noon
Here 's the first time that I believe in Africa , and I 'm not sorry to get a taste of it . '' Toward evening , the doctor calculated that the balloon had not made twenty miles during that whole burning day , and a heated gloom closed in upon it , as soon as the sun had disappeared behind the horizon , which was traced against the sky with all the precision of a straight line . The next day was Thursday , the 1st of May , but the days followed each other with desperate monotony . Each morning was like the one that had preceded it ; noon poured down the same exhaustless rays , and night condensed in its shadow the scattered heat which the ensuing day would again bequeath to the succeeding night . The wind , now scarcely observable , was rather a gasp than a breath , and the morning could almost be foreseen when even that gasp would cease . The doctor reacted against the gloominess of the situation and retained all the coolness and self-possession of a disciplined heart . With his glass he scrutinized every quarter of the horizon ; he saw the last rising ground gradually melting to the dead level , and the last vegetation disappearing , while , before him , stretched the immensity of the desert .