MY NARROWEST ESCAPE.

Northland Age, Volume 3, Issue 38, 7 May 1907, Page 5

MY NARROWEST ESCAPE.

(The writer of this article is one of the most famous aeronauts living. He was the first to cross the English Channel in a balloon from France northward ; and he holds the world's long-distance record, from Paris to Kieff, 1,250 miles.) My narrowest escape and most thrilling adventure was the result of an ascent I made from Vincennes in a balloon called the "Horizon," in August, 1900. It was dusk wfcen we started, and blowing hard, and with the fall of night the wind increased to a gale, which bore us westward at the rate of eighty miles an hour. At half-past eight we caught sight of a lighthouse in the direction in which wo were travelling. We had every reason to expect that wo should be driven far out to sea, but by a fortunate shift of the wind we were for a while carried down the coast, and hope returned to us that we might yet escape. But it was only a few minutes before we again saw lights, at Avranches, a coaAt town, and the pounding of the surf on the rocks and the roaring of the great breakers as they rolled in from the sea were the most terrible music our ears had ever heard.

I gave up everything for lost, and my companions turned white with fear, for to attempt to land among those rocks meant certain death to all of us, and in that howling tempest there would have been no hope for us in the sea. Another instant and we were driving along over the great billows. Nobody said a word, waiting for the worst to happen. It seemed to us then more than ever certain that we should never again set foot on land, but happily the wind attain shifted and pretty soon our hearts were rejoiced by sights of the shore lights once more. Then the dark outling of the coast loomed up before us, and we realised that by a stroke of the best fortune that ever befell any of us we had been carried back toward the land. It was then one o’clock in the morning, and pitch dark, but I knew that we must be travelling very rapidly, and made a test by dropping a bottle overboard. I heard it strike the ground, and I knew that we were saved. With all my might I pulled at the escape valve, and a moment later our anchor struck ground. But our experience was even yet not ended. For two kilometres we were jolted terrifically about in out basket, striking against branches of trees before the anchor finally caught. All of us were hanging on for dear life, and expecting every moment to be thrown out. The balloon itself was hurled against a tree,, and the gas suddenly escaped in a great rent that was made, while we gradually settled to the earth. It was a grjih experience which I sincerely hood I may never