Letter from Ann Arbor

Travelers’ Tales

Presumably nobody who lives in America can be quite aware of the extent to which a European, on his first visit, is liable to disbelieve the evidence of his senses. Travelers in Jules Verne tales invariably accept everything they see, but they are seldom accompanied by guides telling them even more incomprehensible and unbelievable lies. Flying over the Great Lakes, someone kindly told me how many thousands or millions of square miles they cover. I was suitably impressed, while immediately forgetting the actual figure quoted. But I could see at a glance that these lakes were very large indeed, perhaps comparable in size to our own Mediterranean—around which people have been living and excreting, to my certain knowledge, for six thousand years.

AW

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Auberon Waugh

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Travelers’ Tales

Presumably nobody who lives in America can be quite aware of the extent to which a European, on his first visit, is liable to disbelieve the evidence of his senses. Travelers in Jules Verne tales invariably accept everything they see, but they are seldom accompanied by guides telling them even more incomprehensible and unbelievable lies. Flying over the Great Lakes, someone kindly told me how many thousands or millions of square miles they cover. I was suitably impressed, while immediately forgetting the actual figure quoted. But I could see at a glance that these lakes were very large indeed, perhaps comparable in size to our own Mediterranean—around which people have been living and excreting, to my certain knowledge, for six thousand years.