opened wide a door that never closed and led to years of exciting reading and much speculation.
Nobody aboard ship knew anything about the settlement of this part of the world, until one night at the wheel I mentioned it to the Second Mate. He remembered a book on the subject by an author named Warmington.
Years later I found the book and it now sits on the shelves of my library.
I think the greatest gift anyone can give to another is the desire to know, to understand. Life is not for simply watching spectator sports, or for taking part in them; it is not for simply living from one working day to the next.
Life is for delving, discovering, learning.
Today, one can sit in the comfort of his own home and explore any part of the world or even outer space through books. They are all around us, offering such riches as can scarcely be believed.
Also, I might add, having done both, it is better to sit in comfort with a cold drink at hand and read the tale than to actually walk out of the Mohave Desert as I did.
The armchair adventurer has all the advantages, believe me. As I have said elsewhere, and more than once, I believe adventure is nothing but a romantic name for trouble.
What people speak of as adventure is something nobody in his right mind would seek out, and it becomes romantic only when one is safely at home. It is much better to watch someone riding a camel across a desert on a movie screen than it is to be up on the camel's back, traveling at a pace of two and a half to three miles per hour through a blazing hot day with the sand blowing.
A beachcomber we picked up in Shanghai, as we were short of hands, a man we knew as Russian Joe Smith (though I don't believe he was Russian, Joe, or Smith), proved unexpectedly helpful.
He had come aboard with some of his gear and I was showing him where he would bunk and telling him a little about the setup. He noticed some books on my bunk and asked, "What's them?"
"Just some stuff I've been reading," I told him.
"You like books? I'll bring you some."
To be honest, I was not expecting much, as Joe was obviously a rough character whose reading was probably confined to the sports pages or crime news of the daily paper, yet I was surprised when he showed up with two well-worn volumes by George Borrow, Lavengro and Romany Rye. The two books are an account of Borrow's time among the Gypsies and what he learned there, and I was delighted.
"There's more," he said. "Once I leave they're for grabs."
Smith's story was a sordid one. He had jumped ship at Taku Bar in northern China, and had been on the beach there as well as in Shanghai. In the latter place he had picked up an alcoholic woman in a bar and she had taken him home. Apparently they had cared for each other for several months. She was an educated, intelligent woman whose husband, distressed by her drinking, had gone away into western China with no intention of returning.
He had taken everything but about thirty books.
Just one week before I met Joe, she had died, and her relatives showed up, ordering Joe off the premises. As it happened, he had paid her rent for the past two months. So he simply gathered everything of hers that was worth anything and left.
"Had money coming to her," Joe said. "They couldn't have cared less while she was alive."
He glanced at me. "She was too good a woman for me, educated and all that, but she liked me an' I took care of her."
"Were you working? How did you pay the rent?"
"Panhandled. You ask a man for the price of a meal in Shanghai and he's so surprised to see an American on his uppers that he'll give you fifty bucks, maybe. I know guys on the beach here who can panhandle enough in one day to keep them drunk for a month.
"All the jobs I could do were done cheaper by the Chinese, but I didn't want to leave her, she being alone like that.
"I'm goin' back one more time and I'll bring some of those books."
When he returned he brought twelve books, all he could carry with his own
Nobody aboard ship knew anything about the settlement of this part of the world, until one night at the wheel I mentioned it to the Second Mate. He remembered a book on the subject by an author named Warmington.
Years later I found the book and it now sits on the shelves of my library.
I think the greatest gift anyone can give to another is the desire to know, to understand. Life is not for simply watching spectator sports, or for taking part in them; it is not for simply living from one working day to the next.
Life is for delving, discovering, learning.
Today, one can sit in the comfort of his own home and explore any part of the world or even outer space through books. They are all around us, offering such riches as can scarcely be believed.
Also, I might add, having done both, it is better to sit in comfort with a cold drink at hand and read the tale than to actually walk out of the Mohave Desert as I did.
The armchair adventurer has all the advantages, believe me. As I have said elsewhere, and more than once, I believe adventure is nothing but a romantic name for trouble.
What people speak of as adventure is something nobody in his right mind would seek out, and it becomes romantic only when one is safely at home. It is much better to watch someone riding a camel across a desert on a movie screen than it is to be up on the camel's back, traveling at a pace of two and a half to three miles per hour through a blazing hot day with the sand blowing.
A beachcomber we picked up in Shanghai, as we were short of hands, a man we knew as Russian Joe Smith (though I don't believe he was Russian, Joe, or Smith), proved unexpectedly helpful.
He had come aboard with some of his gear and I was showing him where he would bunk and telling him a little about the setup. He noticed some books on my bunk and asked, "What's them?"
"Just some stuff I've been reading," I told him.
"You like books? I'll bring you some."
To be honest, I was not expecting much, as Joe was obviously a rough character whose reading was probably confined to the sports pages or crime news of the daily paper, yet I was surprised when he showed up with two well-worn volumes by George Borrow, Lavengro and Romany Rye. The two books are an account of Borrow's time among the Gypsies and what he learned there, and I was delighted.
"There's more," he said. "Once I leave they're for grabs."
Smith's story was a sordid one. He had jumped ship at Taku Bar in northern China, and had been on the beach there as well as in Shanghai. In the latter place he had picked up an alcoholic woman in a bar and she had taken him home. Apparently they had cared for each other for several months. She was an educated, intelligent woman whose husband, distressed by her drinking, had gone away into western China with no intention of returning.
He had taken everything but about thirty books.
Just one week before I met Joe, she had died, and her relatives showed up, ordering Joe off the premises. As it happened, he had paid her rent for the past two months. So he simply gathered everything of hers that was worth anything and left.
"Had money coming to her," Joe said. "They couldn't have cared less while she was alive."
He glanced at me. "She was too good a woman for me, educated and all that, but she liked me an' I took care of her."
"Were you working? How did you pay the rent?"
"Panhandled. You ask a man for the price of a meal in Shanghai and he's so surprised to see an American on his uppers that he'll give you fifty bucks, maybe. I know guys on the beach here who can panhandle enough in one day to keep them drunk for a month.
"All the jobs I could do were done cheaper by the Chinese, but I didn't want to leave her, she being alone like that.
"I'm goin' back one more time and I'll bring some of those books."
When he returned he brought twelve books, all he could carry with his own
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