Geraldine Mitton - Round the Wonderful World

When you have noticed a fly crawling on a ball or an orange has it ever occurred to you how a man would look crawling about on the earth if seen from a great height? Our world is, as everyone knows, like an orange in shape, only it is very much larger in comparison with us than an orange is in regard to a fly. In fact, to make a reasonable comparison, we should have to picture the fly crawling about on a ball or globe fifty miles in height; to get all round it he would have to make a journey of something like one hundred and fifty miles. It would take a determined fly to accomplish that! Yet we little human beings often start off on a journey round the world quite cheerfully, and it is more difficult for us than for the imaginary fly, because the globe is not a smooth surface of dry land, but is made up of jungles and deserts and forests and oceans. There are some places where people can do nothing in the heat of the day, and others where their flesh freezes like cold white marble in a moment if they don't take precautions.

To set out on foot around such a world would be folly, and man has invented all sorts of ingenious machines to carry him, – trains and steamers, for instance, – and with their help he can do the journey in a reasonable time. It costs money, of course, but it is a glorious enterprise.

Here, in our own homes, we see pretty much the same things every day – green fields and trees, cows and sheep and horses, if we live in the country; and houses and streets and vehicles, if we live in the town. Everyone we meet speaks the same language; even if we were to go up to a stranger to ask a question we are tolerably sure that he would understand us and answer politely. We have cold days and warm ones, but the sun is never too hot for us to go out in the middle of the day, and the cold never so intense as to freeze our noses and make them fall off. The houses are all built in much the same way; people dress alike and look alike. Someone catches me up there, "Indeed they don't; some are pretty and some are ugly and everyone is different!"

Yes, you think that now, but wait until you have travelled a bit, and seen some of the races which really are different from ours, then you'll think that not only are British people alike, but that even all Europeans are more or less so.

You are not likely to travel? Well, I'm not so sure of that, for I'm going to offer to take you, and, what is more, you need not bother your head about expenses, and we will have all the time we want. I am going to carry you away with me in this book to see the marvels of other lands; lands where the burning sun strikes down on our own countrymen wearing white helmets on their heads and suits of snowy white as they walk about amid brown-skinned natives whose bare bodies gleam like satin, lands where lines of palm trees wave their long fronds over the pearly surf washing at their roots. We will visit also other lands where you look out over a glowing pink and mauve desert to seeming infinity, and see reflected in bitter shallow water at your feet the flames of such a sunset glory as you never yet have imagined. Or you can ride out across the same desert lying white as snow beneath a moon far larger and more glistening than any you ever see here. You shall watch volcanoes shooting out columns of fire which roll down toward the villages nestling in their vineyards below, and you shall gaze at mountains which raise their stately heads far up into the silent region of eternal snow. You shall see the steel-blue waves rising in great heaps with the swell of an unquiet sea. You shall talk to the mischievous little Burmese women and watch them kneeling before their pagodas of pure gold, and shall visit the little Japs making merry in their paper houses; you shall find the last representatives of the grand races of North American Indians in their wigwams. And these are only a very few of the wonders of the world.

Where shall we begin? That requires some consideration. As the world is not a solid block of level ground we shall have to choose our track as best we can along the routes that are most convenient, and we can't certainly go right round in one straight line as if we followed a piece of string tied round the middle of the earth. Of course we shall have to start from England, and we shall be wisest to turn eastward first, coming back again from the west. The eastern part is the Old World, and the western the New World, of which the existence was not known until centuries later. It is natural, therefore, to begin with the older part first. If we do this we must start in the autumn so as to arrive at some of the hottest countries in what is their winter, for the summer is unbearable to Europeans. So much is easily settled.

Have you ever realised that Great Britain is an island? I hear someone say "Silly!" under their breath; it does seem an absurd question, for surely every baby knows that! Well, of course even the smallest children have been told so, directly they begin to learn anything, but to realise it is a different matter. An island is surrounded by water, and none of us have ever sailed round our own country and made the experiment of seeing for ourselves that it is so. You have been to the sea certainly, and seen the edge of our island home, but have you ever thought of that long line which runs away and away from your seaside place? Have you followed the smooth sandy bays and the outlines of the towering cliffs; have you passed the mouths of mighty rivers and so gone steadily on northward to the bleak coasts of Scotland where the waves beat on granite cliffs; have you rounded stormy Cape Wrath, and sailed in and out by all the deep-cut inlets on the west of Scotland, and thus come back to the very place from whence you started? If you can even imagine this it gives you some idea of what being an island means. We are on every side surrounded by water, and nowhere can we get away to any other country without crossing the sea.

The very nearest country to us is France, and at the narrowest point of the Channel there are only twenty-one miles of sea to get over. One way of starting on our great enterprise is to cross this little strip of water and take the train across France, right to the other side, there to meet a ship which will carry us onward. Or we can start in the same way across the Channel but go much farther on by train, all along Italy as well as France, and then we can catch the same ship a considerable way farther on in the Mediterranean.

Or there is another way, the quickest of all, and the newest; by this means – after crossing the Channel – we can go the whole distance across Europe, and Asia too, by train, and come out on the other side of the world, near China, in about ten days! To do this we should have to get to Russia first by any European line we pleased, and on arriving at the town of Moscow change into the train which does this mighty journey. It starts once a week, and is called The International. It is quite a small train, though the engine is large. There are only half a dozen coaches, and one of these is for luggage and another is a restaurant. First-class people are put two together into a compartment. It certainly sounds as if that would allow plenty of room, but then if anyone has to live and sleep and move for ten days in a train, he can hardly be expected to sit cramped up all the time, he must have some space to stir about in. At night one of the seats forms one bed and another is let down crossways above it. There is, alas, no bath, but there is a small lavatory for every two compartments where we can wash after a fashion. There are even books provided in the restaurant car, some in Russian, some in French, some in German, and some in English.