Take time to look around at the dawning light that casts lovely shadows on the rock and the gnarly kiawe (a relative of mesquite) trees that line the dry canyon walls.

Falling in with a shoal of porpoises the vessel should be prepared with coops manufactured of copper wire, or other substance of great elasticity and strength; these coops to be lowered by blocks and pulleys in every direction round the vessel, and to be in the same manner hoisted when entered by the fish.

[…] the old man, who had never before known the quailings of fear, was loath in such a tremendous gale to rush, as he considered on certain death.

Even without hovering drones, a lurking assassin, a thumping score and a denouement, the real-life story of Edward Snowden, a rogue spy on the run, could be straight out of the cinema. But, as with Hollywood, the subplots and exotic locations may distract from the real message: America’s discomfort and its foes’ glee.