ALBERTO SANTOS-DUMONT
noise that reaches one through the depths of the air. The human voice cannot mount up into these boundyless solitudes. Human beings are like ants along the white lines that represent roads. The rows of houses are like playthings.
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While my gaze was still held fascinated, a cloud passed before the sun. Its shadow cooled the gas in the balloon, which wrinkled and began descending, gently at first, and then with accelerated speed, against which we strove by throwing ballast overboard. We regained our equilibrium at 3,000 meters (1, miles), above a plateau of clouds. The sun cast the shadow of the balloon on this screen of dazzling whiteness, while our own profiles appeared in the center of a triple rainbow. As we could no longer see the earth, all sensation of movement ceased. We might be going at storm-speed and not know it. We could not even discover the direction we were taking, save by descending below the clouds to take our bearings.
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A joyous peal of bells mounted up to us. It was the noonday Angelus ringing from a belfry below. I had placed among our stores a substantial lunch of hard-boiled eggs, roast-beef, chicken, cheese, ice-cream, fruits and cakes, champagne, coffee, and chartreuse. Nothing is more delicious than lunching like this above the clouds. No dining-room is so marvelous in its decoration. The sun sets the clouds in ebullition, and they send up rainbow-colored jets of cold vapor like great sheaves of fireworks all around the table, throwing out spangles of ice,
