High Adventure

Past and present. You can't make this stuff up.
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Antipatros
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Re: High Adventure

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W.C. Scully, Lodges in the Wilderness (1915)

http://www.archive.org/details/lodgesin ... 00sculuoft
THE world moves rapidly and with increasing momentum. Even regions remote from those communities which the stress of increasing population and the curse of unleisured industrialism send spinning "down the ringing grooves of change," are often so disturbed or overwhelmed by the overflow of what threatens to be an almost world-wide current of morbid energy, that within a strangely short period their character is apt completely to alter and their individuality to become utterly destroyed.

I do not know how the Great Bushmanland Desert has fared in this respect—not having visited it for several years—but if some unlikely combination of circumstances were to take me once more to Aroegas or Koisabies,--to the tiny spring of living water that trickles from the depths and lies like a precious jewel hidden in the dark, narrow cavern at Inkruip, -—or to where the flaming, red-belted cone of Bantom Berg glares over the dragon-folds of the dune-devil sprawling at its feet, I should go in fear of finding empty sardine-tins and broken bottles lying among the fragments of prehistoric pottery and flint implements which were but recently the only traces of man to be found in those abodes of solitude.

The Bushmanland Desert is but little known. A few nomads—-some of European and some of mixed descent—hang on its fringe. Here and there ephemeral mat-house villages, whose dwellers are dependent on the sparse and uncertain bounty of the sky, will, perhaps, be found for a season. But when the greedy sun has reclaimed the last drop of moisture from shallow "pan" or sand-choked rock-saucer, the mat-houses are folded up and, like the Arabs, these dwellers steal silently away from the blighting visage of the Thirst King. But the greater portion of Bushmanland may be ranked among the most complete solitudes of the earth. The lion, the rhinoceros, and, in fact, most of the larger indigenous fauna have disappeared from it-—with the autochthonous pygmy human inhabitants; nevertheless it is a region full of varied and distinctive interest. The landscape consists either of vast plains, mirage-haunted and as level as the sea,—-arid mountain ranges—-usually mere piles of naked rock, or immense sand-dunes, massed and convoluted. The latter often change their form and occasionally their location under stress of the violent winds which sweep down from the torrid north.

The tract is an extensive one, probably upwards of 50,000 square miles lie within its limits. It is bounded on the north by the Gariep or Orange River-—but as that flows and eddies at the bottom of a tremendous gorge which is cut off from the plains by a lofty, stark range of mountains,-—coal-black in colour for their greater extent and glowing hot throughout the long, cloudless day, the traveller seldom sees it. The western boundary is the Atlantic Ocean; the eastern an imaginary line drawn approximately south from the Great Aughrabies Falls to the Kat Kop Range....
Be not too curious of Good and Evil;
Seek not to count the future waves of Time;
But be ye satisfied that you have light
Enough to take your step and find your foothold.

--T.S. Eliot
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Antipatros
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Re: High Adventure

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Image

Capt. (N.) Robert Falcon Scott, The Voyage of the 'Discovery' (1905)

Vol. 1: http://www.archive.org/details/voyageof ... 01scotuoft
Vol. 2: http://www.archive.org/details/voyageof ... 02scotuoft
They saw the cables loosened, they saw the gangways cleared,
They heard the women weeping, they heard the men who cheered.
Far off—far off the tumult faded and died away,
And all alone the sea wind came singing up the Bay.—Newbolt.
In spite of difficulties and delays in the delivery of the ship and in stocking her with the complicated equipment which had been provided, the 'Discovery' left the London Docks on the last day of July 1901, and slowly wended her way down the Thames.

Late on August 1 we arrived at Spithead, here to carry out that most important matter of swinging the ship. It may not be generally known that all ships, before proceeding on a voyage, are 'swung'—that is, are turned slowly round, whilst the errors of their compasses on each point are eliminated by the application of correcting magnets. Although the great care taken in building the 'Discovery' to keep all iron away from the neighbourhood of the compass rendered the use of correcting magnets unnecessary, yet it had been impossible to banish the disturbing causes wholly, and it was most necessary to find out exactly what influence they had, not only on the compass, but on the position in which it was proposed to work the rarer magnetic instruments—that is to say, in the small central magnetic deck-house. This work was completed during the week, and on Monday morning, August 5, we made fast to a buoy in Cowes Harbour, at this time crowded with yachts assembled for the famous 'Cowes week.' In the midst of vessels displaying such delicate beauty of outline, the 'Discovery,' with her black, solid, sombre hull, her short masts, square spars, and heavy rigging, formed a striking antithesis, a fit example to point the contrast of 'work' and 'play.' Shortly before noon we were honoured by a visit from their Majesties the King and Queen. The visit was quite informal, but must be ever memorable from the kindly, gracious interest shown in the minutest details of our equipment, and the frank expression of good wishes for our plans and welfare.

In those days we thought much of the grim possibilities of our voyage. There was ever present before us the unpleasant reflection that we might start off with a flourish of trumpets and return with failure. But although we longed to get away from our country as quietly as possible, we could not but feel gratified that His Majesty should have shown such personal sympathy with our enterprise, and it was a deep satisfaction to know that our efforts would be followed with interest by the highest in the land, as well as by others of our countrymen more particularly occupied with the problems before us.

On the afternoon of the 5th the ship was crowded with visitors, whilst we did our best to make the final preparations for sea. At noon on the 6th we slipped from our buoy and, after receiving a visit from the First Lord of the Admiralty, steered to the west; a few of our immediate relatives who had remained on board hastened to say their last farewells, and, descending into their boats off the little town of Yarmouth, waved their adieux as the 'Discovery' steamed towards the Needles Channel.

How willingly would one dispense with these farewells, and how truly one feels that the greater burden of sadness is on those who are left behind! Before us lay new scenes, new interests, expanding horizons; but who at such times must not think sorely of the wives and mothers condemned to think of the past, and hope in silent patience for the future, through years of suspense and anxiety?...
Discovery Expedition

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discovery_Expedition
Be not too curious of Good and Evil;
Seek not to count the future waves of Time;
But be ye satisfied that you have light
Enough to take your step and find your foothold.

--T.S. Eliot
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Antipatros
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Re: High Adventure

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Alfred John Evans, The Escaping Club (1922)

http://www.archive.org/details/escapingclub00evan
LibriVox audiobook
I BELIEVE the camp at Gϋtersloh had formerly been a lunatic aslym. It was composed of six or seven large independent barrack-like buildings. One of these buildings was a civilian camp, and one was a quarantine, used also as a solitary confinement or Stubenarrest prison; another was used as the quarters of the commandant. The ground was sandy, and I should think comparatively healthy and dry even in the wettest weather. In hot weather the heat was much accentuated, but there were patches of small pine trees in the camp which gave a pleasant shade. The camp area could not have been less than eight acres altogether, enclosed by two rows of barbed wire, with arc lamps every seventy yards or so. The prisoners comprised some 1200 officers—800 Russians, over 100 English, and the rest French or Belgians. We were marched up to the camp through a quiet village, and were put into the quarantine, where we remained for about a week. The morning after our arrival, we were medically inspected and questioned as to our name, rank, regiment, place of capture, age, where taught to fly, etc., all of which questions evoked a variety of mendacious and romantic answers. We were then put to bed in the quarantine and treated with some beastly anti-lice powder —most disagreeable! The food was insufficient in quarantine. We had no opportunity of taking exercise, and were all much bored and longed to be sent into the main camp, which we were told was the best in Germany. This was not far off the truth, as subsequent experience proved the administration and internal arrangements of this camp to be admirable....

Long and I had been less than three weeks in this place when all those flying officers who had been captured on the Somme were removed from Gϋtersloh to Clausthal. Looking back on the life at Gϋtersloh, one thing strikes me more now than it did whilst I was there, and that is the fact that all the officers, with the exception of a small section of the Russians, had apparently abandoned all hope of escaping. The defenses of the camp were not strong enough to be any reason for this lack of enterprise, and I can only attribute it to the encouragement and opportunities given by the Germans for game-playing, which successfully turned the thoughts of the prisoners from escaping.

Of the journey to Clausthal, in the Harz Mountains, I only remember that it was quite comfortable, and that we arrived at night. The camp was about a mile up from the station, and we were let through a barbed wire fence and into a wooden barrack. For the next eight days we remained shut up in this place, and it was only with difficulty that we were allowed to have the windows open. There were three of these wooden barracks and a hotel or Kurhaus inside the barbed wire. This was the best German camp for food that I was in, and I think it would be possible to live on the food the Germans gave us. After eight days' quarantine we were let out into the camp. Long and I, and a captain in the R.F.C. who had been lately captured, called Nichol, had a little room together in the wooden barrack. On the whole, life was pleasant at Clausthal. The Germans were very polite, and the sentries were generally friendly.

We passed the time at Clausthal in much the same way as we had done at Gϋtersloh. If anything, it was more peaceful and pleasant, and the country surrounding the camp, where we sometimes went for walks, was beautiful. The Harz Mountains are a well-known German health resort, so that by the middle of September I was feeling so remarkably fit, and was getting such an overpowering aversion to being ordered about by the Germans, that, encouraged by a young Belgian called Kicq, I began to think very seriously of escaping....
Be not too curious of Good and Evil;
Seek not to count the future waves of Time;
But be ye satisfied that you have light
Enough to take your step and find your foothold.

--T.S. Eliot
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Marcus
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Location: Alaska

Re: High Adventure

Post by Marcus »

Dick Proenneke retired at age 50, moved to the Alaskan wilderness and for the next 32 years lived an adventure few can imagine:
DickProennekeCabin.jpg
DickProennekeCabin.jpg (41.46 KiB) Viewed 2248 times
To live in a pristine land unchanged by man...
to roam a wilderness through which few other humans have passed...
to choose an idyllic site, cut trees and build a log cabin...
to be a self-sufficient craftsman, making what is needed from materials available...
to be not at odds with the world, but content with one's own thoughts and company...
Thousands have had such dreams, but Dick Proenneke lived them. He found a place, built a cabin, and stayed to become part of the country. This video "Alone in the Wilderness" is a simple account of the day-to-day explorations and activities he carried out alone, and the constant chain of nature's events that kept him company.
- Sam Keith
"The jawbone of an ass is just as dangerous a weapon today as in Sampson's time."
--- Richard Nixon
******************
"I consider looseness with words no less of a defect than looseness of the bowels."
—John Calvin
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Antipatros
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Re: High Adventure

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John Downie Falconer,On Horseback through Nigeria (1911)

Or, Life and Travel in the Central Sudan

http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028648784
We set out at dawn for the shores of Chad, each carrier with a little store of meal, for it was our intention to camp for a night on the margin of the lake. We entered the open sandy plain, covered with short grass and scattered trees in the immediate neighbourhood of the village, and beyond the farms, with long tufty grass and a thick undergrowth of saltbush and mimosa. Presently we reached a broad belt of ancient dunes, and as we crossed the gently undulating thinly wooded surface, the carriers' feet sank deep in the loose blown sand and made our progress slow and difficult. We struggled on, however, until the path became firmer under foot and the soil darker and more earthy. Clumps of saltbush became more numerous and heaps of refuse frequent by the roadside. We had now entered the country of the salt-workers, and my guide informed me that the village at which we were to rest was now close at hand. When we reached it, however, we found it quite deserted and the well dirty amd almost dry; and a passing goatherd informed us that the villagers, having used up all the saltbush in the immediate neighbourhood, had recently moved on to another locality. This was disappointing, as the carriers had calculated on refilling their waterbottles at the well. There was nothing for it, however, but to push on ahead to Chad, in the hope of reaching it before the heat became oppressive, Again we entered loose sandy country with scrubby trees scattered singly or in clumps over the open plain, and as we moved eastward low fan-palms began to appear, but not in any great abundance. Elephant tracks crossed our path, marked by lines of broken palms and trees. Presently we entered another belt of plain covered with dark earthy sand, very loose and full of shells, where the palms and trees had disappeared and given place to giant sumpachias of three or four years' growth, whose blue grey foliage and bladder-like fruits introduced a striking change into the character of the scenery. Soon we left the sumpachia belt and the dark shelly sand and entered an open level grassy plain without a single tree, bounded in places on the horizon by level banks of reeds and shrub which marked the beginning of the marshes of Chad. For half an hour we marched across the open plain, until we reached a detached clump of reeds and rushes with stagnant water at their roots; and a little farther on our road was barred and our view was limited by a continuous belt of similar high and swampy growths which separated the grassy plains from whatever lay beyond.

So this was Chad, the object of my long anticipation! And all there was to show for it was a little brown and stagnant water amongst the reeds and rushes. The open lake, if lake there was, was securely hidden from my view. I turned away with a sense of disappointment and thought of how Barth, in very similar circumstances, had "strained his eyes in vain to discover the glimmering of an open water in the distance, and at length retraced his steps, consoling himself with the thought that he had at least seen some slight indication of the presence of the watery element." I thought of how, in order to reach the open water, he had afterwards ridden through the swamp and reeds, often up to his knees in water, and I was about to mount my horse to make the same attempt, when at a little distance I perceived some Budumas emerging from the rushes. The lake-dwellers had evidently come to the western shore to gather reeds to thatch their huts and repair their canoes, and luckily, amongst my troop there was a man from Bre who said he knew their language. I at once despatched him to call them forward and, contrary to their custom in the days of Barth, they approached without the least sign of fear or hesitation. The Budumas, indeed, of recent years have become so much accustomed to the presence of European explorers on the lake that, when I preferred my request that they should take me out upon the waters of Chad, they readily agreed and beckoned me towards the spot where their canoes were moored amongst the reeds. Some of my men ran on ahead to pull the canoes as near the shore as possible, and to beat down the reeds to make a path for me through the swamp. My interpreter then carried me on his back through the shallow water and deposited me safely on the surface of the canoe, which the Budumas at once pushed off into deeper water....

To our sensitive nostrils, accustomed to the pure dry air of the open sandy plains, the atmosphere on the shores of Chad smelt foul and stagnant; but on the lake itself the odour of decaying vegetation was quite oppressive, and a greenish yellow scum covered portions of the water and surrounded the stems of the reeds and the water-lilies. The water was shallow and not more than three feet deep, and the bottom was covered with thick brown mud full of roots and leaves, while many clumps of reeds and rushes and maria-bush projected from the surface of the water and sadly obstructed a distant view. Now and then the Budumas pulled up the bulbous root of a reed or lily, which they devoured with relish, but I could not persuade myself to sample the delicacy. They informed me also that during the past month the water of the lake had fallen greatly, and that in the season when the water is high, the grass and reeds are completely covered and sometimes even the mariabush is broken down. From the western shore continuous water can then be seen stretching away to the east as far as one can see, whereas at present the really open water was in the middle of the lake, far away from the western shore....
Be not too curious of Good and Evil;
Seek not to count the future waves of Time;
But be ye satisfied that you have light
Enough to take your step and find your foothold.

--T.S. Eliot
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Antipatros
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Re: High Adventure

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Edward Fothergill, Five Years in the Sudan (1910)

http://www.archive.org/details/fiveyear ... 00fothrich
UPON our arrival at Taufikier, Slatin Pasha definitely decided to proceed up the river Sobat to try and find traces of two Englishmen who had left Khartoum some time before for these regions, and had never been heard of since passing Taufikier. Comparatively few boats had at that time been up the river, and I was very glad to get the opportunity of making the journey; indeed, it was very lucky that I did so, for in all the time that I was in the Sudan I never got far from its mouth again.

I had some difficulty in procuring fresh meat to start with, as, much to my dismay, I found that in spite of a good supply of gold and silver of the realm, I might just as well have been without money at all, for the inhabitants of Taufikier would have none of it. A foot of brass wire would have procured me food sufficient to last me for a month, but money was useless. Eventually my boy managed to buy some brass from a Greek, at an exorbitant rate, and I got a few chickens to start the journey with; these proved to be more than ample, as there was any amount of game to be got whenever we stopped, guinea-fowl and pigeon principally, but enough to keep the table plentifully supplied.

My recollections of the Sobat are, unfortunately, somewhat vague; everything was new and impressive, and I have got events and places rather mixed up in my mind; the sheets of my diary which were written during that first trip have, unfortunately, been lost. I recollect, however, that two of the things which impressed me most at the time was the extraordinary greenness of the vegetation, and the wonderful clouds of fireflies which lined the banks of the river at night. There were millions of them—and the effect was very beautiful as they moved, a constant scintillating wave of glittering light about the banks. They are supposed to devour the mosquitoes, and these latter had, I sincerely trust, as bad a time as they gave me. At least there is no danger of my forgetting the mosquitoes of the River Sobat. I had never seen anything like them before, and indeed, there were only two spots in the Sudan that I came across which were as bad as this. They started with the setting of the sun, and continued their attentions without a break until dawn; then they departed, happy in the knowledge that it would be too hot for one to sleep. I had the mosquito curtain put up under my own supervision; I examined every inch of it to see that there was no hole by which a mosquito could enter; I had two boys to flick them away with towels as I slunk into bed, and just when I was falling asleep they would begin to find their way in, in twos and threes, humming with delight as they settled on the end of my nose, or on the tip of my ears. It was no good; I simply had to sleep, and at length I trained myself to do so, native-like, with my head under a sheet; this was the only manner in which rest was possible.

The country was most interesting, and the tribes which one saw were absolutely different to those on the other rivers; some of them had almost intellectual faces; all of them were splendid specimens of humanity. They were, however, very shy, and it was with the greatest difficulty that they could be persuaded to approach the boat. At several villages we stopped, and seeing no sign of life, sent men up to see what had become of the inhabitants. They found fires lit and water boiling, all the details of daily life in full swing, but never a human being in the whole village. If we waited long enough, they would, perhaps, gain sufficient courage to venture forth from behind the ant-hills where they had been hiding, and would eventually approach the boat; but they were in evident terror, and it is small wonder that they should have been, since the only white men they had known before were those who had come at the head of armed forces to carry away their women and children to be slaves in the distant north....
Be not too curious of Good and Evil;
Seek not to count the future waves of Time;
But be ye satisfied that you have light
Enough to take your step and find your foothold.

--T.S. Eliot
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Antipatros
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Re: High Adventure

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His and hers views of Indonesia:

Henry O. Forbes, A Naturalist's Wanderings in the Eastern Archipelago (1885)

A narrative of travel and exploration from 1878 to 1883...; With numerous illustrations from the author's sketches and descriptions by Mr. John B. Gibbs.

http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924002069312
The end of the year 1878 was noted for its very heavy rains, which in the month of December were at their worst. Transport and travel were not only difficult, but in many districts impossible. Just as I was getting rather puzzled as to how to get away anywhere out of Batavia, I learned that a small sailing craft, on which I was offered a passage, was on the point of leaving for the Cocos-Keeling Islands. With this outlying spot, made famous by Mr. Darwin's visit in 1836, I was familar from his 'Coral Reefs.' It did not, therefore, take me long to decide to accept an offer which was as gratifying as it was unexpected.

After a wearisome fight of fourteen days with the Monsoon wind at the entrance of the Sunda Straits, we succeeded in reaching the little village of Anjer, where we stopped a day to replenish our failing stores of provisions, and to eat our New Year's feast in the picturesque inn there, whose verandah commanded a delightful view of the island-studded strait and of the rugged mountains of Sumatra on the other side. The wind, which had opposed us so persistently, had on the day we again set sail subsided altogether, and it was with the greatest difficulty that we could haul clear off the land. Day after day brought us a monotonous calm.

It was something, however, that at this season the forest along the slowly passing shores and isles was in the full burst of spring, when it wears in the morning light its most charming aspect, of surpassing beauty to my novitiate eyes; the piping mid-day alone was ungrateful, almost unbearable, exposed to the sun, as we were, without awning or protection; the evening sunsets were scenes to be remembered for a lifetime. The tall cones of Sibissie and Krakatoa rose dark purple out of an unruffled golden sea, which stretched away to the south-west, where the sun went down; over the horizon grey fleecy clouds lay in banks and streaks, above them pale blue lanes of sky, alternating with orange bands, which higher up gave place to an expanse of red stretching round the whole heavens. Gradually as the sun retreated deeper and deeper, the sky became a marvellous golden curtain, in front of which the grey clouds coiled themselves into weird forms before dissolving into space, taking with them our last hope that they might contain a breeze, and leaving us at rest on the placid water, over which shoals of water-bugs (of the genus Halobates probably) glided, covering its surface with circles like gentle rain-drop rings; there was not a sound to break the silence save the plunge of a porpoise or the fluck of the fishes in quest of their evening meal. Perhaps these rich after-glows were due to the Kaba eruption then going on in Mid-Sumatra....
And yes, there's an enormous volcanic explosion in the course of his adventures....

Anna Forbes, Insulinde (1887)

Experiences of a naturalist's wife in the Eastern Archipelago

http://www.archive.org/details/insulindeexperie00forb
Preface

Since my narrative explains itself, I have little to say here beyond accounting for a certain resemblance in these pages to the latter part of the work issued by my husband last year. After I joined him, we shared for the most part the same experiences; but we looked upon them from an entirely different standpoint. Many of my own sex who might turn from 'A Naturalist's Wanderings' because of the admixture of scientific matter, may find some interest in reading my simpler account.

I have told my life as I lived it, with its interests and pleasures, its drawbacks and discomforts, neither romancing nor withholding. I may confess that I did not write these letters en route. For this I had neither time nor strength, as I was never one single fortnight free of fever after entering the tropics. The following pages are pieced together from letters actually written home, from my journal, and from recollections that can never be dimmed. I consider it an advantage to write when time has removed the exaggerations with which the mood of the moment might have distorted facts or influenced feelings; while I have also had opportunity for maturer consideration of, and authentic information on, many points....
Be not too curious of Good and Evil;
Seek not to count the future waves of Time;
But be ye satisfied that you have light
Enough to take your step and find your foothold.

--T.S. Eliot
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Antipatros
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Re: High Adventure

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Archibald Ross Colquhoun, Amongst the Shans (1885)

http://www.archive.org/details/amongstshans00colqrich
Introduction

The valuable description of a branch of the great Tai race, which is the subject of Mr. Archibald R. Colquhoun's new book Amongst the Shans as well as his former account of his journey Across Chrysê is not an unimportant contribution to ethnology. The two works contain a good deal of information taken in situ, which increases the knowledge, hitherto so unsatisfactory, of a large number of the independent and semi-independent non-Chinese tribes still existing within and without the southern boundaries of the Chinese Empire. Remnants of the non-absorbed and non-Sinicised parts of larger stocks of several races, gradually driven south-westwards, these tribes are now scattered, on a large area, into an undefined number of fragments, intermingled to a great extent, and often difficult to trace individually up to their original stems. With the exception of the northern region, which was supplied with a constant renewal of Altaic and Ugro-Finnish blood pouring into the Chinese agglomeration, they formerly composed the native population of China Proper. Their modern descendants are the representatives (much altered and modified by multiplied crossings and re-crossings) of those ethnic stocks, of which the southern off-shoots have gradually and successively migrated to Indo-China, and developed there into several nations of importance....

The stock-in-trade of misunderstanding, bias, and untrue statements with regard to China, its languages and races, which is commonly used and credited in proof of speculations, or in illustration of a peculiar development, is simply appalling and ought to be thoroughly revised. It might be suggested, with sufficient reason, that the best plan would be to make a tabula rasa and begin the matter afresh, trusting no other sources than the ancient Chinese works and a few important books published in late years by eminent Sinologists....

Terrien de Lacouperie.
University College, London.
Be not too curious of Good and Evil;
Seek not to count the future waves of Time;
But be ye satisfied that you have light
Enough to take your step and find your foothold.

--T.S. Eliot
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Antipatros
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Joined: Thu Jan 19, 2012 7:33 pm

Re: High Adventure

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W.J.J. Spry, The Cruise of Her Majesty's Ship "Challenger" (1877)

Voyages over many seas, scenes in many lands.

http://www.archive.org/details/cruiseofhermajes00spry
Preface

The important objects for which H.M.S. Challenger was placed at the disposal of a scientific staff under the direction of Professor Sir Charles Wyville Thomson, F.R.S., the gratifying results obtained by the full investigation of the bed of the ocean, and the vast amount of information gathered by visits to distant lands very rarely explored, render the cruise of the Challenger highly interesting and instructive to the British public.

Under these circumstances, I have been induced by numerous friends to revise my daily journals, and publish in a concise and readable form a continuous narrative of this celebrated voyage.

In this volume I shall not in any way interfere with the scientific results, beyond simply naming them in a cursory and general way, leaving to Professor Thomson the task of dealing with these subjects, and the application of the information obtained to the furtherance of physical knowledge.

The description of places visited is given in the way that I have viewed them, and under the impressions that filled my mind at the time; but as the geographical aspects of foreign scenes must be similar by whomsoever observed, it is scarcely possible to avoid occasionally using descriptions almost identical with those published on the subject by previous visitors.

The chief interest connected with this narrative will be the vast extent traversed in the pursuit of knowledge, which admits of the combination in this volume of the general outline of the manners and customs of nations and tribes rarely visited, and descriptions of scenery under every condition of temperature, from the fiery Tropics to the ice-bound Antarctic regions: thus combining in the work a fund of information that has been brought together through special aid of the Government, granted to the Committee of the Royal Society, and now dedicated to the public use.

I now respectfully present the narrative of the cruise of the Challenger to my readers, in the hope that, while affording information and instruction, it will prove of sufficient interest to reward its perusal with some pleasantly passed hours.

WILLIAM J. J. SPRY.
H.N. Moseley, Notes by a Naturalist on the "Challenger" (1879)

Being an account of various observations made during the voyage of H.M.S. "Challenger" around the world, in the years 1872-1876, under the commands of Capt. Sir G. S. Nares and Capt. F. T. Thomson.

http://www.archive.org/details/notesbynaturalis00mose
H.M.S. "Challenger" a maindeck corvette, with auxiliary steam power, left Portsmouth on December 21st, 1872, for a voyage of three years and a half round the world. The object of her cruise was to investigate scientifically the physical conditions and natural history of the deep sea all over the world. The ship was with that aim specially fitted with sounding and dredging apparatus, and carried a scientific staff, appointed by the Lords of the Admiralty, and placed by them under the direction of Sir Charles Wyville Thomson, F.B.S., &c. I accompanied the expedition as one of the naturalists on this staff....
"A Famous Name": new generations of Challenger:

G.S. Ritchie, Challenger: The Life of A Survey Ship (1958)

http://www.archive.org/details/challengerlifeof00ritc

...including the Apollo 17 lunar module and the space shuttle.
Be not too curious of Good and Evil;
Seek not to count the future waves of Time;
But be ye satisfied that you have light
Enough to take your step and find your foothold.

--T.S. Eliot
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Enki
Posts: 5052
Joined: Thu Dec 22, 2011 6:04 pm

Re: High Adventure

Post by Enki »

http://io9.com/5886351/man-supposedly-s ... ike-a-bear

Man survives for two months trapped in his car by hibernating like a bear.
Men often oppose a thing merely because they have had no agency in planning it, or because it may have been planned by those whom they dislike.
-Alexander Hamilton
AzariLoveIran

Re: High Adventure

Post by AzariLoveIran »

.


very very nice and scary


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Marcus
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Re: High Adventure

Post by Marcus »

AzariLoveIran wrote:very very nice and scary
Death wish!
"The jawbone of an ass is just as dangerous a weapon today as in Sampson's time."
--- Richard Nixon
******************
"I consider looseness with words no less of a defect than looseness of the bowels."
—John Calvin
AzariLoveIran

Re: High Adventure

Post by AzariLoveIran »

Marcus wrote:
AzariLoveIran wrote:very very nice and scary
Death wish !

.

yes

this for folks hating to die in bed

.
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Antipatros
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Re: High Adventure

Post by Antipatros »

Francis Younghusband, Among the Celestials (1898)

A narrative of travels in Manchuria, across the Gobi desert, through the Himalayas to India.

Abridged from "The Heart of a Continent."

http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924023236478
What it was that first started me off on wanderings, which for ten years led me over so large a portion of Asia, it is difficult to say exactly. But I think the first seeds of divine discontent at staying still were sown in the summer of 1884, when I had obtained a few months' leave from my regiment, the King's Dragoon Guards, then stationed at Rawal Pindi, in the Punjab, and made use of it to tour through some of the lower ranges of the Himalayas.

My instinct first led me to Dharmsala, for many years the home of my uncle, Robert Shaw, who, with Hayward, was the first Englishman to push his way through the Himalayas to the plains of Turkestan beyond. Here I found many of his old pensioners — men who had accompanied him on his several journeys to Yarkand and Kashgar, the principal towns on the northern side of the Himalayas — and books too, and maps, and old manuscripts. I was among the relics of an explorer, at the very house in which his schemes were formed, and from which he had started to carry out his plans. I pored over the books and maps, and talked for hours with the old servants, till the spirit of exploration gradually entered my soul, and I rushed off on a preliminary tour on foot in the direction of Tibet, and planned a great journey into that country for the following year....
Be not too curious of Good and Evil;
Seek not to count the future waves of Time;
But be ye satisfied that you have light
Enough to take your step and find your foothold.

--T.S. Eliot
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Re: High Adventure

Post by Antipatros »

William Senior, Travel and Trout in the Antipodes (1880)

An angler's sketches in Tasmania and New Zealand

http://www.archive.org/details/traveltr ... 00seniiala
Now, Queensland is a rich young colony, with more sterling attractions than I have now time or inclination to enumerate. One thing, however, it lacks: it has no trout, nor, I fear, a climate that will ever permit of the acclimatisation of that prince of fish. Whether any country can ever be truly great without salmon or trout is a question requiring more consideration than I can at present afford. It is enough for me to know that where there are none there must always be to me an aching void. For a long while after leaving the old country I suffered severely from home-sickness, but its most acute phase was what perhaps I may be allowed to term trout-sickness. Sometimes I had to hide my fly-rod, and shun the English sporting papers. Upon this hot day in Brisbane the symptoms come on, and they are such pleasurable pain, that I take no steps for remedy.

Trout? It suddenly occurs to me that there are trout in Tasmania, and Tasmania is within eight days' travel of my Queensland home....
Be not too curious of Good and Evil;
Seek not to count the future waves of Time;
But be ye satisfied that you have light
Enough to take your step and find your foothold.

--T.S. Eliot
AzariLoveIran

Re: High Adventure

Post by AzariLoveIran »

.

testing


31481531


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User avatar
Antipatros
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Vickers Vimy flights

Post by Antipatros »

Vickers Vimy Flight by Museum Volunteers 2008
AFedpGeMJ04

Vickers Vimy

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vickers_Vimy
The Vickers Vimy was a British heavy bomber aircraft of the First World War and post-First World War era. It achieved success as both a military and civil aircraft, setting several notable records in long-distance flights in the interwar period, the most celebrated of which was the first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by Alcock and Brown in June 1919....

Long-distance flights

The Vimy was used in many pioneering flights.

[*] Alcock and Brown's crashed Vimy at Clifden, Ireland on 15 June 1919 The most significant was the first non-stop crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by Alcock and Brown in June 1919 (their aircraft is preserved in the London Science Museum);
[*] In 1919, the Australian government offered £10,000 for the first All-Australian crew to fly an aeroplane from England to Australia. Keith Macpherson Smith, Ross Macpherson Smith and two other men completed the journey from Hounslow Heath Aerodrome to Darwin via Singapore and Batavia on 10 December 1919 (their aircraft G-EAOU is preserved in a museum in Smith's hometown Adelaide, Australia);
[*] In 1920, Lieutenant Colonel Pierre van Ryneveld and Major Quintin Brand attempted to make the first England to South Africa flight. They left Brooklands on 4 February 1920 in the Vimy G-UABA named Silver Queen. They landed safely at Heliopolis, but as they continued the flight to Wadi Halfa they were forced to land due to engine overheating with 80 miles (130 km) still to go. A second Vimy was lent to the pair by the RAF at Heliopolis (and named Silver Queen II). This second aircraft continued to Bulawayo in Southern Rhodesia where it was badly damaged when it failed to take off. Rynevald and Brand then borrowed an Airco DH.9 to continue the journey to Cape Town. They were disqualified as winners but nevertheless the South African government awarded them £5,000 each.
Transatlantic flight of Alcock and Brown

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlan ... _and_Brown
British aviators Alcock and Brown made the first non-stop transatlantic flight in June 1919. They flew a modified World War I Vickers Vimy bomber from St. John's, Newfoundland, to Clifden, Connemara, County Galway, Ireland. Winston Churchill presented them with the Daily Mail prize for the first crossing of the Atlantic Ocean in 'less than 72 consecutive hours' and they were knighted at Windsor Castle by King George V....

In April 1913 (renewed in 1918), the London newspaper The Daily Mail offered a prize of £10,000 to
"the aviator who shall first cross the Atlantic in an aeroplane in flight from any point in the United States of America, Canada or Newfoundland and any point in Great Britain or Ireland" in 72 continuous hours".
Alcock and Brown flew a modified Vickers Vimy IV twin-engined bomber powered by two Rolls-Royce Eagle engines, each of 360 hp, taking off from Lester's Field in St. John's, Newfoundland at around 1:45pm, June 14, 1919. When in poor visibility they misidentified a bog as a suitable grass field to land, their aircraft technically crashed on landing (53°26′N 10°01′W) near Clifden in Connemara in County Galway, Ireland, at 8:40am on June 15, 1919. They had spent around fourteen-and-a-half hours over the North Atlantic crossing the coast at 4.28pm, having flown 1890 miles (3040 km) in 15 hours 57 minutes at an average speed of 115 mph (185 km/h). Their altitude varied between sea level and 12,000 ft (3,700 m) and upon take-off they carried 865 imperial gallons (3,900 L) of fuel on board.

The flight nearly ended in disaster several times owing to engine trouble, fog, snow and ice. It was only saved by Brown's continual climbing out on the wings to remove ice from the engine air intakes and by Alcock's excellent piloting despite extremely poor visibility at times and even snow filling the open cockpit. The aircraft was badly damaged upon arrival due to the attempt to land in what appeared from the air to be a suitable green field but which turned out to be the bog on Derrygimlagh Moor, but neither of the airmen was hurt. Their first interview was given to Tom 'Cork' Kenny of The Connacht Tribune.

Alcock and Brown were treated as heroes on the completion of their flight. In addition to the Daily Mail award of £10,000, the crew received 2,000 guineas from the Ardath Tobacco Company and £1,000 from Lawrence R. Phillips for being the first British subjects to fly the Atlantic Ocean. Both men were knighted a few days later by King George V.

Alcock and Brown flew to Manchester on 17 July 1919, where they were given a civic reception by the Lord Mayor and Corporation and awards to mark their achievement....
Steve Fossett Challenges

http://www.stevefossett.com/html/press_ ... _vimy.html

Fossett and Rebholz Successfully Fly Atlantic in Replica of 1919 Vickers Vimy

American Aventurers Follow Path of British Heroes Alcock and Brown from Canada to Ireland in WWI Biplane

1st TransAtlantic Flight Re-Created in 18 hours 15 minutes
3 July 2005 - 1604 GMT - Clifden, Galway, Ireland: American pilot Steve Fossett and co-pilot / navigator Mark Rebholz successfully re-created the historic, first-ever 1919 TransAtlantic flight of John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown today, landing their replica of the British pair's Vickers Vimy biplane on hole 8A of the Connemara Golf Links just after 5 pm local time.

The re-enactment of this landmark in the world of air transport, following the original route exactly, took 18 hours 15 mins as Fossett and Rebholz took off Saturday night from St John's, Newfoundland and flew at low altitude and at approximately 100 kts airspeed all through the night, navigating by sextant, compass and chart and hand-flying the accurate replica of the WWI era bomber. At 6+ tonnes all-up take off weight and almost 70' wingspan, the Vimy replica is the largest biplane flying today, as well being the largest hand-built aircraft.

For latest information and media updates, please go to http://www.clifden.ie, http://www.ngm.com/vimy and http://www.vimy.org.
Sir Ross Macpherson Smith, 14,000 Miles Through the Air (1922)

http://www.archive.org/details/milesthr ... 00smitrich
During the latter phase of the war, while I was flying with Number One Squadron, Australian Flying Corps, in Palestine, a Handley-Page aeroplane was flown out from England by Brigadier-General A. E. Borton, C.M.G., D.S.O., A.F.C., to take part in General Allenby's last offensive. It was intended that this monster aeroplane should be chiefly employed in carrying out active night-bombing operations against the enemy. I hailed as good fortune the orders that detailed me to fly it. The remarkable success eventually achieved by this terrible engine of destruction, and its unfailing reliability during the ensuing long-distance flights, inspired in me great confidence and opened my eyes to the possibilities of modern aeroplanes and their application to commercial uses.

It is in a large measure due to the extensive experiences gained while piloting this Handley-Page machine that I was induced to embark upon and carry to a successful issue the first aerial voyage from London to Australia. In a lesser degree, the undertaking was suggested in a joke. One day General Borton visited our squadron and informed me that he was planning a flight in order to link up the forces in Palestine with the army in Mesopotamia. He invited me to join him.

There was a further proposal, that after reaching Bagdad we should shape a route to India, "to see," as he jocularly remarked, "the Viceroy's Cup run in Calcutta."

"Then, after that," I replied, "let us fly on to Australia and see the Melbourne Cup," little thinking at the time that I should ever embark upon such a project....
Be not too curious of Good and Evil;
Seek not to count the future waves of Time;
But be ye satisfied that you have light
Enough to take your step and find your foothold.

--T.S. Eliot
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Re: High Adventure

Post by Antipatros »

William Brooks Cabot, Labrador (1920)

http://www.archive.org/details/labrador00cabo
It has been said by some one, within recent years, that all the places now unexplored were so miserably bad that no one would care to have anything to do with them. The caribou country or northeastern Labrador may or may not be an exception to this rule. There are worse regions to wander in. Moreover, the people are to be considered. Not every one cares for native races, but most wilderness travelers do. I have myself found the Labrador people well worth while....

Interior Labrador, if a country of severe winter conditions, and not too easy to travel in at any time, is not quite the desolation generally supposed. Unavailable for most purposes it is, even as regions of its rather high latitudes go, and of course an utter wilderness, but its name is worse than it deserves. The peninsula is seldom cold in summer, and if its rivers were less difficult it would be more widely known as a field of exploring and travel; and also, from its great extent, as a nearly inexhaustible one. The usual summer wanderer at least is not in a way to make much impression upon its spaces. Nor after all does such a country appeal to the many. It is too elemental a land....
Be not too curious of Good and Evil;
Seek not to count the future waves of Time;
But be ye satisfied that you have light
Enough to take your step and find your foothold.

--T.S. Eliot
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Re: High Adventure

Post by Antipatros »

The Great Flight (1970)

The story of the first Trans-Atlantic flight in 1919 performed by a Navy NC4 and the anniversary celebration of that historic flight

http://www.archive.org/details/gov.dod.dimoc.25518

5XyxJwnAq50

First Trans-Atlantic Flight

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transatlantic_flight
Between May 8 and May 31, 1919, the Curtiss seaplane, NC-4 made a crossing of the Atlantic flying from the U.S. to Newfoundland, then to the Azores and on to Portugal and finally the UK. The whole journey took 23 days. NC-4 was the only one of the three United States Navy aircraft to set out that completed the journey. The journey had been organised by the Navy to include crew rest, aircraft maintenance and repair and refuelling, and had been supported by a trail of 22 "station ships" across the Atlantic giving the aircraft points to navigate by.

British aviators Alcock and Brown made the first non-stop transatlantic flight in June 1919. They flew a modified World War I Vickers Vimy bomber from St. John's, Newfoundland, to Clifden, Connemara, County Galway, Ireland....
John R. Bayer, The Forgotten Fliers of 1919

The First Successful Transatlantic Flight By the US Navy's NC-4 Flying Boat

http://aerofiles.com/nc4.html
Several million people fly the Atlantic each year. Every plane that crosses does so under a system of radio communications, weather forecasting, satellite navigation, and rescue forces that is the inheritance of the first transatlantic flight, by the US Navy's NC flying boats. Today, the story of the NC Transatlantic Flight Expedition and its crews has sadly been all but lost in the dust of history. In 1919, the Navy's NC-4 and a crew of six made the first successful transatlantic flight. It took some three weeks, May 8-27, to accomplish that. Humans had only taken wing in airplanes less than 20 years before, and Lindbergh's Paris flight was still eight years away.

Near the end of World War I, the Navy requested an aircraft that would be able to cross the Atlantic under its own power and go directly into action against the German U-boat menace, which were sinking tons of merchant shipping each week. Four large flying boats were designed and constructed as NC-1, -2, -3, and -4 under a joint venture of the Curtiss Company and the Navy. Because of damage from storm and fire, NC-2 was salvaged to repair the NC-1, and its remainder became spare parts.

On May 8, 1919, NC-1, -3, and -4 took off from Naval Air Station Rockaway in Long Island, New York, with Trepassey, Newfoundland, the intermediate stop prior to their attempt at the Atlantic. After delays from NC-4's engine trouble near Cape Cod and bad weather at Trepassey, all three aircraft finally departed on the long flight across on Friday evening, May 16. In contrast to te present, these aircraft flew at 90 mph maximum, with the crews exposed to the elements in open, unheated cockpits. A scheduled stop for fuel in the Azores required more than 17 hours to reach—elapsed flying time for the entire crossing would add up to more than 26 hours!...
Flight of the NC-4

http://www.century-of-flight.net/Aviati ... lantic.htm
World War I put many aviation plans on hold, which was probably just as well. Had it not been for the war many more fliers would have tried crossing the Atlantic and would have been claimed by its icy waters. The planes of 1913 were not capable of the nearly nineteen-hundred- mile (3,057km) flight between Newfoundland and Ireland, the shortest route across the Atlantic, nor of the twenty to thirty hours of reliable continuous operation that would be required by any engine that would power such a plane.

In England, Alfred, Lord Northcliffe, publisher of the London Daily Mail, had offered a prize in 1913 of fifty thousand dollars to the first aviator to cross the Atlantic. Northcliffe had offered other prizes—it was in pursuit of Northcliffe prizes that Blériot had crossed the English Channel and Paulhan had flown from London to Manchester—but this was considered the ultimate prize, and almost as soon as it was announced, various groups in different countries prepared to try for it.

Northcliffe realized how difficult this feat would be in 1913. In the original rules, the plane making the Atlantic crossing was allowed to land on the water along the way, could be refueled in the Azores, and even towed for repairs, as long as the flight continued from the point of touch down. The only plane with any real chance of making the flight would have to be a seaplane, and at that time the best seaplanes were being manufactured by Glenn Curtiss.

While in England looking for buyers of his planes, Curtiss met British naval commander John Cyril Porte, who apprised him of the Northcliffe challenge and even found him a financial backer in Rodman Wanamaker, the Philadelphia merchant millionaire. (Porte, who was stricken with tuberculosis and didn’t expect to live very long, even offered to fly the plane across the Atlantic!) Curtiss began testing his seaboat designs back on Keuka Lake and by February 1914 had a gangly-looking aircraft that he calculated would be able (just) to make the crossing....
Be not too curious of Good and Evil;
Seek not to count the future waves of Time;
But be ye satisfied that you have light
Enough to take your step and find your foothold.

--T.S. Eliot
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Re: High Adventure

Post by Antipatros »

The mission to Siam, and Hué, the capital of Cochin China, in the years 1821-2. (1826)

From the journal of the late George Finlayson ... With a memoir of the author, by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, F.R.S.

http://www.archive.org/details/missiont ... 00finlrich
In the year 1821, a mission was sent by the Governor-General of Bengal to the courts of Siam and Cochin-China, having for its object the opening of a friendly intercourse between those countries and the British possessions, and the establishment of free trade on both sides.

This mission it is well known was not attended with the success expected; little or no positive advantage was gained to our trade, but the foundation of a friendly intercourse was laid by the visit, and the knowledge procured may prepare the way for a future attempt under more favourable circumstances.

It at any rate afforded an opportunity for our obtaining much valuable information respecting countries and people, hitherto almost unknown to us, and in this respect the particulars contained in the following pages may be deemed of sufficient interest to justify their publication: they are transcribed nearly verbatim from the private journal of the late Mr. George Finlayson, who was attached to the Mission as Surgeon and naturalist, but who, unfortunately for his friends and the cause of science, fell a sacrifice to his unwearied exertions in the performance of the service intrusted to him, and did not live to revise and arrange them himself, having died on his passage to England....
Be not too curious of Good and Evil;
Seek not to count the future waves of Time;
But be ye satisfied that you have light
Enough to take your step and find your foothold.

--T.S. Eliot
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Deep Adventure

Post by Antipatros »

Image

Eliza Strickland, Don Walsh Describes the Trip to the Bottom of the Mariana Trench

In 1960, he and his crewmate became the only two people ever to descend to the ocean’s deepest point

http://spectrum.ieee.org/geek-life/prof ... ana-trench
The Virgin Oceanic adventurers currently vying to reach the bottom of the Mariana Trench are following in the path of two trailblazers who took the plunge in a peculiar underwater vehicle 52 years ago. IEEE Spectrum recently interviewed Don Walsh, who was a U.S. Navy lieutenant and a submariner when he made the journey down with Swiss engineer Jacques Piccard in 1960. To date, those two men are the only human beings who have laid eyes on the Mariana Trench seafloor—and in an ironic twist, they didn’t see much of anything.

They made the trip in a vehicle called a bathyscaphe, which looked something like an underwater dirigible. The crew cabin, a cramped steel sphere, was suspended from a massive tank holding about 130 000 liters of gasoline—which, with less density than water, would provide the buoyancy necessary to lift the craft from the chasm. Piccard and his father designed the vehicle together and sold it to the U.S. Navy in 1958....
Image

Eliza Strickland, Virgin Oceanic’s Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea

Virgin Oceanic hopes to launch a new era of manned deep-sea exploration

http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/environ ... -the-sea/0
As the battered little boat slides down a 3-meter ocean swell into the next trough, Chris Welsh grits his teeth and peers out into the storm. Sheets of rain pummel the dark windows of the bridge, and a Micronesian sailor wrestles with the wheel. It’s past midnight on a July night and we’re bobbing over the almost 11 kilometers of water that fill the deepest abyss on Earth, the Mariana Trench. Welsh is leading a small party of engineers, scientists, and adventurers under the banner of Virgin Oceanic; they’ve chugged out here aboard a 20-year-old ferryboat to test some unmanned deep-diving probes. It’s the first step in what they hope will be a glorious high-tech adventure, in which a man—Welsh, specifically—will visit the bottom of the trench before the end of this year....
Be not too curious of Good and Evil;
Seek not to count the future waves of Time;
But be ye satisfied that you have light
Enough to take your step and find your foothold.

--T.S. Eliot
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Re: High Adventure

Post by Antipatros »

The directories for these items are not in the standard Archive.org format. Click on the "All files: HTTP" hyperlink and select your desired format from there.

Walter B. Harris, A Journey Through the Yemen (1893)

And some general remarks upon that country

http://www.archive.org/details/journeyt ... 00harruoft
ADEN.

There is not a breath of wind to stir the placid surface of the sea — not a breath to cause a draught upon the ship and cool us for a second. It is one of those terrible still tropical days, motionless, silent, oppressive. Nothing to hear but the hissing of the sea as the vessel's bows plough up the turquoise water, and the thud, thud of her never-ceasing screw. Even the Lascars in their white clothes and bare feet, children of the sun as they are, seem downcast.

We are passing Perim, It lies on the port side, a dirty blot upon a scene of opalesque transparence, of shimmering water and palpitating sky.

A youth travelling round the world stretches himself, jots a few lines in his diary, and commences to tell the old story of the taking of Perim. But he is soon cried down, and silence reigns again.

On both sides we can see the land,— burning rock seen through a burning atmosphere. A number of flying-fish buzz over the surface of the water, and with a series of little splashes disappear once again.

A few hours later and Aden is in sight, with its broken and torn peaks and jagged outline. A little movement is noticeable amongst the passengers, but it is half-hearted at the best.

Then we enter the grand bay, surrounded by desolate rock and still more desolate desert, and drop anchor a mile or so off Steamer Point, as the shipping quarter of Aden is called.

The steamer is quickly surrounded....
From Djibouti through Somaliland to Abyssinia in a Bentley:

Clifford Hallé, To Menelek in a Motor-Car (1913)

http://www.archive.org/details/tomenele ... 00hallrich
INTRODUCTION

When, during the campaign of 1868, the British soldier reached the top of the Abyssinian Plateau, and viewed the scene of tumbled peaks, wall-sided chasms, and tower-like cliffs that Nature has disposed there to keep off foreign invaders, he remarked in disgust rather than in artistic admiration, "Why, they told us we would get to a tableland after this 'ere scramble." "So it is a table-land," replied his mate, "only it's upside down, and there are the legs in the air." Now it is obvious to anyone that a region of this nature, eight thousand feet almost sheer from a burning plain, itself a pathless, almost waterless waste of scrub, deep sand, alternating with mountains of loose boulders, would be just the place to take a modern motor-car, a machine created solely for progression on roads that only the most modern engineering and ingenuity have succeeded in making sufficiently perfect to suit such delicate mechanism. To those who fail to see the obviousness of the desire to take a motor through such an experience, I can only say they will probably also fail to appreciate a great many laudable attempts to prevent modern life stagnating with too monotonous common-sense, and to provide journalists, cinematographers, photographers, and above all, doctors and undertakers (especially the latter, a profession on which modern hygienic science threatens to make such serious inroads), with the means of making a living.

It must not, however, be assumed that Mr. Bentley was inspired solely by the desire to achieve the almost impossible with a motor-car; there was also the rational and attractive prospect of presenting it to the Emperor Menelek, who, if he is not, as his tradition claims, a direct descendant of King Solomon, is a man possessed with a quite remarkable passion for machinery, and gifted with intelligence to take pains to study and understand it. Menelek, as everyone knows, is the second of that name, the first Menelek being said to be the otherwise unreported consequence of the visit of the Queen of Sheba to the Wise Man of the East. One is tempted to suspect a reversion to his distant ancestor, for it may be pretty well assumed that a taste for mechanism and the capacity to understand it has probably never been characteristic of any Abyssinian King since it was exhibited in the person of King Solomon....
Be not too curious of Good and Evil;
Seek not to count the future waves of Time;
But be ye satisfied that you have light
Enough to take your step and find your foothold.

--T.S. Eliot
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Kasai

Post by Antipatros »

M.W. Hilton-Simpson, Land and Peoples of the Kasai (1912)

Being a narrative of a two year's journey among the cannibals of the equatorial forest and other savage tribes of the south-western Congo

http://www.archive.org/details/landpeoplesofkas00hilt
INTRODUCTION

I OUGHT to say a few words as to how the expedition I have attempted to describe in the following pages came to be undertaken, and why the task of describing its wanderings has fallen upon me.

In the summer of 1907 I was contemplating a journey in the Sahara Desert, a country with which I had some previous acquaintance, when the trouble between France and Morocco led the French Government to decide that the state of affairs in the Sahara was too unsettled to admit of its allowing travellers to wander there unescorted, and, there being already sufficient to occupy all the troops in that region, it felt itself unable to offer me any soldiers to accompany me. I was accordingly obliged to abandon my expedition, for which most of my preparations had been made. I was determined to go somewhere, however, and Mr. T. A. Joyce, of the British Museum, suggested that I should visit the Congo, in the natives of which country he was keenly interested. He introduced me to Mr. Emil Torday, the Hungarian traveller, with whom he had collaborated in the writing of numerous papers about the Congo natives for the publications of the Royal Anthropological Institute, and Mr. Torday invited me to join him upon an expedition which he was about to undertake in the Kasai basin of the Congo Free State. I at once agreed to accompany him, delighted at the opportunity of visiting equatorial Africa, and of seeing something of the life of its primitive inhabitants. Mr. Torday had already studied the peoples who dwell in the south-western portion of the Congo State around the Kwilu River, and he desired to make an ethnographical survey of the natives of the Kasai and Sankuru basins, at the same time making extensive collections for the ethnographical department of the British Museum, and, if possible, of visiting the hitherto unexplored country between the Kasai and its tributary the Loange, which is inhabited by the Tukongo, a people so hostile to the white man that their tract of country had never been traversed by a European.

The Kasai is the largest of those mighty waterways which form the tributaries of the Congo. Rising not far from the sources of the Zambezi, it flows northward into Congo territory, turning almost at right angles to the west at the point where it receives the waters of the Sankuru, and falling into the Congo about 140 miles above Stanley Pool. The Kasai is navigable for river steamers up to Wissmann Falls, above its confluence with the Lulua, and these vessels ply upon the Sankuru to a point a little above Lusambo. Upon one or two of the lesser streams of the district, such as the Kwilu (itself a great river), the Inzia, and the Lubefu, small steamers are
employed....
C.S. Latrobe Bateman, The First Ascent of the Kasai (1889)

Being some records of service under the Lone Star.

http://www.archive.org/details/firstasc ... 00baterich
ARGUMENT.

When Stanley discovered the Upper Congo, in his great expedition through the Dark Continent, he carefully watched for the embouchures of any rivers flowing from the south which might be identified as the outlets of those great waters which Livingstone had discovered, and made known to the world as the Sankoro and Kasai. These outlets Stanley believed he had found in the Lubiranzi, a magnificent river which pours its flood into the Congo no great distance below the Stanley Falls, and the Uruki, a stream joining the Congo through a very wide embouchure at Equator. Subsequently, having discovered the Kwa or Kwamuni, as the lower waters of the Kasai were then exclusively known, and voyaging up it, and by the Nzali Mpini to Lake Leopold II, but neglecting to explore the infinitely greater stream coming from the opposite direction, he concluded that the waters of the Kwamuni were mainly derived from the lake, and that no other really great rivers entered the Congo from the south. This view being taken as ascertained fact, the questions which suggested themselves to geographers were, where do the waters of the Kasai and Sankoro empty themselves if not by the Lubiranzi and Uruki? or, do they lose themselves in some inland sea or marsh? To solve this problem Lieutenant Wissmann was despatched by the Geographical Society of Berlin, and under special commission of the King of the Belgians. In a previous journey across Africa, in conjunction with Dr. Poggé, Lieutenant Wissmann had crossed the Upper Kasai, and had experienced the friendly character of the natives in its vicinity. He now conceived the happy idea of entering the country from the province of Malange in Angola, and making overland to the head-waters of the Kasai, to obtain there the assistance of the natives, and thence to descend the river to whatever bourne its course might carry him. His project was completely successful: he met with the most cordial and efficient assistance at the hands of Calemba, the intelligent and noble-minded king of the Baluba, who personally and together with a sufficient force of warriors embarked upon the waters of the Kasai, to share whatever vicissitudes and dangers might await his guest in sailing down them to their ultimate and unknown goal. In due course the expedition reached the Congo, and proceeding to Leopoldville, were there received by Mr. Troup, in the absence of Captain Saulez. Thus his immediate object accomplished, Lieutenant Wissmann returned to Europe, leaving the further conduct of the expedition to Dr. Wolf. Under his charge the king, Calemba, and the faithful Baluba, were now to be escorted on their return home up the Kasai, whither it was determined to send on the expedition, with the view of establishing a station at the confluence of the Lulua with the Luebo, as a port for the station of Luluaburg, founded by Lieutenant Wissmann when in the Baluba country, and left by him in charge of Mr. Bugslag. I was permitted to accompany this expedition as second in command. The stern-wheel steamer Stanley and the steamlaunch En Avant, together with a large whaleboat, were to convey the Baluba and members of the expedition to their destination. The ascent of the Kasai and the subsequent establishment of Luebo station form the subject of the following narrative.
Be not too curious of Good and Evil;
Seek not to count the future waves of Time;
But be ye satisfied that you have light
Enough to take your step and find your foothold.

--T.S. Eliot
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Antipatros
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Re: High Adventure

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Emil Torday, Camp and Tramp in African Wilds (1913)

A Record of Adventure, Impressions, and Experiences during many years spent among the Savage Tribes round Lake Tanganyika and in Central Africa, with a description of Native Life, Character, and Customs

http://www.archive.org/details/camptrampinafric00tord
It is my intention to give here an account of my adventures and experiences from 1900 to 1907 in the Congo. My sojourn in the country was uninterrupted with the exception of one short interval of a few months. Some portions of the book were written as far back as 1907, but owing to the embittered controversy that was then waging concerning the Congo, I thought it wiser not to pubhsh it. But now things have calmed down, and I hope it will be possible to write about that country without raising a storm of indignation in either camp. I shall abstain from giving my opinion concerning such controversial matters as the land question or free trade, and shall restrict my narrative to facts that have come under my personal observation, leaving it to the reader to draw his conclusions. I do not expect him to take an interest in me personally I want him to see in me a typical resident in the Congo, like many another, going through fits of depression relieved by periods of exuberant joyfulness; despising the "savage" at first and then learning to know, esteem, and love him....
Be not too curious of Good and Evil;
Seek not to count the future waves of Time;
But be ye satisfied that you have light
Enough to take your step and find your foothold.

--T.S. Eliot
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Antipatros
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Joined: Thu Jan 19, 2012 7:33 pm

Re: High Adventure

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The discovery of the North-West Passage by H.M.S. "Investigator", Capt. R. M'Clure, 1850, 1851, 1852, 1853, 1854 (1856)

From the logs and journals of Capt. Robert Le M. M'CLURE.

Cmdr. Sherard Osborn, ed.

http://www.archive.org/details/cihm_33016
The annals of Arctic History afford so many noble illustrations of the spirit of enterprise and hardihood of our sailors, that in this point of view alone they can, it is to be hoped, never fail to interest the British people. It is easy to attempt to cast ridicule on any generous impulse of a nation or an individual, by speaking of it as Quixotic, foolhardy, and so forth; but if it be a weakness in English seamen, that for three centuries they have sought to win honour and renown in regions where the ordinary hardships of those whose business is upon the great waters are multiplied a hundredfold, it will assuredly be no joyous day for England, when her sailors shall be free from the charge of any such chivalrous extravagance.

Sir John Franklin and his hundred and thirty-eight gallant followers, went forth to achieve the North-west Passage. They discovered it, and perished victims to their zeal; and then came one worthy to follow in their footsteps — Captain Sir Kobert Le Mesurier M'Clure! He came, indeed, too late to save Franklin; but at least he completed the search for him on one given line, by passing from ocean to ocean, and he secured to the Royal Navy and to Great Britain the imperishable renown of having successfully accomplished the enterprise so long attempted in vain.

The Editor feels that in the following narrative, he has scarcely done justice to the many noble qualities of every individual forming the gallant company of the "Investigator"; but he has at any rate endeavoured to place on record some feeble acknowledgment of their heroic courage and self-devotion....
For the archaeological work on the wreck of H.M.S. Investigator, see here.
Be not too curious of Good and Evil;
Seek not to count the future waves of Time;
But be ye satisfied that you have light
Enough to take your step and find your foothold.

--T.S. Eliot
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