We Read Maps

RHODES W. FAIRBRIDGE
 

'HEN I was quite a little boy, about 3 or 4, my
mother says I would lie on my stomach for hours
tracing out the designs made by the colors in a great
if somewhat battered Times Atlas, that had already been round
the world with my father. The volume had been well gnawed at
the edge by our old hound dog, but the essential beauty of the art
of John Bartholomew, Senior, was all there.

To begin with I imagine it was just the color of the designs, but
gradually it dawned on me that here was a story—no, not a single
story, but a limitless feast of wonderful tales, a new selection on
every page. What printing economy!

And then, at five years of age, came the real adventure: a lei¬
surely trip round the world, by ship. As every new harbor hove
into view the boy would have clutched in his hand a detailed
sketch-map of the place, laboriously prepared as we chugged
along at about 12 knots from the last port of call. So as we landed
and tripped around, he would identify all the prominent features
—to the astonishment of the grown-ups, but oblivious of their
admiration—the Lion's Head at the Cape, the granite cliffs of
King George's Sound, the cloud-rimmed volcano of the Grand
Canary, "Gib" in the golden rays of a setting sun, the now-de¬
stroyed statue of de Lesseps out along the Port Said breakwater,
the Arab bazaar in Aden, the luscious beach at Point Lavinia in
Ceylon, inevitably the White Cliffs of Dover and, eventually, the
cathedral-like landfall of New York.

The real world, the dream world and the map world were one
and the same to the boy. Some people are not so fortunate; they
never learn to read a map. Some lack the urge; many lack the
imagination. To be caught young and to learn it all without even

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