Note: Translated by an unknown hand, first published as Five Weeks in a Balloon: A Voyage of Exploration and Discovery in Central Africa by Chapman & Hall in 1870. This translation begins: "There have been disputes as to the originator of the great idea of traversing the African continent, in a manner to be independent of its multitudinous and deadly obstructions; but the subjoined narrative will, we cannot doubt, be sufficient to assure the reader that the man who undertook, and in the face of unexampled difficulties carried out the project, conceived it, and stands indebted to no one for the honours now accumulating on the name of Dr. Samuel Fergusson."