There is nothing in all the experiences of life like what one feels in flying through the air, especially at a great height and with no other machines in sight. There is a loneliness, unlike any other kind of loneliness; there is a feeling of smallness and weakness; a sense of the immensity of things and of the presence and nearness of God. It is surprising that in doing that in which man has shown his greatest power over the forces of Nature, he feels most his littleness and how easily he could be destroyed by the very forces he has conquered. Lieutenant Roberts, an American flying in France, described not long ago an experience that came just after his first flight. He was up in the air, higher than anybody had ever been before, when the machine suddenly broke into little pieces, which, as he was tumbling down through the air, he vainly tried to catch. Just as he hit the ground and broke every bone in his body, he woke up on the floor beside his bunk. The Englishmen are the most daring of all the flyers, take the most risks, and do the most dangerous "stunts." Not so much is heard of them because their exploits and their scores are not announced by the British army. Bishop, who has just been ordered from the flying field to safer work, is said to have brought down nearly eighty German planes, and on the day he learned of his recall, went up and brought down two. The Americans are daredevils, too. I took one of them one night as a "guest," when I went over Metz on a bombing expedition. One of the bombs stuck. He thought it might cause us trouble when we landed, possibly explode and kill us, so he crawled out over the fusilage and released it. He certainly earned his passage. With several other Americans we formed what we called the American Escadrille; but as the United States was neutral at that time, we were obliged to change the name to the Lafayette Escadrille. Since joining the squadron, I have used all sorts of machines, and there are many of them, from the heavy bombing machine to the swift little swallow-like scouts. My first important work was reconnoissance, in which I carried an observer. I managed the machine, and he did the reconnoitering. We went out twice a day and flew over into German territory, sometimes as far in as fifty miles, observing all that was going on, the movements of troops and supplies, and the building of railroads and defensive works. We also took photographs of the country over which we flew.