Travel on my mind...

One of my favorite travel books is The Royal Road to Romance, by a fellow named Richard Halliburton. I like the book because Halliburton's narrative is just so full of life and zest and daring. In my life, I think I've only met a handful of people like Halliburton, who seem to have this drive to do and see it all.

So, in response to a request for a "pleasant travel-related thought" from a fellow Lantran, I posted this, from the early part of the book, where Halliburton is explaining why he's going directly from Princeton and a life of comfort to... a traveling life with barely two nickels to jangle in his pocket:

The romantic -- that was what I wanted. I hungered for the romance of the sea, and foreign ports, and foreign smiles. I wanted to follow the prow of a ship, any ship, and sail away, perhaps to China, perhaps to Spain, perhaps to the South Sea Isles, there to do nothing all day long but lie on a surf-swept beach and fling monkeys at the coconuts.

I hungered for the romance of the great mountains. From childhood I had dreamed of climbing Fujiyama and the Matterhorn, and had planned to charge Mount Olympus in order to visit the gods that dwelled there. I wanted to swim the Hellespont where Lord Byron swam, float down the Nile in a butterfly boat, make love to a pale Kashmiri maiden beside the Shalimar, dance to the castanets of Granada gipsies, commune in solitude with the moonlit Taj Mahal, hunt tigers in the Bengal jungle -- try everything once."

Until I transcribed these words, it never occurred to me to find out what ever ultimately happened to Halliburton. I presumed he's no longer alive, since by the book's publication date, I inferred that he must have been born in the early 1900s. Still, I was a little taken aback to find the following, at a page devoted to his book:

Born in Tennessee in 1900, Halliburton died in 1939 as he and his crew attempted to sail a Chinese junk, the Sea Dragon, from Hong Kong to San Francisco as a publicity stunt. The vessel was unseaworthy and went down in a storm, apparently shortly after Halliburton sent out his last signal."

Another Google hit brought me to a Webshots site for a user named jimscrystals, who has an album (among others) of photographs from Halliburton's Complete Book of Marvels, that was published originally in two volumes in 1937 and 1938.

As the notation under the photo of Halliburton (reproduced above), the owner of the album wrote: "He died the year I was born. He influenced my life a lot. He died much too young." I cannot say that Halliburton has greatly influenced my life, besides giving me some reading pleasure and focal points upon which to dream, but my life would be a little emptier without having read the books I have of his.

Oh, and to give you an idea of Halliburton's humor, here's what he sent out as his last signal, from the sinking junk:

"Southerly gales, squalls, lee rail under water, wet bunks, hard tack, bully beef, wish you were here--instead of me!"

Grrr. All this talk about traveling just makes me want to go somewhere!

Cheers...

P.S. More of Halliburton:

“We all have our dreams. Otherwise what a dark and stagnant world this would be ... Lord Byron once wrote that he would rather have swum the Hellespont than written all his poetry. So would I!

“Sometimes, once in a long, long while, sentimental dreams come true. Mine did, and it was as colorful and satisfying as all my flights of fancy had imagined it would be.”

— from The Glorious Adventure