He gave up trying to see the ground and was forced to trust the machinery designed for amateur pilots.
"Is that the way the big ships know how to find their harbors?" asked Grace, when Mr. Fulton told her of the stars, and how the pilots set their course.
But if actual accomplishments count, these pilots with their ragged peon crews, half-bloods of Aztec woman and Spanish adventurer, deserve higher rank in the roll of Pacific coast exploration than history has yet accorded them.
Tarzan realized that only through a miracle of chance could they reach Usanga and effect the change in pilots and yet he knew that that chance must be taken, for in the brief moments since he had first seen the plane, he had realized that the black was almost without experience as a pilot and that death surely awaited them in any event should the black sergeant remain at the control.
To those who've fail'd, in aspiration vast, To unnam'd soldiers fallen in front on the lead, To calm, devoted engineers--to over-ardent travelers--to pilots on their ships, To many a lofty song and picture without recognition--I'd rear laurel-cover'd monument, High, high above the rest--To all cut off before their time, Possess'd by some strange spirit of fire, Quench'd by an early death.