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on one side of his head; and, to complete his equipment, a blood-red
silk handkerchief enveloped his throat, and fell down, in a dainty
manner, upon his bosom, in a fantastic bow-knot of super-eminent
dimensions.
Having descended, as I said before, to about one hundred feet from the
surface of the earth, the little old gentleman was suddenly seized
with a fit of trepidation, and appeared disinclined to make any nearer
approach to terra firma. Throwing out, therefore, a quantity of sand
from a canvas bag, which, he lifted with great difficulty, he became
stationary in an instant. He then proceeded, in a hurried and agitated
manner, to extract from a side-pocket in his surtout a large morocco
pocket-book. This he poised suspiciously in his hand, then eyed it with
an air of extreme surprise, and was evidently astonished at its weight.
He at length opened it, and drawing there from a huge letter sealed with
red sealing-wax and tied carefully with red tape, let it fall precisely
at the feet of the burgomaster, Superbus Von Underduk. His Excellency
stooped to take it up. But the aeronaut, still greatly discomposed, and
having apparently no farther business to detain him in Rotterdam, began
at this moment to make busy preparations for departure; and it being
necessary to discharge a portion of ballast to enable him to reascend,
the half dozen bags which he threw out, one after another, without
taking the trouble to empty their contents, tumbled, every one of them,
most unfortunately upon the back of the burgomaster, and rolled him over
and over no less than one-and-twenty times, in the face of every man in
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