> > > As famous as the Sandwich Islands are, I have been unable to find them on the map.
> > > Howard
> >
> > Yeah. That can be tough, Howard. Would it help if I told you where they were in relation to other well-known places, like maybe Cathay, Van Diemen's Land, the USSR, or New Amsterdam? ;-)
> >
> > Brunnen-"exactly how old is your atlas?"G
>
> About halfway between New Amsterdam and Cathay, I guess. I wonder if the Earl of Sandwich is at home? Howard

I wonder why the old names always sound so much cooler. I guess it's because they're more exotic. "Cathay" always has that sound to it - you just don't know WHAT might be in a country like that. Adventure. Dragons. More-than-Oriental-splendour. Some modern place names have that aura around them, too, in defiance of all known facts about the place. Samarkand and Istanbul are the ones for me. Deep down, I know those cities are somehow still full of ivory and apes and peacocks, and wizards doing magic in the streets.

I can really identify with the problem John Steinbeck described in "Travels with Charley". He wrote that Fargo, North Dakota, had always been a place name that had those connotations for him. "Fargo to me is brother to the fabulous places of the earth, kin to those magically remote spots mentioned by Herodotus and Marco Polo and Mandeville." Then, he drove through it on his way somewhere, and found it was no different from any other town in the region.

And what happened next? On leaving, he writes, "I found with joy that the fact of Fargo had in no way disturbed my mind's picture of it. I could still think of Fargo as I always had - blizzard-riven, heat-blasted, dust-raddled. I am happy to report that in the war between reality and romance, reality is not the stronger."

Brunnen-"thank goodness for that"G