seven o’clock
The Victoria had struck a more rapid current . The face of the country was gradually rising , and , ere long , the barometer indicated a height of fifteen hundred feet above the level of the sea . The doctor was , therefore , obliged to keep his balloon up by a quite considerable dilation of gas , and the cylinder was hard at work all the time . Toward seven o'clock , the balloon was sailing over the basin of Kanyeme . The doctor immediately recognized that immense clearing , ten miles in extent , with its villages buried in the midst of baobab and calabash trees . It is the residence of one of the sultans of the Ugogo country , where civilization is , perhaps , the least backward . The natives there are less addicted to selling members of their own families , but still , men and animals all live together in round huts , without frames , that look like haystacks .