Unnamed Circumnavigators

In "A Name for the City" Gavin Stevens refers to the "world travelers" who made history by circumnavigating the globe, from the first ones, who did it in "three years" (he is referring to Magellan's voyage in a sailing ship, 1519-1522), to the ones who did it in "ninety hours" (he is referring to the crew of the US Air Force B-50 bomber who made the trip in 1949); Gavin wrongly adds that "now" - when the story was published, presumably - the feat has been accomplished in "thirty hours" (200). Stevens refers to these "tense and furious circumnavigators" a bit dismissively, to set up a comparison with the poet Homer, who exemplifies the more impressive capacity of the human heart to "plumb and chart the ultimate frontiers" while remaining in one place (200).