six o’clock in the evening
The country was evidently habitable and inhabited . Troops of hippopotami could be seen disporting themselves in the forests of reeds , or plunging beneath the whitish waters of the lake . The latter , seen from above , presented , toward the west , so broad an horizon that it might have been called a sea ; the distance between the two shores is so great that communication can not be established , and storms are frequent and violent , for the winds sweep with fury over this elevated and unsheltered basin . The doctor experienced some difficulty in guiding his course ; he was afraid of being carried toward the east , but , fortunately , a current bore him directly toward the north , and at six o'clock in the evening the balloon alighted on a small desert island in thirty minutes south latitude , and thirty-two degrees fifty-two minutes east longitude , about twenty miles from the shore . The travellers succeeded in making fast to a tree , and , the wind having fallen calm toward evening , they remained quietly at anchor . They dared not dream of taking the ground , since here , as on the shores of the Uyanza , legions of mosquitoes covered the soil in dense clouds . Joe even came back , from securing the anchor in the tree , speckled with bites , but he kept his temper , because he found it quite the natural thing for mosquitoes to treat him as they had done .