When I came to trees I jumped over them. So, navigating through the cool air of the delicious dawn, I reached the Porte Dauphine and the beginning of the broad Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, which leads directly to the Arc de Triomphe. This carriage promenade of Tout-Paris was empty.
"I will guide-rope up the avenue of the Bois," I said to myself gleefully.
What this means you will perceive when I recall that my guide-rope's length is barely 40 metres (132 feet), and that one guide-ropes best with at least 20 metres (66 feet) of it trailing along the ground. Thus at times I went lower than the roofs of the houses on each side. I call this practical air-ship navigation because:
(a) It leaves the aerial navigator free to steer his course without pitching and without care or effort to maintain his steady altitude.
(b) It can be done with absolute safety from falling, not only to the navigator, but also to the air-ship—a consideration not without its merit when the cost, both of repairs and hydrogen gas, is taken into count; and
(c) When the wind is against one—as it was on this occasion—one finds less of it in these low altitudes.
"No. 9." GUIDE-ROPING ON A LEVEL WITH THE HOUSETOPS
So I guide-roped up the avenue of the Bois. So, some day, will explorers guide-rope to the North Pole from their ice-locked steamship after it has reached its farthest point north. Guide-roping over the ice pack, they will make the very few hundreds of miles to the Pole at the rate of from 60 to 80 kilometres (40 to 50 miles) per hour. Even at the rate of 50 kilometres (30 miles), the trip to the Pole and back to the ship could be taken between breakfast and supper time. I do not say that they will land the first time at the Pole, but they will circle round about the spot, take observations, and return ... for supper.
I might have guide-roped under the Arc de Triomphe had I thought myself worthy. Instead, I rounded the national monument to the right, as the law directs. Naturally, I had intended to go on straight down the Avenue des Champs Elysées, but here I met a difficulty. All the avenues meeting at the great "Star" look alike from the air-ship. Also, they look narrow. I was surprised and confused for a moment, and it was only by looking back to note the situation of the Arc that I could find my avenue.