The Flying Carpet

Book excerpt: THEY FLEW THROUGH THE AIR WITH GREATEST OF EASE Richard Halliburton can be counted on to lead his readers into strange places, into hilarious difficulties, into new appreciations of history and romance—and never to qualify his outrageous philosophy of reckless living with a single sober moral. The Flying Carpet is his latest, his most modern book—in which he takes us around the world by airplane. Timbuctoo, because it was far away and mysterious, was his first destination. From there, the author and his pilot-companion, Moye Stephens, follow a “royal road to romance” through the sky, dropping down on Fez, Morocco and the French Foreign Legion, The Holy Land, Galilee, Baghdad in mysterious Arabia, Persia, and India; flying over the world’s highest mountain, Mt. Everest, investigating Singapore, speeding to Borneo to visit the white Ranee whose husband rules half a million head hunters, and ending in Manila, making airplane records, enjoying unprecedented thrilling experiences, flying into remote places where airplanes had never been heard of before. These enviable adventures are told gaily and dramatically. Their footloose spirit, as free as the air through which the Flying Carpet sailed, will prove fatal to the contentment of those readers who have not yet achieved the realization of their own travel dreams.