Excerpt from The History of Maritime and Inland Discovery, Vol. 1

Those who have once tasted the pleasure of roving at large through woods and mountains, can never after wards feel happy under the restraints of society. Curi osity and the love of action, no less than their wants, must have continually urged the earliest inhabitants of the globe to explore all the varieties of its surface. Pas toral tribes feel an interest in learning the nature of the country in the vicinity of their encampments, the extent of its pastures, and the rivers which flow through and refresh it. But the observations of a rude age are seldom accumulated beyond the wants of the present moment. The movements by which those nomades acquire the knowledge along with the possession of new regions, generally lead to a total forgetfulness of their old habita tions little correspondence is maintained by those who migrate with those who remain behind: so that in a short time the geographical knowledge of migratory nations is reduced to obscure and fading traditions. Wvhen men in the progress of their migrations reach the sea coast, the love of gain as well as of adventure soon impel them to launch upon the waves, and direct their course to distant countries. But the complicated art of navigation requires many ages to bring it to per fection. Science alone can give certainty to the observ ations of the mariner; and the discoveries of the early navigators were as perishable as they were vaguely de scribed. Besides, in proportion as the spirit of adven ture prevailed among the motives of the earliest expedi tions, a corresponding desire to indulge in exaggeration and romantic fiction disfigured all the relations which remain of them. 'vonder and credulity, however, are the natural characteristics of an early age, and we must not regard as wholly fabulous those accounts of anti guity, in which we find a few threads of consistent fact, interwoven with much that 18 absolutely incredible.

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