three o’clock
The lofty summits of these mountains separate the valley of the Niger from the basin of Lake Tchad . Soon afterward was seen the Bagele , with its eighteen villages clinging to its flanks like a whole brood of children to their mother 's bosom -- a magnificent spectacle for the beholder whose gaze commanded and took in the entire picture at one view . Even the ravines were seen to be covered with fields of rice and of arachides . By three o'clock the Victoria was directly in front of Mount Mendif . It had been impossible to avoid it ; the only thing to be done was to cross it . The doctor , by means of a temperature increased to one hundred and eighty degrees , gave the balloon a fresh ascensional force of nearly sixteen hundred pounds , and it went up to an elevation of more than eight thousand feet , the greatest height attained during the journey . The temperature of the atmosphere was so much cooler at that point that the aeronauts had to resort to their blankets and thick coverings .