I learned about Chinese ceramics and African sculptures, I aired my scanty knowledge of the French Impressionists, and I prospered.

'I will go to France, to Yugoslavia, to China, and continue my profession.' 'As sanitary engineer?' 'No, Monsieur. As adventurer. I will see all the peoples and all the countries of the world.'

I climbed a path and from the top looked up-stream towards Chile. I could see the river, glinting and sliding through the bone-white cliffs with strips of emerald cultivation either side. Away from the cliffs was the desert. There was no sound but the wind, whirring through thorns and whistling through dead grass, and no other sign of life but a hawk, and a black beetle easing over white stones.

It's an old sailor's idea that every ship has a rope with one end made fast to her bows and the other held by the loved ones at home.

Even today, when an Aboriginal mother notices the first stirrings of speech in her child, she lets it handle the "things" of that particular country: leaves, fruit, insects and so forth. "We give our children guns and computer games," Wendy said. "They gave their children the land."

Walking is a virtue, tourism is a deadly sin.

As you go along, you literally collect places. I'm fed up with going to places; I shan't go to anymore.