> The Childrens Encyclopedia, страница 2 > The thrilling sight of the man-bird over the pyrenees

The thrilling sight of the man-bird over the pyrenees

“Away he flies, on and on, and to see him is the most thrilling thing. The great lumbering machine becomes a thing of grace and beauty. It curves this way and that; it rises high and falls low; it goes straight and spins round; it dips and bends like the wings of a bird; it flies to the hills until it.looks in the distance like a motor-car dashing along the snow- covered ridges of the Pyrenees. It flies at the rate of forty miles.an hour over the tree- tops until it has gone from sight, and. then, after ten minutes, the man-bird comes back, racing a bird that flies beside him, and comes straight over our heads.

“Now we see the man-bird clearly, see him sitting on′ his seat, his.face set stem and straight, knowing nothing of the little crowd below, his eyes fixed ahead, his hand grasping the levers that control the engine and keep him a hundred feet above us.

"The flying machine is alive! No longer is it a great ungainly thing. It moves like the wings of a bird, under the most perfect government of this simple, wonderful man, flying above us and about us for half an hour, and coming down at our feet like—what shall I say to be true е

like a feather on the breeze. Like that exactly. The end of it was amazing beyond belief. This great thing, that had grown beautiful before our eyes, came down from the skies and rested gently on the ground without.a tremor or a jolt, with less of that than if it had been a stick thrown up in the street and allowed to fall. It was a thrilling and splendid and historic thing."