HISTORIAN AND GEOGRAPHER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22195, 23 February 1934, Page 5

HISTORIAN AND GEOGRAPHER

MR HENDRIK WILLEM VAN LOON A DISTINGUISHED PERSONALITY (Special to Daily Times.' AUCKLAND, February 21. The ordinary British idea of a Dutchman visualises a rather stolid person. No one could be less like that than Mr Hendrik Willem Van Loon, the world renowned historian and geographer, who arrived at Auckland to-day as the cruise lecturer on the tourist liner Franconia. Mr Van Loon's name is a household word among those who read the best modern informative literature. His "story of mankind," "Ancient Man," "Van Loon's Geography," and many other books with their quaint symbolic maps and drawings from the author's own pen, have been translated into 17 languages, and their sales run almost into millions. A graduate of Harvard University, a Doctor of Philosophy of Munich, an exprofessor of history, a press correspondent in European wars and revolutions, a former associate editor of the Baltimore Sun and an artist of no mean order, Mr Van Loon might be expected to show a weight of learning and accomplishments, but no man ever bore such a burden more lightly. He might well be described as a personality. An interview with him on the Franconia was an exhilarating experience. Physically a huge man, Mr Van Loon is an cxhaustless well of humour and one of the most brilliant conversationalists :that have visited New Zealand for many a year. The first evidence of his presence on the ship was a vividly coloured drawing of wliite capped cooks at work and an appeal to passengers not to linger over meals and prolong the men's work in the tropical heat. Run to earth at the breakfast table, he was found discoursing upon the woes of the world. "I was in the middle of my speech," he explained, and went on to lament the insanity of nationalism in Germany, Austria, Russia, France and Spain, the economic turmoil in America and everywhere else, and the absurdity of'trade barriers and the almost worldwide over-production. "The. ordinary man doesn't want wealth; he wants security and peace of mind," he declared. "To him it is better to be sure of getting an envelope with something marked 30 dollars in it every week than to get 1000 dollars one week and not know where his next money is coming from. Look at most of us. We invested our money a while ago and lost it. People bought marks after the war and soon they were only good to paper the wall with."

This led Mr Van Loon on to American extravagances about which he has no illusions. " There are too many hotels in New York and so they build two more big ones. There are too many skyscrapers, so they put up the Empire State building. If I want to, find, a man there I have to put, on my spectacles and. scan a lot of small typo to see that he is on the ninetieth floor. Then the job is to find an elevator that goes to the ninetieth floor and not somewhere else."

In his cabin Mr Van Loon produced a thick pile of pattern.drawings made at porta of call in Polynesia, panoramas of islands running over three sheets of paper, a cafe table in Papeete with pink and white-checked cloths and green viands, coconut palms and canoes, and comical back views of Sunday natives. " I never can get a likeness," he confessed.

About his cruise experiences Mr Van Loon had amusing things to say.' "At Rarotonga the missionaries wouldn't let the natives dance for us because it: was Sunday, I felt like telling them that they ought to go savage again and make the missionaries dance." Mr Van Loon was unkind enough to compare Suva with a rather ramshackle American town except for the palm trees. "Fiji made us all fidgety," he added, punning shamelessly. Mr Van Loon was not going to Rotorua it soon appeared. "I have seen enough of natural wonders and quite enough scenery," he explained. " I only want to walk about Auckland, go to the pictures perhaps and see what you people have built in 90 years. It may interest you to know that my home is in original Zeeland, not Tasman's province. I live in the little town of Veere in a house that was built in 1670. Of course I look down on those who live in houses built in 1680. There are none newer than that in the place."