“It is not to be denied that our noble balloon has behaved wonderfully well. To-day is May 12th, and we started on the 18th of April. That makes twenty-five days of journeying. In ten days more we shall have reached our destination.” “Where is that?” “I do not know. But what does that signify?” “You are right again, Samuel! Let us intrust to Providence the care of guiding us and of keeping us in good health as we are now. We don’t look much as though we had been crossing the most pestilential country in the world!” “We had an opportunity of getting up in life, and that’s what we have done!” “Hurrah for trips in the air!” cried Joe. “Here we are at the end of twenty-five days in good condition, well fed, and well rested. We’ve had too much rest in fact, for my legs begin to feel rusty, and I wouldn’t be vexed a bit to stretch them with a run of thirty miles or so!” “You can do that, Joe, in the streets of London, but in fine we set out three together, like Denham, Clapperton, and Overweg; like Barth, Richardson, and Vogel, and, more fortunate than our predecessors here, we are three in number still. But it is most important for us not to separate. If, while one of us was on the ground, the _Victoria_ should have to ascend in order to escape some sudden danger, who knows whether we should ever see each other again? Therefore it is that I say again to Kennedy frankly that I do not like his going off alone to hunt.” “But still, Samuel, you will permit me to indulge that fancy a little. There is no harm in renewing our stock of provisions. Besides, before our departure, you held out to me the prospect of some superb hunting, and thus far I have done but little in the line of the Andersons and Cummings.” “But, my dear Dick, your memory fails you, or your modesty makes you forget your own exploits. It really seems to me that, without mentioning small game, you have already an antelope, an elephant, and two lions on your conscience.” “But what’s all that to an African sportsman who sees all the animals in creation strutting along under the muzzle of his rifle? There! there! look at that troop of giraffes!” “Those giraffes,” roared Joe; “why, they’re not as big as my fist.” “Because we are a thousand feet above them; but close to them you would discover that they are three times as tall as you are!” “And what do you say to yon herd of gazelles, and those ostriches, that run with the speed of the wind?” resumed Kennedy. “Those ostriches?” remonstrated Joe, again; “those are chickens, and the greatest kind of chickens!” “Come, doctor, can’t we get down nearer to them?” pleaded Kennedy.