Here I carried my first passenger, the celebrated Italian poet and author, Gabriele D'Annunzio. He was wildly enthusiastic over his experience, and upon being brought back to earth said with all the emotion of his people: "Until now I have never really lived! Life on earth is a creeping, crawling business. It is in the air that one feels the glory of being a man and of conquering the elements. There is the exquisite smoothness of motion and the joy of gliding through space–It is wonderful! Can I not express it in poetry? I might try." And he did express it in poetry, a beautiful work published sometime later. After winning the Grand Prize at Brescia and taking a wonderful motor trip over the Alps with Mr. Bishop, I hurried home to America to look after my business affairs, about which I had not had time even to think during the Rheims and Brescia meets. NOTE BY AUGUSTUS POST Delegations of enthusiastic friends met Mr. Curtiss in New York, among them members of the Aero Club of America and other representative organisations. There followed a series of luncheons and dinners which seemed without end. Among all these the luncheon given by the Aero Club of America at the Lawyers' Club was notable because every one present showed such a warm interest in the success of American aeronautics, and such a firm determination not only to keep the trophy in this country, but to defend it the next year in an aviation meet that should be even greater than that with which Rheims had led the way. But the real celebration took place in the little village of Hammondsport, the place where Mr. Curtiss was born and reared, and where he knew every man, woman, and child. The men in the factory and all his other warm friends got together and decided that there must be something out of the ordinary when he got back to town. They planned a procession all the way from Bath to Hammondsport, a distance of ten miles, with fireworks along the route. But a heavy rain came on just in time to spoil the fireworks plan, so they engaged a special train and this passed through a glow of red fire all the way home from Bath. At the Hammondsport station there was a carriage to draw him up the hill to his home, and fifty men furnished the motive power. There were arches with "Welcome" in electric lights, banners, fireworks, and speeches. Through the pouring rain there was a continuous procession of his friends and acquaintances–townspeople who had always given him their loyal support and the men from the shop who had made his success possible. It was after eleven o'clock when the crowd dispersed–an almost unholy hour for Hammondsport.–AUGUSTUS POST. CHAPTER II HUDSON-FULTON CELEBRATION FIRST AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL MEET, AT LOS ANGELES