n without, if I can help it; I charged with a ball,
and fired at the globe, but to no purpose, the object being at too great
a distance. I then put in a double quantity of powder, and five or six
balls: this second attempt succeeded; all the balls took effect, and
tore one side open, and brought it down. Judge my surprise when a most
elegant gilt car, with a man in it, and part of a sheep which seemed to
have been roasted, fell within two yards of me. When my astonishment
had in some degree subsided, I ordered my people to row close to this
strange aerial traveller.

I took him on board my barge (he was a native of France): he was much
indisposed from his sudden fall into the sea, and incapable of speaking;
after some time, however, he recovered, and gave the following account
of himself, viz.: "About seven or eight days since, I cannot tell which,
for I have lost my reckoning, having been most of the time where the sun
never sets, I ascended from the Land's End in Cornwall, in the island of
Great Britain, in the car from which I have been just taken, suspended
from a very large balloon, and took a sheep with me to try atmospheric
experiments upon: unfortunately, the wind changed within ten minutes
after my ascent, and instead of driving towards Exeter, where I intended
to land, I was driven towards the sea, over which I suppose I have
continued ever since, but much too high to make observations.

"The calls of hunger were so pressing, that the intended experiments
upon heat and respiration gave way to them. I was obliged, on the third
day, to kill the sheep for food; and being at that time infinitely above
the moon, and for upwards of sixteen hours after so very near the sun
that it scorched my eyebrows, I placed the carcase, taking care to skin
it first, in that part of the car where the sun had sufficient power,
or, in other words, where the balloon did not shade it from the sun, by
which method it was well roasted in about two hours. This has been my
food ever since." Here he paused, and seemed lost in viewing the objects
about him. When I told him the buildings before us were the Grand
Seignior's Seraglio at Constantinople, he seemed exceedingly affected,
as he had supposed himself in a very different situation. "The cause,"
added he, "of my long flight, was owing to the failure of a string which
was fixed to a valve in the balloon, intended to let out the inflammable
air; and if it had not been fired at, and rent