Page:My Airships.djvu/247

 In this way, automatically secure of my altitude, I found the work of aerial navigation become wonderfully easy. There was no ballast to throw out, no gas to let out, no shifting of the weights except when I expressly desired to mount or descend. So with my hand upon the rudder and my eye fixed on the far-off point of Cap Martin I gave myself up to the pleasure of this voyaging above the waves.

Here in these azure solitudes there were no chimney-pots of Paris, no cruel, threatening roof-corners, no tree-tops of the Bois de Boulogne. My propeller was showing its power, and I was free to let it go. I had only to hold my course straight in the teeth of the breeze and watch the far-off Mediterranean shore flit past me.

I had plenty of leisure to look about. Presently I met two sailing yachts scudding towards me down the coast. I noticed that their sails were full-bellied. As I flew on over them, and they beneath me, I heard a faint cheer, and a graceful female figure on the foremost yacht waved a red foulard. As I turned to answer the politeness I perceived with some astonishment that we were far apart already.

I was now well up the coast, about half-way