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at right angles to the body of the buckle, and was glad to find them
remain firm in that position. Holding the instrument thus obtained
within my teeth, I now proceeded to untie the knot of my cravat. I had
to rest several times before I could accomplish this manoeuvre, but it
was at length accomplished. To one end of the cravat I then made fast
the buckle, and the other end I tied, for greater security, tightly
around my wrist. Drawing now my body upwards, with a prodigious exertion
of muscular force, I succeeded, at the very first trial, in throwing
the buckle over the car, and entangling it, as I had anticipated, in the
circular rim of the wicker-work.
"My body was now inclined towards the side of the car, at an angle
of about forty-five degrees; but it must not be understood that I was
therefore only forty-five degrees below the perpendicular. So far from
it, I still lay nearly level with the plane of the horizon; for the
change of situation which I had acquired, had forced the bottom of the
car considerably outwards from my position, which was accordingly one
of the most imminent and deadly peril. It should be remembered, however,
that when I fell in the first instance, from the car, if I had fallen
with my face turned toward the balloon, instead of turned outwardly from
it, as it actually was; or if, in the second place, the cord by which
I was suspended had chanced to hang over the upper edge, instead of
through a crevice near the bottom of the car,--I say it may be readily
conceived that, in either of these supposed cases, I should have been
unable to accomplish even as much as I had now accomplished, and the
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