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024 - XXIV Maps · Gentle Art of Tramping

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  Speaker 1: Chapter twenty four of The Gentle Art of Tramping by
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  Speaker 1: Stephen Graham. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings
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  Speaker 1: are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer,
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  Speaker 1: please visit LibriVox dot org. Chapter twenty four. Maps. Civilization
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  Speaker 1: is short of maps. It is not familiar with its
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  Speaker 1: own ground plan. This is due, no doubt to the
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  Speaker 1: common handicap of commercialism. Maps ought to be free for all.
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  Speaker 1: When you ask a man the way, you do not
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  Speaker 1: expect him to charge you for it. First on the
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  Speaker 1: right and the second on the left sixpence please. Maps
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  Speaker 1: are almost as cheap to print as wallpaper, and could
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  Speaker 1: often be used as such. We need to be familiarized
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  Speaker 1: with the look of the chart of the world. It
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  Speaker 1: is of good advantage, especially to children and to young
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  Speaker 1: men and women at the gateway of larger life, to
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  Speaker 1: have maps of the world in front of them. In
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  Speaker 1: front of them, often you have inherited a pretty large
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  Speaker 1: estate by being born. You might as well know something
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  Speaker 1: of the plan of the grounds. Stay at home natures
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  Speaker 1: are bred by absence of wall maps. An interesting place
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  Speaker 1: the old world with some curious corners, but the mapless
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  Speaker 1: do not believe in it. Geranium follows geranium on the
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  Speaker 1: bedroom wall, and duck follows duck, and then in the
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  Speaker 1: nursery innumerable mother hubbards, look in innumerable empty cupboards for
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  Speaker 1: innumerable non existing bones. And then in the study in
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  Speaker 1: work room an endless series of pale violet rails run
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  Speaker 1: back and forth, or posies of spoiled forget me nots
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  Speaker 1: bobbled before the eyes. We break the monotony with illuminated texts, samplers,
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  Speaker 1: oleographs of the Battle of Spionne, copp portraits of aged relatives.
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  Speaker 1: In company with the laughing cavalier, we put God bless
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  Speaker 1: our home in large letters over the hearth, and then
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  Speaker 1: forget about maps, which are full of blessing. In Paris,
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  Speaker 1: even at the kiosks on the boulevards, you can buy
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  Speaker 1: maps of the world for a few francs, large separate
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  Speaker 1: maps of Europe and Asia and America printed in color
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  Speaker 1: on paper. You do not need them on canvas. It's
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  Speaker 1: almost worth going to Paris to get supplies of these.
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  Speaker 1: Thinking of getting married, go to Paris and get plenty
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  Speaker 1: of maps for the new home. Atlases are not so good.
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  Speaker 1: You have to take them down from Michelle and consult them.
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  Speaker 1: Wall maps spare you the trouble they consult you. Atlases
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  Speaker 1: are to be consciously studied. Wall maps are busy studying
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  Speaker 1: you while you're thinking of other things. You are reading
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  Speaker 1: the Arabian Nights, but Arabia is reading you. You are
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  Speaker 1: turning over the pages of a picture book with a child.
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  Speaker 1: Siam is looking over your shoulder at the elephants. You
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  Speaker 1: are cooking a curry. India has marked you. As you
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  Speaker 1: lie in bed. You see that Czechoslovakia is lying in
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  Speaker 1: bed too, with her toes in the Carpathians. Atlases have
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  Speaker 1: a serious defect in that they split up the world
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  Speaker 1: as a butcher does a sheep, and the joints are
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  Speaker 1: hanging in an absurd series on hooks. Separate maps of
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  Speaker 1: countries and bits of countries, as for example, northwest Germany
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  Speaker 1: are not so instructive as large composite maps. It is
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  Speaker 1: better to look at Europe as a whole than at
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  Speaker 1: Europe in detail. Nevertheless, a tiny book page map of
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  Speaker 1: the world, or Europe, or America or Asia is of
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  Speaker 1: very little value. There's no merit in the miniature map.
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  Speaker 1: The bigger the map, the better. Up to a point.
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  Speaker 1: It should not be so large that one needs a
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  Speaker 1: ladder to examine greenland. The atlas in the pocket map
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  Speaker 1: and the revolving sphere are the auxiliaries of the wall. Maps,
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  Speaker 1: very useful in their place if the first has been provided.
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  Speaker 1: When the inspiration for wandering and tramping has come, we
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  Speaker 1: realize what a boon maps are. We come to love
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  Speaker 1: them as inseparable companions. You put local maps of countries
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  Speaker 1: and towns and countrysides in your pockets, and large folded
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  Speaker 1: maps of the continent in your knapsacks. You unfold them
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  Speaker 1: in the desert. You lie on them. You crawl about
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  Speaker 1: with a magnifying glass, examining their small print and the
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  Speaker 1: lost names of villages in smudged mountain ranges. You learn
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  Speaker 1: by the scale what the length of your thumb or
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  Speaker 1: little finger means in kilometers and miles. You survey with
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  Speaker 1: a curious joy, the dotted line of your peregrinations up
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  Speaker 1: to that point? Have you seen enough of the world?
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  Speaker 1: Are you sure you will rest content at kencil Rise
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  Speaker 1: or Pere Lachaise When the time comes, Take a map
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  Speaker 1: of the world and a blue pencil. Go back in
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  Speaker 1: memory over the whole of your life. Start the pencil
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  Speaker 1: at your birthplace, and begin to draw the line of
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  Speaker 1: your goings to and fro upon the world. How you
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  Speaker 1: will rejoice in yourself if you can conduct that blue
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  Speaker 1: pencil chart across a great ocean, across Atlantic or Pacific.
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  Speaker 1: The longer and more bulging and loopy the line, the
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  Speaker 1: more you will feel you have lived. In the later
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  Speaker 1: years of your life, you will be able to say,
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  Speaker 1: I was born into the world, and I have seen
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  Speaker 1: something of it. Of course, maps have another function besides
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  Speaker 1: that of firing your imagination, and it would be neglectful
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  Speaker 1: to omit a further serious consideration. They are for helping
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  Speaker 1: you to find your way. How to read maps in
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  Speaker 1: detail is a matter of some study, as there is
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  Speaker 1: much more information hidden in a good scientific map of
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  Speaker 1: a country than at first meets the eye. When tramping
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  Speaker 1: across forest and mountain, it is as well to carry
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  Speaker 1: with one sections of the government survey, by the aid
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  Speaker 1: of which one can often locate oneself when otherwise hopelessly lost.
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  Speaker 1: You know also where you must make for provisions, and
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  Speaker 1: whether you are approaching a marshy region which cannot be
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  Speaker 1: traversed on foot, Where the fordings and ferries and bridges
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  Speaker 1: of a river or stream are to be found where
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  Speaker 1: a forest ends, where open country is resumed, One inevitably
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  Speaker 1: spends hours of some days with one's sectional map, trying
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  Speaker 1: to make out what point has been reached, verifying detail,
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  Speaker 1: and verifying again. This sort of map ought to be
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  Speaker 1: stoutly mounted, as it comes in for much use and
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  Speaker 1: is entirely in a different category from the large composite
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  Speaker 1: maps suitable for home or for folding within the large
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  Speaker 1: inner pocket of the knapsack. You thumb them so much
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  Speaker 1: because almost inevitably you come upon error. Even in the
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  Speaker 1: best survey, it is highly difficult to digest square miles
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  Speaker 1: and square inches. Every map has an element of artistic
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  Speaker 1: impressionism and has to be studied somewhat intuitively. What you
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  Speaker 1: would mark it omits because the map maker was of
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  Speaker 1: a different temperament. For that you have to allow and
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  Speaker 1: not lose your patience and tear up your guide. At home,
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  Speaker 1: it is well to have a map cupboard and preserve
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  Speaker 1: and put in at every little map which has ever
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  Speaker 1: served you on the road or in foreign cities. You
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  Speaker 1: may help others with your old maps upon occasion, and
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  Speaker 1: you may help yourself when thinking of returning at some
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  Speaker 1: time upon an old track, end of Chapter twenty four.
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  Speaker 1: Maps