  THE GREAT COURSE OF BELMONT—DIFFICULT STEERING—THE "CUP GORDON BENNETT"—DOWN THE MOUNTAINS TO CLERMONT-FERRAND The day opens cloudy, cold, and threatening and, as our way to Clermont lies over the high lands, good weather was to be desired. However, the fortunes of war vary. The entire journey is amongst the hills, mounting higher and higher, until the snow appears on the large peaks and it is cold, but no rain falls. We move forward very briskly; the weather must have instilled new life into the car though it was not needed. At Bourg we strike the great circuit, a circle from Clermont of some ninety kilos considered very fine for autos, though why I cannot understand. The road-bed is good and there are no trees on the side, but it is very circuitous and dangerous for fast machines. I am forced to call a halt on Jean as we are moving at a mile per minute down grade. That's not bad on a straightaway course such as we have found many times, but on these curves it is another thing. To We reach Rochefort at half past twelve and after racing through the wind since half past eight are too cold to go farther without something to eat, and so we stop at a wretched little inn where, however, the welcome makes up for its appearance. Two Angora cats immediately adopt me as their father, and decline to leave my chair. While the food is simple it is good, and much better than one would find in such places in our land. This is the land of prunes. You do not know how delicious they can be until you come here, and I must say that the "dirty little inn" has put up a very good meal for us. Pity we can't have that cheese at home, though I am almost ill because of it. The route from here on leads over the high mountain table-lands until the valley of Clermont-Ferrand comes in view far below us. From this point the descent is rapid, circuitous, and zigzaggy. I cannot imagine a worse one for high speed. It must have been selected because of the difficulty it presents in handling the great cars. Certainly the chauffeur who succeeds in driving such machines at a speed approaching the rapid, should receive a gold medal, and I doubt not that in the coming contest in July for the "Coupe Gordon Bennett" there will be numerous accidents, and I fear fatal ones. I should not care to be in a machine on that occasion. Our flight down the mountains is swift and we soon arrive at the excellent little HÔtel de l'Univers. As it has begun to rain, the shelter is very acceptable, and I am cold with my ride of two hundred kilos from Tulle. We left there at nine o'clock and reached here at three, with an hour's stoppage for luncheon, curving up and down the mountains most of the route. That's about forty miles an hour, quite fast enough. On reaching Clermont we learn that already, to-day, there has been a smash-up on the circle. A big auto, with three men, crashed into a tree and then over a bank. Result, three men in the hospital and one expensive ninety horse-power machine a total wreck, loss up in the thousands. The owner had brought the auto here to try the course before the races come on, and yesterday departed for Italy, leaving it in charge of a young man of fifteen. Said young man took two of his friends out in it to-day and essayed the zigzags, with the result above mentioned. Clermont-Ferrand, the ancient capital of Auvergne, is now a city of some fifty thousand people,—a city on a hill in the midst of encircling mountains rising to some five thousand feet above, extinct volcanoes all of them. The city possesses a stately cathedral, surrounded by a maze of |
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