found: African American National Biography, accessed via The Oxford African American Studies Center online database, July 27, 2014:(Harrison, Juanita; writer, traveler; born 1890 in Mississippi, United States; at age sixteen left the South, traveling as far north as Canada and even making her way deeper south to Cuba, where she learned Spanish and French; became a member of YMCA; on 25 June 1927 boarded the SS Sierra Ventana in New York, travels throughout Europe, the Middle East, the Far East, North Africa, and Asia; easily passed as European, Asian, and even Arab; eight years and twenty-two countries later, returned to the United States, settling in Honolulu, Hawaii; with the help of Mildred Morris she compiled her letters and diary entries into the book My great wide beautiful world. Atlantic Monthly published two advance installments in 1935; Macmillan released the book in 1936)