Five Weeks in a Balloon Chapter 20

In which our intrepid travellers encounter a wild and untamed landscape from the precarious vantage of their balloon, observing extraordinary botanical curiosities and the grim customs of native tribes with a mixture of scientific interest and poignant regret. Above the tumult of savage warfare, they bear silent witness to a brutal contest for survival and dominion, reflecting on the enduring follies and cruelties of mankind as they seek a more favourable current to carry them onward.