Category Archives: Pacific

Africa, America, Asia, Europe, Middle East, Oceans, Pacific, The New World

Nellie Bly: Around the World in 72 Days (1890)

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“I want to go around the world! I want to go around in eighty days or less. I think I can beat Phileas Fogg’s record. May I try it?”

When investigative reporter Nellie Bly approached her editor in 1889, he was not excited about the idea at all. But, in the end, she did travel around the world.

On her adventure, she met Jules Verne – whose story had inspired her – and many, many others. The result is this book.

The endeavor became an international story almost overnight, and Nellie, whose real name was Elizabeth Cochrane Seaman, became a celebrity herself.

Her travel around the world in a record-setting 72 days is the most remembered of her feats today, but she was a pioneer in several other fields, too. For instance, Bly practically invented investigative journalism, when she lived undercover in a mental institution and uncovered horrible conditions to the public.

Around the World in Seventy-Two Days is not only a testament to the will of an extraordinary person, who became a role model for girls around the world. It is also very well written and entertaining indeed.

Download Around the World in Seventy Two Days as PDF for free here:

Nellie-bly-Around-the-World-in-Seventy-Two-Days-pdf

 

Litterature, Oceans, Pacific, Uncategorized

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea 

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“By what name ought I address you?”

“Sir,” replied the commander, “I am nothing to you but Captain Nemo; and you and your companions are nothing to me but the passengers of the Nautilus.”

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne is one of the greatest adventure novels of all time, and – at the same time – a groundbreaking work of science-fiction.

The narrator, Professor Pierre Aronnax, and his companions join the fiercely independent Captain Nemo aboard his submarine, the Nautilus, on a wondrous and dramatic journey around the world.

“I am not what you call a civilised man! I have done with society entirely, for reasons which I alone have the right of appreciating. I do not, therefore, obey its laws, and I desire you never to allude to them before me again!”

Download Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea here (PDF 1,1 MB / 168 pages)

20000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne

 

America, Oceans, Pacific, The New World

Life and Adventure in the South Pacific

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Life and Adventure in the South Pacific is the first hand account of five years of hard work on the whaling ship Emily Morgan of New Bedford in Massachusetts. The book draws on two young mens logbooks and recollections from the often dramatic and dangerous expeditions and it goes into details about whaling tools, strategies for hunting whales and the organisation and daily life aboard a whaling vessel. Also the art of butchering and preserving the whales after the hunt is described.

How to butcher af whale

Emily Morgan visited a number of remote harbors in the Pacific, for instance Guam, the Hawaiian Islands,Tonga, Juan Fernandez, and Formosa.

The morning of the twenty-second commences with light breezes from the northeast; pleasant weather. Suddenly, about 9 A.M., the monotony is broken by
the welcome cry from masthead:
” T-h-e-r-e she b-l-o-w-s ! T-h-e-r-e she b-l-o-w-s !”
“Where away ?”
“Four points off the lee bow, sir.”
“How far off?”
“About two miles, sir.”
“What does it look like ?”
“Sperm whales, sir.”
Av, ay ; sing out every time you holler.”

Life and Adventure in the South Pacific was written under the pseudonym “A Roving Printer” and published by Harper & Brothers in 1861. The book is in the Public Domain and you can download the entire work here, for free (373 pages/16MB) :

Life and Adventure in the South Pacific

 

 

Asia, Pacific

Argonauts of the western Pacific

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Argonauts of the western Pacific is the accounts of a series of anthropological expeditions known as the Robert Mond Expedition to New Guinea, 1914-1918. It has been described as a great classic of anthropological research. The scope of the expeditions was to understand and document tribal life by describing the organisation of the tribes, their religions, trade, myths and daily behaviour. To do this the scientist spend long time living with the natives and collected detailed observations in ethnographic diaries from the shores of the Kula District. From the book:

“This goal is, briefly, to grasp the native’s point of view, his relation to life, to realise his vision of his world. We have to study man, and we must study what concerns him most intimately, that is, the hold which life has on him. In each culture, the values are slightly different ; people aspire after different aims, follow different impulses, yearn after a different form of happiness. In each culture, we find different institutions in which man pursues his life-interest, different customs by which he satisfies his aspirations, different codes of law and morality which reward his virtues or punish his defections. To study the institutions, customs, and codes or to study the behaviour and mentality without the subjective desire of feeling by what these people live, of realising the substance of their happiness—is, in my opinion, to miss the greatest reward which we can hope to obtain from the study of man.”

The book is richly illustrated with maps and photographs. Download the free PDF e-book here (617 pages/30.5 MB):

 Argonauts of the Western Pacific

Arctic, Inuit, Pacific

Travel and Adventure in the Territory of Alaska

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Travel and Adventure in the Territory of Alaska by Frederick Whymper is the accounts of travels to the Arctic America, at that time known as Russian America, in the middle of the 1800′. The book was published in 1868 and contains great descriptions of meetings with inuits, dramatic stories of survival, meetings with trappers and colorful eyewitness account of the stunning arctic nature. When the book was published it received a lot of attention since Alaska had just been acquired by the United States Government from Russia.

The aquisition was ridiculed and mocked in public. The critics believed the price was too high for “waste lands and worn-out colonies”. Not much was known about the 400.000 square miles, besides what Bering and Tschirikoft had reported from their expeditions.

Download Travel and Adventure in the Territory of Alaska here in full length:

Travel and Adventure in the Territory of Alaska

 

America, Oceans, Pacific

Paradise in the Pacific

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Paradise in the Pacific with the subtitle A Book of Travel, Adventure and Fact in the Sandwich Islands is the account from a journey by ship to the Hawaiian Islands  by William R. Bliss in the 1870s. Bliss describes in details the nature and daily life of the native Hawaiians. There is also accounts of the volcanic activity and the sometimes problematic political situation on the islands. The author is fascinated by the people of Hawaii and a reoccuring theme for him is their simple living and how little they work.  He writes: “That religious teachings, and intercourse with the white people, have generally improved the Hawaiian race, no one will deny But the moral and physical condition of the natives, which I have already portrayed, shows that there is yet great room for their improvement..”

The book starts out with this poem by Tennyson:

“Mariner, mariner, furl your sails,
For here are the blissful downs and dales,
And merrily, merrily carol the gales,
And the 1pangle dances in bi11ht and bay,
And the rainbow forms and flies on the land,
Over the islands free.
Oh I hither, come hither and furl your sails,
And 1weet shall your welcome be.”

Paradise in the Pacific is well-written and easy to read with many interesting observations. If you are visiting Hawaii you will be well prepared to understand a part the islands’ history, but keep in mind that this was written at another time. Download the free PDF e-book here:

Paradise in the Pacific