tanding our immense distance from Europe. As may be supposed, I
had not heard a syllable about the war between France and Germany, and
was too ill to do more than assent to all that he chose to put into my
mouth. My knowledge of Italian is very imperfect, and I gathered little
from anything that he said; but I was glad to conceal the true point of
our departure, and resolved to take any cue that he chose to give me.

The line that thus suggested itself was that there had been ten or twelve
others in the balloon, that I was an English Milord, and Arowhena a
Russian Countess; that all the others had been drowned, and that the
despatches which we had carried were lost. I came afterwards to learn
that this story would not have been credible, had not the captain been
for some weeks at sea, for I found that when we were picked up, the
Germans had already long been masters of Paris. As it was, the captain
settled the whole story for me, and I was well content.

In a few days we sighted an English vessel bound from Melbourne to London
with wool. At my earnest request, in spite of stormy weather which
rendered it dangerous for a boat to take us from one ship to the other,
the captain consented to signal the English vessel, and we were received
on board, but we were transferred with such difficulty that no
communication took place as to the manner of our being found. I did
indeed hear the Italian mate who was in charge of the boat shout out
something in French to the effect that we had been picked up from a
balloon, but the noise of the wind was so great, and the captain
understood so little French that he caught nothing of the truth, and it
was assumed that we were two persons who had been saved from shipwreck.
When the captain asked me in what ship I had been wrecked, I said that a
party of us had been carried out to sea in a pleasure-boat by a strong
current, and that Arowhena (whom I described as a Peruvian lady) and I
were alone saved.

There were several passengers, whose goodness towards us we can never
repay. I grieve to think that they cannot fail to discover that we did
not take them fully into our confidence; but had we told them all, they
would not have believed us, and I was determined that no one should hear
of Erewhon, or have the chance of getting there before me, as long as I
could prevent it. Indeed, the recollection of the many falsehoods which
I was then obliged to tell, would render my life miserable