¶ East is East Theme
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East is East Theme:
"Since I have become 64 years old have ships of the sea become obsolete as the most economical means of human travel about our three-quarters-water covered planet. When I was 15 years of age the quickest possible travel of humans or their letters from Boston, Massachusetts, USA. to Buenos Aires, Argentina was two months. (From Boston, New England to Portsmouth, England via HMS Oceanic from Southampton, England to Rio and Buenos Aires via HMS Don and return via HMS Magdalena, which were Kipling’s famous ‘great steamers white and gold’ that ‘go rolling down to Rio, roll down, roll down to Rio some day before I’m old.’)
In 1910 the quickest way humans could go from Boston, Massachusetts to Bombay, India took three months and three months to return. This is why all the English-speaking world accepted spontaneously Kipling’s poetical observation that ‘East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet.’"
