At first, the balloon mounted vertically upwards, but after about five
minutes, when we had already attained a very great elevation, I fancied
that the objects on the plain beneath began to move from under me. I did
not feel so much as a breath of wind, and could not suppose that the
balloon itself was travelling. I was, therefore, wondering what this
strange movement of fixed objects could mean, when it struck me that
people in a balloon do not feel the wind inasmuch as they travel with it
and offer it no resistance. Then I was happy in thinking that I must now
have reached the invariable trade wind of the upper air, and that I
should be very possibly wafted for hundreds or even thousands of miles,
far from Erewhon and the Erewhonians.
Already I had removed the wrappings and freed Arowhena; but I soon
covered her up with them again, for it was already very cold, and she was
half stupefied with the strangeness of her position.
And now began a time, dream-like and delirious, of which I do not suppose
that I shall ever recover a distinct recollection. Some things I can
recall--as that we were ere long enveloped in vapour which froze upon my
moustache and whiskers; then comes a memory of sitting for hours and
hours in a thick fog, hearing no sound but my own breathing and
Arowhena's (for we hardly spoke) and seeing no sight but the car beneath
us and beside us, and the dark balloon above.
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