It is by night that the earth communes with the universe. During the blinding brightness of the day our vision penetrates no farther than our own great sun; but at night, when our sun has run its course across the heavens, and we are no longer dazzled by its overpowering brilliancy, the suns of other worlds come forth one by one until, as the darkness deepens, the vault above is dotted with these twinkling lights. Dim, distant, beacons of suns and planets like our own, what manner of life do they contain? what are we to them? what are they to us? Is there aught between us beyond the mechanical laws of repulsion and attraction? Is there any medium of communication beyond the impalpable ether which brings their light? Are we destined to know each other better by and by, or does our knowledge forever end with what we see on a cloudless night?
It was Wednesday evening, September 11, when we arrived in New York. The Endurance Contest organized by the Automobile Club of America had started for Buffalo on Monday morning, and the papers each day contained long accounts of the heartbreaking times the eighty-odd contestants were having,—hills, sand, mud, worked havoc in the ranks of the faithful, and by midweek the automobile stations in New York were crowded with sick and wounded veterans returning from the fray.
The stories told by those who participated in that now famous run possessed the charm of novelty, the absorbing fascination of fiction.
Once upon a time, two fishermen, who were modestly relating exploits, paused to listen to three chauffeurs who began exchanging experiences. After listening a short time, the fishermen, hats in hand, went over to the chauffeurs and said, "On behalf of the Ancient and Honorable Order of Fishermen, which from time immemorial has held the palm for large, generous, and unrestricted stories of exploits, we confess the inadequacy of our qualifications, the bald literalness of our narratives, the sober and unadorned realism of our tales, and abdicate in favor of the new and most promising Order of Chauffeurs; may the blessing of Ananias rest upon you."
It is not that those who go down the pike in automobiles intend to prevaricate, or even exaggerate, but the experience is so extraordinary that the truth is inadequate for expression and explanation. It seems quite impossible to so adjust our perceptions as to receive strictly accurate impressions; therefore, when one man says he went forty miles an hour, and another says he went sixty, the latter assertion is based not upon the exact speed,—for that neither knows,—but upon the belief of the second man that he went much faster than the other. The exact speeds were probably about ten and fifteen miles an hour respectively; but the ratio is preserved in forty and sixty, and the listening layman is deeply impressed, while no one who knows anything about automobiling is for a moment deceived. At the same time, in fairness to guests and strangers within the gates, each club ought to post conspicuously the rate of discount on narratives, for not only do clubs vary in their departures from literal truth, but the narratives are greatly affected by seasons and events; for instance, after the Endurance Contest the discount rate in the Automobile Club of America was exceedingly high.
Every man who started finished ahead of the others,—except those who never intended to finish at all. Each man went exactly as far as he intended to go, and then took the train, road, or ditch home. Some intended to go as far as Albany, others to Frankfort, while quite a large number entered the contest for the express purpose of getting off in the mud and walking to the nearest village; a few, a very few, intended to go as far as Buffalo.
At one time or another each made a mile a minute, and a much higher rate of speed would have been maintained throughout had it not been necessary to identify certain towns in passing. Nothing happened to any machine, but one or two required a little oiling, and several were abandoned by the roadside because their occupants had stubbornly determined to go no farther. One man who confessed that a set-screw in his goggles worked loose was expelled from the club as too matter-of-fact to be eligible for membership, and the maker of the machine he used sent four-page communications to each trade paper explaining that the loosening of the set-screw was due to no defect in the machine, but was entirely the fault of the driver, who jarred the screw loose by winking his eye.
Each machine surmounted Nelson Hill like a bird,—or would have, if it had not been for the machine in front. There were those who would have made the hill in forty-two seconds if they had not wasted valuable time in pushing. The pitiful feat of the man who crawled up at the rate of seventeen miles an hour was quite discounted by the stories of those who would have made it in half that time if their power had not oozed out in the first hundred yards.
Then there was mud along the route, deep mud. According to accounts, which were eloquently verified by the silence of all who listened, the mud was hub deep everywhere, and in places the machines were quite out of sight, burrowing like moles. Some took to the tow-path along the canal, others to trolley lines and telegraph wires.
Each man ran his own machine without the slightest expert assistance; the men in over-alls with kits of tools lurking along the roadside were modern brigands seeking opportunities for hold-ups; now and then they would spring out upon an unoffending machine, knock it into a state of insensibility, and abuse it most unmercifully. A number of machines were shadowed throughout the run by these rascals, and several did not escape their clutches, but perished miserably. In one instance a babe in arms drove one machine sixty-two miles an hour with one hand, the other being occupied with a nursing-bottle.