Today we read the next four chapters so that we could free up some time to look at Steam Punk on day 5.
Chapter 7: Which Once More Demonstrates the Uselessness of Passports as Aids to Detectives
Phileas Fogg gets his passport Visaed in Suez and manages to avoid getting arrested by Fix, who doesn’t yet have the warrant required to make the arrest
Chapter 8: In Which Passepartout Talks Rather More, Perhaps, Than is Prudent
Fix and Passepartout talk about Phileas Fogg and Passepartout wonders aloud whether Fogg does have another reason for travelling around the world other than a simple bet. This feeds Fix’s belief that Fogg is his man.
Chapter 9: In Which the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean Prove Propitious to the Designs of Phileas Fogg
Fogg gains two days because of favourable weather conditions propelling the Mongolia to arrive on the 20th rather than the 22nd.
Chapter 10: In Which Passepartout is Only too Glad to Get off With the Loss of His Shoes
Once in Bombay, Passepartout, whilst buying supplies for himself and his master, wanders into a Zoroaster Temple. The parsees chase him out but he loses his shoes and returns to Fogg without them. This type of desecration and lack of respect for the religions of India is against the law and gives Fix a reason for holding them on Indian soil.
The children created a few more pages of their scrapbook:
And they researched the following:
Route: Brindisi to Bombay
The next leg of Fogg, Passepartout and Fix’s journey was down the Red Sea and across the Arabian sea to Bombay, a tiny island off the India main land. I had the children map out their route first from Brindisi and second from London to show their entire journey so far, along with a drawing of the Mongolia:
Mocha
As the Mongolia sailed down the Red Sea it passed Mocha, a Yeoman town, on its left. Its name kind of gives it away, but back in the 19th century Mocha grew coffee trees on terraced hills. I found some lovely old photos of Mocha coffee terraces, and Mocha port:
as well as some pictures of a mocha coffee tree:
We drink lots of Mocha in this house, so we had a celebratory third cup 🙂
The Bab-el-mandab Strait
In order to sail into the Arabian sea, the Mongolia needed to sail through the Bab-el-mandab strait. This is a strategic strait situated between Africa and the Arabian Peninsula at the opening of the Red Sea into the Gulf of Aden (which took the steamer into the Arabian Sea). It is 17 miles wide and 20 miles long, with two channels:
Steamer Point, Aden
Steamer Point, in Aden, is the port in which the steamers stopped to restock their coal supplies for the longer journey across the Arabian sea to India:
Bombay, India
The Steamer then made its way to Bombay. We found a heap of old postcards with images from 1880 on them (very close to the 1872 of Fogg’s journey). I was very interested to find out Bombay (now Mumbay) was an Island! I didn’t know that! Just for fun and my own interest, I found a very detailed map which gave lots of details about Bombay. We loved making this page!
East India Trading Company
A company initially set up for the British to trade with the East Indies, it ended up accounting for half of the world’s trade, focusing on cotton, silk, indigo dye, salt, salt petre, tea and opium from the Indian subcontinent and Qing China. The company also ruled the beginnings of the British Empire in India in 1757 until 1858 when the new British Raj took over. The company was disolved just two years after Phileas Fogg’s circumnavigation around the world.
We simply created a fun scrap page based on the East India Trade Company, including their flag:
The Zoroaster Religion
The children will be learning more about the religions of India during our short three day unit study we will be doing as Fogg and Passepartout make their way across India from Bombay to Calcutta. For now though, we printed out lots of pictures which looked interesting about the Zoroaster faith:
Tomorrow I will posting about our work so far on Steam Punk and on Wednesday I’ll be showing you our newly cleared out and decorated bathroom which we have all been working on during our 80 Hours Around the House Project 🙂
Remodeling and a book study!?! You have a busy house 🙂
This is just fantastic, Claire. I take it this is an all-day study? You may have mentioned the how-to, but my brain doesn’t seem to remember.
80 hours around the house! That sounds like a “fun” (sometimes, and sometimes want to pull your hair out) idea.
Oh, and I was going to ask, are those actually the chapter titles?
Yes, they are!