CHAPTER XVII
MONACO AND THE MARITIME GUIDE ROPE
WHEN I arrived at Monte Carlo, in the latter part of January 1902, the balloon house of the Prince of Monaco was already practically completed from suggestions I had given.
The new aerodrome rose on the Boulevard de la Condamine, just across the electric tramcar tracks from the sea wall. It was an immense empty shell of wood and canvas over a stout iron skeleton 55 metres (180 feet) long, 10 metres (33 feet) wide, and 15 metres (50 feet) high. It had to be solidly constructed, not to risk the fate of the all-wood aerodrome of the French Maritime Ballooning Station at Toulon, twice wrecked, and once all but carried away, like a veritable wooden balloon, by tempests.
In spite of the aerodrome's risky form and curious construction its sensational features were its doors. Tourists told each other (quite correctly) that doors so great as these had never
217
