exercises, surveyed the country below him.

It was indeed a spectacle of incredible magnificence. If perhaps it was
not so strange and magnificent as the sunlit cloudland of the previous
day, it was at any rate infinitely more interesting.

The air was at its utmost clearness and except to the south and
south-west there was not a cloud in the sky. The country was hilly,
with occasional fir plantations and bleak upland spaces, but also with
numerous farms, and the hills were deeply intersected by the gorges of
several winding rivers interrupted at intervals by the banked-up
ponds and weirs of electric generating wheels. It was dotted with
bright-looking, steep-roofed, villages, and each showed a distinctive
and interesting church beside its wireless telegraph steeple; here and
there were large chateaux and parks and white roads, and paths lined
with red and white cable posts were extremely conspicuous in the
landscape. There were walled enclosures like gardens and rickyards and
great roofs of barns and many electric dairy centres. The uplands were
mottled with cattle. At places he would see the track of one of the
old railroads (converted now to mono-rails) dodging through tunnels
and crossing embankments, and a rushing hum would mark the passing of a
train. Everything was extraordinarily clear as well as minute. Once or
twice he saw guns and soldiers, and was reminded of the stir of military
preparations he had witnessed on the Bank Holiday in England; but there
was nothing to tell him that these military preparations were abnormal
or to explain an occasional faint irregular firing Of guns that drifted
up to him....

"Wish I knew how to get down," said Bert, ten thousand feet or so above
it all, and gave himself to much futile tugging at the red and white
cords. Afterwards he made a sort of inventory of the provisions. Life in
the high air was giving him an appalling appetite, and it seemed to him
discreet at this stage to portion out his supply into rations. So far as
he could see he might pass a week in the air.

At first all the vast panorama below had been as silent as a painted
picture. But as the day wore on and the gas diffused slowly from the
balloon, it sank earthward again, details increased, men became more
visible, and he began to hear the whistle and moan of trains and cars,
sounds of cattle, bugles and kettle drums, and presently even men's
voices. And at last his guide-rope was trailing again, and he