my first experience in passing from one air current to
another. It was a unique one, for I was still a little incredulous. I
had not entirely lost my old boyhood belief that the wind went all
the way up.

I passed over the old cathedral town of B----at fifteen hundred
metres. Many a pleasant afternoon had we spent there, walking through
its narrow, crooked streets, or lounging on the banks of the canal.
The cathedral too was a favorite haunt. I loved the fine spaciousness
of it. Looking down on it now, it seemed no larger than a toy
cathedral in a toy town, such as one sees in the shops of Paris. The
streets were empty, for it was not yet seven o'clock. Strips of shadow
crossed them where taller roofs cut off the sunshine. A toy train,
which I could have put nicely into my fountain-pen case, was pulling
into a station no larger than a wren's house. The Greeks called their
gods "derisive." No doubt they realized how small they looked to them,
and how insignificant this little world of affairs must have appeared
from high Olympus.

There was a road, a fine straight thoroughfare converging from the
left. It led almost due southwest. This was my route to C----. I
followed it, climbing steadily until I was at two thousand metres. I
had never flown so high before. "Over a mile!" I thought. It seemed a
tremendous altitude. I could see scores of villages and fine old
chateaux, and great stretches of forest, and miles upon miles of open
country in checkered patterns, just beginning to show the first fresh
green of the early spring crops. It looked like a world planned and
laid out by the best of Santa Clauses for the eternal delight of all
good children. And for untold generations only the birds have had the
privilege of seeing and enjoying it from the wing. Small wonder that
they sing. As for non-musical birds--well, they all sing after a
fashion, and there is no doubt that crows, at least, are extremely
jealous of their prerogative of flight.

My biplane was flying itself. I had nothing to do other than to give
occasional attention to the revolution counter, altimetre, and
speed-dial. The motor was running with perfect regularity. The
propeller was turning over at twelve hundred revolutions per minute
without the slightest fluctuation. Flying is the simplest thing in the
world, I thought. Why doesn't every one travel by route of the air?
If people knew the joy of it, the exhilaration of it, aviation schools
would be overw