A WORLD TRAVELLER

Taranaki Daily News, 19 September 1930, Page 3

A WORLD TRAVELLER

CZECHOSLOVAKIAN JOURNALIST. OVER 50 COUNTRIES; 76,000 MILES. Having visited over 50 countries and travelled 76,000 miles, Mr. _ Bohumil Pospisil, a Czechoslovakian journalist and author, has arrived in New Plymouth in the course of a most comprehensive tour of the world. Starting from Prague on August 10, 1926, without a penny in his pocket and. with no other clothes than those he was wearing he determined to traverse all continents and important islands, raising the funds necessary for his sustenance as he went.

Mr. Pospisil told a reporter lasr night that he had had many exciting adventures and r.ri row escapes from death in countries from Turkey to China and from the Malay Archipelago to Sumatra and Australia. In China he spent some time in the districts in which fighting occurred. Besides collecting material for articles it is his custom to deliver lectures in the towns he visits.

Despite the fact that he found goods of Czechoslovak origin in every country, Mr. Pospisil related that in some of them he found it difficult to convince th? officials that there was such a nation. Czechoslovakia, he said, 300 years ago was known as the Bohemian Kingdom, famous for its industries, art and music. Its civilisation extended back 1000 years and the University of Prague was the second oldest on the Continent. Situated in the exact centre of Europe, bordered on the north by Germany and. Poland, Czechoslovakia was mostly peopled by Slavs. It was in this country that the Protestant movement was inaugurated. It was in August, 1918, that tho nation was restored to independence as the Czechoslovak Republic, leader of the Little Entente,

His country, said Mr. Pospisil, needed the friendship of every nation, especially those bordering the Pacific, for it had inherited three-quarters of the industiies of the former Austrian Empire. Though well-developed agriculturally, the existence of Czechoslovakia depended on its exports, for half the population of 15,900,060 was employed in industry.