SHIPS THAT SPEAK

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18588, 24 December 1934, Page 9

SHIPS THAT SPEAK

THE LUBE OP TRAVEL

CRUISES BY LINERS

The call of sea the urge to travel, have been felt by mankind since the days when the Briton put to sea in his coracle, the Polynesian in his outrigger, the Chinese in his junk, and the Viking in his ship. The difference between these early voyages and sea travel of to-day is a wide gulf which yawns between rude discomfort and smootn luxury. In the modern liner we may respond to the call of the miles without fear of loss of any kind, but rather with the certainty of a gain in knowledge, understanding of- the world ana its people, and in the lengthening of our lives by the-revival of interest. It is an acknowledged fact that many of the illnesses’ suffered by humanity to-day are due to a lack of absorbing enterprises, for which the alert mind continually clamors. Long ago, when the Vikings settled in North America or the Chinese sailed to California, they had no thought of making world tours. Interests involving raiding or trading lured them onwardover the edge of the ever-retreating horiion. The Phoenecians went to Britain for tin and copper, the Romans for conquest; Columbus and Vasco de Gama sought new lands where they might plant the flags of Spain and Portugal’; Brake set the English flag on the seas; the Polynesians sailed southward over lonely waters till they reached the Antarctic ice. They were bold men, these early navigators, ready to face hardships, to risk life and suffer loss, if need oe, so long as they had the chance of testing the truth of their dreams. But a world tour was the last thing in their thoughts. To-day, wrapped in the trammels of modernity, men and .women may seem to have lived down these longings for new places and new interests. But this is only superficial. The same wild urgings to adventure are hidden in bur hearts. It is our smothered dreams which make the eye brighter and the imagination awaken at sight of a huge liner lying in harbor. A sea voyage is what our thoughts turn toj a world tour, maybe. Trading, raiding or conquest do not enter into our thoughts, since tion has strictly regulated such enterprises. But, just as the early sailors, going to conquer, all unconsciously wont on world tours, so the modern voyager, bound on a world tour, with equal lack of intention goes off (in a white-topped liner) on a veritable voyage of, conquest. ‘ The conquest of ignorance and mental lassitude! What stirs the - heart of a man more than to see the peaks of a new land rising from the morning seas? The mystery of the unknown is there—the glamor of strange places, strange peoples and unusual ways of life. . . . All, in fact, that led the early men of the sea out on their forays.

Many a New Zealander will feel the allure of travel when he sees, lying in harlwr at Auckland or at Wellington, one of the magnificent 20,000-tonners of the Orient Line, which this country is to see for the first time at Christmas and early in February, The Oransay and Otranto will be on cruising visits.