Eyewitnesses of the accident expected to find the gallant young
Brazilian crushed to death; but to their great relief he was seen
to be hanging to the car, which had been caught upon the buttress
of a house. Even now he was in grave peril, but after a long
delay he was rescued by means of a rope.

It might be thought that such an accident would have deterred the
inventor from making further attempts on the prize; but the
aeronaut seemed to be well endowed with the qualities of patience
and perseverance and continued to try again. Trial after trial
was made, and numerous accidents took place. On nearly every
occasion it was comparatively easy to sail round the Tower, but
it was a much harder task to sail back again.

At length in October, 1901, he was thought to have completed the
course in the allotted time; but the Aero Club held that he had
exceeded the time limit by forty seconds. This decision aroused
great indignation among Parisians--especially among those who had
watched the flight--many of whom were convinced that the journey
had been accomplished in the half-hour. After much argument the
committee which had charge of the race, acting on the advice of
M. Deutsch, who was very anxious that the prize should be awarded
to Santos Dumont, decided that the conditions of the flight had
been complied with, and that the prize had been legitimately won.
It is interesting to read that the famous aeronaut divided the
money among the poor.

But important though Santos Dumont's experiments were with the
air-ship, they were of even greater value when he turned his
attention to the aeroplane.