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the sky, overcame any scruples of conscience that she might otherwise have felt, and she sent her maids to purchase the necessary silk and cords, even before she had begun to try and gain the king's permission; this, however, she now set herself to do, for I had sent word to her that my prosecution was imminent.

The king, who was a most uxorious husband, at first ridiculed the notion, but at length consented, as he did to everything else on which her majesty had set her heart. He yielded all the more easily now because he did not believe in the possibility of my ascent; he was convinced that the balloon would collapse after I had mounted only a few feet, that I should fall and break my neck, and so he should be well rid of me. The queen told me he demonstrated this to her in a convincing manner; but he ended by allowing me to make the ascent, and by giving orders that I might have all the assistance which the antiquarians could give me, and that the most suitable gases should be discovered and provided; at the same time, I was given to understand that my attempted ascent would be made an article of impeachment against me in case I did not succeed in influencing the air god to put an end to the drought. He had no idea that I meant going right away if I could get the wind to take me, nor had he any conception of the existence of a certain steady upper current of air which was always setting in one direction, as could be seen by the shape of the higher clouds, which pointed invariably from south-east to north-west. I had myself long noticed this peculiarity in the climate, and attributed it, I believe justly, to a trade-wind which was constant at a few thousand feet above