Volante

“ When everything else failed we shouted in unison, "Hotel San Carlos," and the black coachman grinned with delight. Seeing bajado so often at different points, Laura thought it was the sign of an assurance company; when I saw it on the same house as Maria Jesus Street I thought it was some kind of charitable institution.
A volante, as I have said, is a unique and delightful vehicle, which one requires to know to appreciate. There are two huge wheels behind and none in front; the animal, secured between the shafts, supports the weight of the carriage. ”

“ On this paseo are seen various antique vehicles, called volantes, each carrying two or three dames in full dress. A volante is built like a cabriolet on two wheels, with very long shafts, the points resting in a sort of saddle on a horse’s back,—which horse is ridden by a huge negro in vast leather leg coverings reaching, as he sits, almost up to his ears, and no feet to them, though with silver spurs, white breeches, a gold-laced red jacket, and a broad-brimmed straw hat. ”

“ An omnibus of American fashion and manufacture was seen on its route, and a carriage of modern style passing here and there, but those on the stand were exclusively the common vehicle of the city and country, the volante—a two-wheeled clumsy-looking machine of by-gone times drawn on ordinary occasions by one horse. The body is larger than that of an American gig or chaise, hung very low like an old-fashioned phaeton, and so delicately poised on springs of great elasticity as to sway about, 32under the slightest impulse, with a most buoyant and luxurious motion. ”

“ What strange vehicles these volantes are!—A pair of very long, limber shafts, at one end of which is a pair of huge wheels, and the other end a horse with his tail braided and brought forward and tied to the saddle, an open chaise body resting on the shafts, about one third of the way from the axle to the horse; and on the horse is a Negro, in large postilion boots, long spurs, and a bright jacket. It is an easy vehicle to ride in; but it must be a sore burden to the beast. Here and there we pass a private volante, distinguished by rich silver mountings and postilions in livery. ”

“ But I, sir, keep my carriage, too—
A very pleasant carriage, too—
Though it is not the easy one that your desire would fill;
It carries me in comfort over many a pleasant mile,
And all my best acquaintances are suited with its style.
'Tis with a blithe economy establishments are run,
With driver, footman, passenger, and horses—all in one!
Good-morning, fellow Wheelmen; here's a warm, fraternal hand,
As with a rush of victory we sweep across the land!
If some may be dissatisfied to view the way we ride,
We only wish their majesties could wander by our side! ”

“ A solitary passenger is seen, now striding mid-leg deep across a drift, now scudding over the bare ground, while his cloak is swollen with the wind. And now the jingling of bells, a sluggish sound, responsive to the horse's toilsome progress through the unbroken drifts, announces the passage of a sleigh, with a boy clinging behind, and ducking his head to escape detection by the driver. ”

“ Would your Carriage displace along the road four horses on each stage?—Two ten-horse Engines would displace the whole number of horses along the stage.
Have you made experiments which enable you to answer these questions?—I was not at all prepared; my principal object bas been to ascertain what power I have to do a certain work; I have paid very little attention to horse power.
Do you think that your Carriage is equivalent to a four-horse Carriage on the road, in the number of persons it would draw?—It is more than equivalent to it, from the circumstance of its being able to do more work. ”

“ Travellers in North America descant gloriously on the joys of their first sleigh-ride—the bright day, the brilliant sky, the sparkling snow, the excitement of the delighted rider, shared by the equally delighted horse, who finds he has exchanged the heavy draught of the wheel carriage for the scarce perceptible weight of the skate-borne berline or cutter. ”

“ Those who travel in the carriages form but a faint conception of the pace. To realise it to the full you must stand on the engine with John Marrot and Will Garvie. Houses, fields, trees, cattle, human beings, go by in wild confusion—they appear only to vanish. Wind is not felt in the carriages. On the Lightning you are in a gale. It reminds one of a storm at sea. The noise, too, is terrific. We once had the good fortune to ride on the engine of the “Flying Dutchman,” and on that occasion had resolved to converse with the driver, and tried it. ”

“ Sir John said how few people there were now who remembered the origin of the word ‘fly’ as applied to a carriage. In the last century people almost always went out to parties in sedan-chairs—a great fatigue and trouble to their bearers. Gradually the sedans had wheels, and were drawn. Then it began to dawn upon people to substitute a horse for a man. ”

“ The aviator jumps down, the passenger climbs out with somewhat less agility, perhaps, and expresses his very hearty thanks, the plane is turned around, the propeller started, and the machine flies off again, leaving the passenger to tramp slowly through the grass, contemplating the insignificance of the human creature who is forced to walk humbly along the ground. You may remember that the first time you descended from an automobile and began to walk, you seemed to yourself to be only marking time. ”

“ Men—hot and angry—crawled among and between and under the thousand wheels; men took flying jumps through his cab, when he halted for a moment; men sat on his pilot as he went forward, and on his tender as he returned; and regiments of men ran along the tops of the box-cars beside him, screwing down brakes, waving their arms, and crying curious things. ”

“ The darkness hangs about the driving air-craft like a pall. The aviator anxiously scans the earth below him for an occasional light or the glare that a distant city casts on the sky. It is by those means alone that he can get his bearings, unless he is a skilled navigator and steers by the compass. ”

“ In teaching any one to drive, particularly children, this point cannot be too much emphasized. The eyes, so to speak, should be in the boat, or in equine parlance on the horse, the whole livelong time,—from the moment you take up the reins till some one has the horse's head at the end of the journey. Lacking this fundamental axiom of all driving, everything else goes for nothing. ”

“ The turns are frequent and sharp; and the heavy, overladen vehicle, in its furious downward career, gives a swing at each, as if it would cut short the passage into Italy, and land the passenger, sooner than he wishes, at the bottom. At length, after four hours' riding, the descent is accomplished. The scene has changed in the twinkling of an eye. The plain is as level as a floor. ”

“ A driver, holding the reins, guides team and wagon at will. If he were content merely to hold the reins, regardless of whether or no the team followed the road, the entire equipage—team, wagon, reins and driver—would soon be wrecked; the driver would be lying drowned in a ditch or a pool, or have his neck broken going over stumps and rocks. But if he dexterously regulates the movement of the outfit according to the road, observing where it is safe and where unsafe, he will proceed securely because wisely. ”

“ In an ordinary road is the impression of the wheel of a Stage Coach upon the solid surface of the road so great as to make the injury apparent every time the Carriage passes over it?—It is apparent to me, because wherever there is a mark upon the road there is a consequent injury. ”

“ Better move your horse out of the way, Chief, because there comes a car at a licketty-split racing speed. Wonder what the fellows in it are thinking about, to take such chances. Why, hello! look there, Frank, perhaps you know the one who's at the wheel? ”

“ He leaped down from his seat, opened the door of the diligence without saying a word, slapped down the step, and put out his hand to a traveler, who, with a knapsack in his hand, descended to the road. In the same silence the conductor again put up the step, closed the door, sprung again into his seat, and whistled gently to intimate to the horses that they must move. The horses trotted on; the heavy vehicle pursued its monotonous career. ”

“ From time to time a strange vehicle drew near to the place where they stood,—such a vehicle as the lady at the window, in spite of a considerable acquaintance with human inventions, had never seen before: a huge, low omnibus, painted in brilliant colors, and decorated apparently with jangling bells, attached to a species of groove in the pavement, through which it was dragged, with a great deal of rumbling, bouncing and scratching, by a couple of remarkably small horses. ”

“ You seize the first motor-car at hand, and start off on the grand hunt after Bill. Through the crowded streets, out into the country highway, you fly at a terrific speed. Up the mountain passes you race, down precipitous slopes with every-increasing momentum. Every moment, it seems, will be your last. ”

“ I've marked a place on the map I gave you, a place just outside the grounds where you'll find a racing car waiting, when you're ready. Once you're in that, and the driver steps on the gas, nothing but an airplane stands a ghost of a show of overtaking you. ”

“ Then it dawned upon me that he thought that I was the observer of a two-seater and that he asked after the fate of my pilot. I pulled myself together and said in the dryest tones: "I always drive myself." Of course the word "drive" is absolutely taboo among the flying men.
An aviator does not drive, he flies. In the eyes of the kind gentleman I had obviously lost caste when he discovered that I "drove" my own aeroplane. ”

“ The air is full of the buoyant freshness of the hills, and one's thoughts turn to pine forests and rushing waters. Over the superb highway where in ancient days stately processions passed to and fro from Spain, our machine glides on with a sweeping, flying motion, until I find myself leaning over and looking for the wings which should project from the centre of each wheel,—winged wheels, surely. ”

“ The horse, the carriage and the rail-car make up to him for his want of speed; the telescope and the microscope equal the eagle’s eye; the compass enables him to follow a track as unerringly as a dog; the ship, the steamboat and the 754diving-bell open to him the dominion of the waters. ”

“ This vehicle is like a horse-litter, except that they are very plain with low sides, and are carried by four men on their shoulders, who run post in this manner, carrying the king or any noble person when on a journey, and going at a great rate. ”

“ The odds are about one hundred to one against you that, when seated in your carriage, the postillion in his saddle and the fat courier outside, the words en route being given, you arrive at your destination that evening, without any accident or adventure whatever of more consequence than a lost shoe from the near leader, a snapped spring, or a heartburn from the glass of bad brandy you took at the third stage. ”

“ On horseback one does drive, and in a vehicle one does ride, but a distinction is needed here, as in England; so, here as there, we may profitably make it, riding in the saddle and driving in the carriage. ”

“ THE GIRL AVIATORS’ SKY CRUISE.
To most girls a coaching or yachting trip is an adventure. How much more perilous an adventure a “sky cruise” might be is suggested by the title and proved by the story itself.
THE GIRL AVIATORS’ MOTOR BUTTERFLY.
The delicacy of flight suggested by the word “butterfly,” the mechanical power implied by “motor,” the ability to control assured in the title “aviator,” all combined with the personality and enthusiasm of girls themselves, make this story one for any girl or other reader “to go crazy over.” ”

“ Slowly and laboriously do the wheels of a heavy traveling carriage wind along the rugged ascent, while the heaving flanks and dilated nostrils of the noble steeds bear witness to the toilsome pathway. ”

“ The views on every side were of course continually enlarging and expanding the higher the carriage ascended, and as, in the long windings and zigzags of the road, the heads of the horses were turning continually into different directions, each person in the carriage, without changing his seat, or even turning his head, had all the different views presented successively before him. ”

“ The automobile carriage is coming to take the place of the horse carriage. The steam plough is replacing the horse plough. The time seems approaching when the horse will cease to be seen in our streets, and may be relegated to the zoological garden. ”

“ The dapper little pilot stands centrally, throwing brief commands over his shoulder into the open window of the wheelhouse, where a sailor, gravely chewing tobacco, his hands on the wheel, is as rapt as though in a trance. ”

“ They cling to the seats, to the rumble, on the cheeks of the hood, on the shafts. They even bestride the carriage lamps. They stand, sit, lie, with their knees drawn up in a knot, and their legs hanging. ”

“ 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 [69] every one travel by route of the air? If people knew the joy of it, the exhilaration of it, aviation schools would be overwhelmed with applicants. Biplanes of the Farman and Voisin type would make excellent family cars, quite safe for women to drive. ”