To
my expression of mild wonderment that he should tax his time and
energies to such an extent without pecuniary gain, he replied:
"My dear sir, you are a traveller. You have sailed the seas and crossed
the mighty main; you have dashed over mountains, and sweltered 'mid
tropical suns on sandy desert-wastes. To you our Rockies are
mole-hills--our great lakes mere ponds. You are not a child to cry out
in the darkness. Granted. Yet, sir, let us by a stretch of fancy imagine
ourselves in the place of Columbus, on the third day of August, 1492. We
are about to leave the Known, in search of the Unknown--about to
penetrate for the first time that vast expanse of water which for
uncounted ages has stretched away before the wondering vision and
baffled research of Europe. We are not leaving the world--we are not
alone. Yet is it not a solace that a few friends gather on the shore to
say good-by? The sympathy of the kind, the well-wishes of the brave--are
they not always a comfort? This poor fellow Peters, whose lowly home we
are now approaching, is alone--he is about to start on his last journey,
alone. The land to which he perhaps this day begins that journey is not
only unknown, but unknowable to us in our present state.
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