With this I pulled on the valve rope, and we came down with celerity but scarcely any shock.
Personally, I have felt not only fear but also pain and real despair in a spherical balloon. It has not been often, because no sport is more regularly safe and mild and pleasurable. Such real dangers as it has are confined usually to the landing, and the balloonist of experience knows how to meet them; while from its imaginary dangers in the air one is regularly very safe. Therefore the particular adventure, full of pain and fear, that I recall to mind was all the more remarkable in that it occurred in high altitude.
It happened at Nice in 1900, when I went up from the Place Masséna in a good-sized spherical balloon, alone, and intending to drift a few hours only amid the enchanting scenery of the mountains and the sea.
The weather was fine, but the barometer soon fell, indicating storm. For a time the wind took me in the direction of Cimiez, but as I rose it threatened to carry me out to sea. I threw out ballast, abandoned the current, and mounted to the height of about a mile.
Shortly after this I let the balloon go down again, hoping to find a safe air current, but when within 300 yards of the ground, near the Var, I noticed that I had ceased descending. As I had determined to land soon in any case I pulled on the valve rope and let out more gas. And here the terrible experience began.
I could not go down. I glanced at the barometer, and found, indeed, that I was going up. Yet I ought to be descending, and I felt—by the wind and everything—that I must be descending. Had I not let out gas?
To my great uneasiness I discovered only too soon what was wrong. In spite of my continuous apparent descent I was, nevertheless, being lifted by an enormous column of air rushing upward. While I fell in it I rose rapidly higher with it.
I opened the valve again; it was useless. The barometer showed that I had reached a still greater altitude, and I could now take account of the fact by the way in which the land was disappearing under me. I now closed the valve to save my gas. There was nothing but to wait and see what would happen.
The upward-rushing column of air continued to take me to a height of 3000 metres (almost 2 miles). I could do nothing but watch the barometer. Then, after what seemed a long time, it showed that I had begun descending.
When I began to see land I threw out ballast, not to strike the earth too quickly. Now I could perceive the storm beating the trees and shrubbery. Up in the storm itself I had felt nothing.