Transport and Travel
Traveled Far And Wide
Robert McCallum was an inveterate traveler with an insatiable curiosity. He traveled far and wide to all corners of the earth.
He made two round the world trips, in 1900 and 1911, and countless other journeys. He crossed the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic Oceans, the Tasman and Red Seas, and he traveled the Nile.
Travel Conditions
Traveling by sea in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was often arduous – voyages could take many weeks.
Travel especially during the earlier period, required the resilient and the tough. Conditions were sometimes poor and the seas and weather could make life miserable and dangerous.
Explored
We follow McCallum from Auckland to Sydney to Cairo, to Palestine, to Pompeii, Paris, London, and finally the Americas.
In every destination, he explored: He explored the women, traditional tourist attractions like the museums and galleries as well as numerous non-traditional sights. He visited:
- The Jew’s wailing place in Palestine
- Robert Louis Stevenson’s House in Tahiti
- Buckingham Palace in London
- 5th Avenue in New York
We witness him watching the girls smoking opium in Tahiti, marvel at the reefs and mountains, and see him peering through the ship window on the coast of Yemen, unable to land on account of the plague.
What Travel Was Like
Practicalities: We gain insight into the nitty-gritty of travel at the time: quarantines, customs processes, baggage handling (grip), and foreign exchange.
Ship life: We get an insider’s view of steamship life: The separate 1st 2nd and 3rd classes onboard, sleeping cabins, smoking rooms, and the wide variety of ship entertainment.
Passengers: McCallum regularly shares his opinions with fellow passengers. We also identify his mode of operation while onboard: carousing the ship deck for attractive girls or befriending gentlemen who appear interesting to “yarn” about world affairs or to learn something new.
Travel Sans Wife
Conspicuous by her absence was his wife. McCallum rarely traveled with her (except the one time on their honeymoon). On that voyage to Australia in 1905, she experienced terrible seasickness and was also unknowingly pregnant at the time – this may have put her off travel forever.
Instead, he preferred to travel solo. He was rarely alone though, he was extremely social and would inevitably meet up with fellowship passengers and travel with them.
His wife Hetty, would stay at home and mind the children. Even in later years, when the children were independent, she would remain home while he ventured offshore.
Inquiring Mind
McCallum interests were broad, he was equally intrigued by the notable and insignificant.
Beyond conventional sightseeing he would visit factories to see how things worked, tour processing plants to see how things were made.
He inspected the sewage systems and the slaughter yards. He studied brick making plants and asparagus farms, toured flax and soap mills, the mines and breweries, the ship and bicycle works.
He saw the fish drying in Chinatown, the Mormon tabernacle in Salt Lake and the Government printing office in Wellington.
Travel Costs Of The Time
We get an insight into the cost of travel via McCallum’s obsessive recordkeeping.
These include both big and small ticket items such as the cost of a boat journey from Colombo to Cairo, a train ride from New York to Niagara, the price of a hotel stay (diggings) in London, or how much he paid for a beer in Paris.
Quirky Observations
The diarist was also slightly eccentric. Zany comments pepper the diaries. For example, in addition to noting he attended a London concert, he opines “damn bad seats”.
He records his “best lunch yet in America-20c” and in sharing his thoughts on California he laments about the gophers and coyotes.
The result is not only a record of sights and places of interest but also a thoughtful and idiosyncratic collection of observations.