STEEP TRAILS 



remain undiscovered while one exploring ex- 

 pedition after another sailed past seems re- 

 markable, even after due allowance is made 

 for the cloudy weather that prevails here- 

 abouts and the broad fence of breakers drawn 

 across the bar. During the last few centuries, 

 when the maps of the world were in great part 

 blank, the search for new worlds was a fash- 

 ionable business, and when such large game 

 was no longer to be found, islands lying un- 

 claimed in the great oceans, inhabited by use- 

 ful and profitable people to be converted or 

 enslaved, became attractive objects; also new 

 ways to India, seas, straits. El Dorados, 

 fountains of youth, and rivers that flowed over 

 golden sands. 



Those early explorers and adventurers were 

 mostly brave, enterprising, and, after their 

 fashion, pious men. In their clumsy sailing- 

 vessels they dared to go where no chart or 

 lighthouse showed the way, where the set of 

 the currents, the location of sunken outlying 

 rocks and shoals, were all unknown, facing 

 fate and weather, undaunted however dark 

 the signs, heaving the lead and thrashing the 

 men to their duty and trusting to Providence. 

 When a new shore was found on which they 

 could land, they said their prayers with su- 

 perb audacity, fought the natives if they cared 



330 



