spot which I intended each of the smaller casks to occupy
respectively during the inflation of the balloon, I privately dug a hole
two feet deep; the holes forming in this manner a circle twenty-five feet
in diameter. In the centre of this circle, being the station designed for
the large cask, I also dug a hole three feet in depth. In each of the five
smaller holes, I deposited a canister containing fifty pounds, and in the
larger one a keg holding one hundred and fifty pounds, of cannon powder.
These—the keg and canisters—I connected in a proper manner
with covered trains; and having let into one of the canisters the end of
about four feet of slow match, I covered up the hole, and placed the cask
over it, leaving the other end of the match protruding about an inch, and
barely visible beyond the cask. I then filled up the remaining holes, and
placed the barrels over them in their destined situation.</p>
<p>"Besides the articles above enumerated, I conveyed to the depot, and there
secreted, one of M. Grimm's improvements upon the apparatus for
condensation of the atmospheric air. I found this machine, however, to
require considerable alteration before it could be adapted to the purposes
to which I intended making it applicable. But, with severe labor and
unremitting perseverance, I at length met with entire success in all my
preparations. My balloon was soon completed. It would contain more than
forty thousand cubic feet of gas; would take me up easily, I calculated,
with all my implements, and, if I managed rightly, with one hundred and
seventy-five pounds of ballast into the bargain. It had received three
coats of varnish, and I found the cambric muslin to answer all the
purposes of silk itself, quite as strong and a good deal less expensive.</p>
<p>"Everything being now ready, I exacted from my wife an oath of secrecy in
relation to all my actions from the day of my first visit to the
bookseller's stall; and promising, on my part, to return as soon as
circumstances would permit, I gave her what little money I had left, and
bade her farewell. Indeed I had no fear on her account. She was what
people call a notable woman, and could manage matters in the world without
my assistance. I believe, to tell the truth, she always looked upon me as
an idle boy, a mere make-weight, good for nothing but building castles in
the air, and was rather glad to get rid of me. It was a dark night when I
bade her good-bye, and taking with me, as aides-de-camp, the three
creditors who had given me so much trouble, we carried the balloon, with
the car and accoutrements, by a roundabout way, to the station where the
other articles were deposited. We there found them all unmolested, and I
proceeded immediately to business.</p>
<p>"It was the first of April. The night, as I said before, was dark; there
was not a star to be seen; and a drizzling rain, falling at intervals,
rendered us very uncomfortable. But my chief anxiety was concerning the
balloon, which, in spite of the varnish with which it was defended, began
to grow rather heavy with the moisture; the powder also was liable to
damage. I therefore kept my three duns working with great diligence,
pounding down ice around the central cask, and stirring the acid in the
others. They did not cease, however, importuning me with questions as to
what I intended to do with all this apparatus, and expressed much
dissatisfaction at the terrible labor I made them undergo. They could not
perceive, so they said, what good was likely to result from their getting
wet to the skin, merely to take a part in such horrible incantations. I
began to get uneasy, and worked away with all my might, for I verily
believe the idiots supposed that I had entered into a compact with the
devil, and that, in short, what I was now doing was nothing better than it
should be. I was, therefore, in great fear of their leaving me altogether.
I contrived, however, to pacify them by promises of payment of all scores
in full, as soon as I could bring the present business to a termination.
To these speeches they gave, of course, their own interpretation;
fancying, no doubt, that at all events I should come into possession of
vast quantities of ready money; and provided I paid them all I owed, and a
trifle more, in consideration of their services, I dare say they cared
very little what became of either my soul or my carcass.</p>
<p>"In about four hours and a half I found the balloon sufficiently inflated.
I attached the car, therefore, and put all my implements in it—not
forgetting the condensing apparatus, a copious supply of water, and a
large quantity of provisions, such as pemmican, in which much nutriment is
contained in comparatively little bulk. I also secured in the car a pair
of pigeons and a cat. It was now nearly daybreak, and I thought it high
time to take my departure. Dropping a lighted cigar on the ground, as if
by accident, I took the opportunity, in stooping to pick it up, of
igniting privately the piece of slow match, whose end, as I said before,
protruded a very little beyond the lower rim of one of the smaller casks.
This manoeuvre was totally unperceived on the part of the three duns; and,
jumping into the car, I immediately cut the single cord which held me to
the earth, and was pleased to find that I shot upward, carrying with all
ease one hundred and seventy-five pounds of leaden ballast, and able to
have carried up as many more.</p>
<p>"Scarcely, however, had I attained the height of fifty yards, when,
roaring and rumbling up after me in the most horrible and tumultuous
manner, came so dense a hurricane of fire, and smoke, and sulphur, and
legs and arms, and gravel, and burning wood, and blazing metal, that my
very heart sunk within me, and I fell down in the bottom of the car,
trembling with unmitigated terror. Indeed, I now perceived that I had
entirely overdone the business, and that the main consequences of the
shock were yet to be experienced. Accordingly, in less than a second, I
felt all the blood in my body rushing to my temples, and immediately
thereupon, a concussion, which I shall never forget, burst abruptly
through the night and seemed to rip the very firmament asunder. When I
afterward had time for reflection, I did not fail to attribute the extreme
violence of the explosion, as regarded myself, to its proper cause—my
situation directly above it, and in the line of its greatest power. But at
the time, I thought only of preserving my life. The balloon at first
collapsed, then furiously expanded, then whirled round and round with
horrible velocity, and finally, reeling and staggering like a drunken man,
hurled me with great force over the rim of the car, and left me dangling,
at a terrific height, with my head downward, and my face outwards, by a
piece of slender cord about three feet in length, which hung accidentally
through a crevice near the bottom of the wicker-work, and in which, as I
fell, my left foot became most providentially entangled. It is impossible—utterly
impossible—to form any adequate idea of the horror of my situation.
I gasped convulsively for breath—a shudder resembling a fit of the
ague agitated every nerve and muscle of my frame—I felt my eyes
starting from their sockets—a horrible nausea overwhelmed me—and
at length I fainted away.</p>
<p>"How long I remained in this state it is impossible to say. It must,
however, have been no inconsiderable time, for when I partially recovered
the sense of existence, I found the day breaking, the balloon at a
prodigious height over a wilderness of ocean, and not a trace of land to
be discovered far and wide within the limits of the vast horizon. My
sensations, however, upon thus recovering, were by no means so rife with
agony as might have been anticipated. Indeed, there was much of incipient
madness in the calm survey which I began to take of my situation. I drew
up to my eyes each of my hands, one after the other, and wondered what
occurrence could have given rise to the swelling of the veins, and the
horrible blackness of the fingernails. I afterward carefully examined my
head, shaking it repeatedly, and feeling it with minute attention, until I
succeeded in satisfying myself that it was not, as I had more than half
suspected, larger than my balloon. Then, in a knowing manner, I felt in
both my breeches pockets, and, missing therefrom a set of tablets and a
toothpick case, endeavored to account for their disappearance, and not
being able to do so, felt inexpressibly chagrined. It now occurred to me
that I suffered great uneasiness in the joint of my left ankle, and a dim
consciousness of my situation began to glimmer through my mind. But,
strange to say! I was neither astonished nor horror-stricken. If I felt
any emotion at all, it was a kind of chuckling satisfaction at the
cleverness I was about to display in extricating myself from this dilemma;
and I never, for a moment, looked upon my ultimate safety as a question
susceptible of doubt. For a few minutes I remained wrapped in the
profoundest meditation. I have a distinct recollection of frequently
compressing my lips, putting my forefinger to the side of my nose, and
making use of other gesticulations and grimaces common to men who, at ease
in their arm-chairs, meditate upon matters of intricacy or importance.
Having, as I thought, sufficiently collected my ideas, I now, with great
caution and deliberation, put my hands behind my back, and unfastened the
large iron buckle which belonged to the waistband of my inexpressibles.
This buckle had three teeth, which, being somewhat rusty, turned with
great difficulty on their axis. I brought them, however, after some
trouble, at right angles to the body of the buckle, and was glad to find
them remain firm in that position. Holding the instrument thus obtained
within my teeth, I now proceeded to untie the knot of my cravat. I had to
rest several times before I could accomplish this manoeuvre, but it was at
length accomplished. To one end of the cravat I then made fast the buckle,
and the other end I tied, for greater security, tightly around my wrist.
Drawing now my body upwards, with a prodigious exertion of muscular force,
I succeeded, at the very first trial, in throwing the buckle over the car,
and entangling it, as I had anticipated, in the circular rim of the
wicker-work.</p>
<p>"My body was now inclined towards the side of the car, at an angle of
about forty-five degrees; but it must not be understood that I was
therefore only forty-five degrees below the perpendicular. So far from it,
I still lay nearly level with the plane of the horizon; for the change of
situation which I had acquired, had forced the bottom of the car
considerably outwards from my position, which was accordingly one of the
most imminent and deadly peril. It should be remembered, however, that
when I fell in the first instance, from the car, if I had fallen with my
face turned toward the balloon, instead of turned outwardly from it, as it
actually was; or if, in the second place, the cord by which I was
suspended had chanced to hang over the upper edge, instead of through a
crevice near the bottom of the car,—I say it may be readily
conceived that, in either of these supposed cases, I should have been
unable to accomplish even as much as I had now accomplished, and the
wonderful adventures of Hans Pfaall would have been utterly lost to
posterity, I had therefore every reason to be grateful; although, in point
of fact, I was still too stupid to be anything at all, and hung for,
perhaps, a quarter of an hour in that extraordinary manner, without making
the slightest farther exertion whatsoever, and in a singularly tranquil
state of idiotic enjoyment. But this feeling did not fail to die rapidly
away, and thereunto succeeded horror, and dismay, and a chilling sense of
utter helplessness and ruin. In fact, the blood so long accumulating in
the vessels of my head and throat, and which had hitherto buoyed up my
spirits with madness and delirium, had now begun to retire within their
proper channels, and the distinctness which was thus added to my
perception of the danger, merely served to deprive me of the
self-possession and courage to encounter it. But this weakness was,
luckily for me, of no very long duration. In good time came to my rescue
the spirit of despair, and, with frantic cries and struggles, I jerked my
way bodily upwards, till at length, clutching with a vise-like grip the
long-desired rim, I writhed my person over it, and fell headlong and
shuddering within the car.</p>
<p>"It was not until some time afterward that I recovered myself sufficiently
to attend to the ordinary cares of the balloon. I then, however, examined
it with attention, and found it, to my great relief, uninjured. My
implements were all safe, and, fortunately, I had lost neither ballast nor
provisions. Indeed, I had so well secured them in their places, that such
an accident was entirely out of the question. Looking at my watch, I found
it six o'clock. I was still rapidly ascending, and my barometer gave a
present altitude of three and three-quarter miles. Immediately beneath me
in the ocean, lay a small black object, slightly oblong in shape,
seemingly about the size, and in every way bearing a great resemblance to
one of those childish toys called a domino. Bringing my telescope to bear
upon it, I plainly discerned it to be a British ninety four-gun ship,
close-hauled, and pitching heavily in the sea with her head to the W.S.W.
Besides this ship, I saw nothing but the ocean and the sky, and the sun,
which had long arisen.</p>
<p>"It is now high time that I should explain to your Excellencies the object
of my perilous voyage. Your Excellencies will bear in mind that distressed
circumstances in Rotterdam had at length driven me to the resolution of
committing suicide. It was not, however, that to life itself I had any,
positive disgust, but that I was harassed beyond endurance by the
adventitious miseries attending my situation. In this state of mind,
wishing to live, yet wearied with life, the treatise at the stall of the
bookseller opened a resource to my imagination. I then finally made up my
mind. I determined to depart, yet live—to leave the world, yet
continue to exist—in short, to drop enigmas, I resolved, let what
would ensue, to force a passage, if I could, to the moon. Now, lest I
should be supposed more of a madman than I actually am, I will detail, as
well as I am able, the considerations which led me to believe that an
achievement of this nature, although without doubt difficult, and
incontestably full of danger, was not absolutely, to a bold spirit, beyond
the confines of the possible.</p>
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