XI. 



THE UNKNOWN. 



LETOUILLANT tells us, in his " Travels in the East/' that 

 whenever he arrived at an eminence, whence he could 

 behold a distant mountain range, he felt an irrepressible 

 desire to reach it ; an unreasoning persuasion that it would 

 afford something more interesting, more delightful, than 

 anything which he had yet attained. The charm lay here, 

 that it was unknown: the imagination can people the 

 unexplored with whatever forms of beauty or interest it 

 pleases ; and it does delight to throw a halo round it, the 

 halo of hope. 



" 'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view, 

 And clothes the mountain in its azure hue." 



One of the greatest pleasures of the out-of-door natu- 

 ralist depends upon this principle. There is so great 

 variety in the objects which he pursues, and so much 

 uncertainty in their presence at any given time and place, 

 that hope is ever on the stretch. He makes his excursions 

 not knowing what he may meet with ; and, if disappointed 

 of what he had pictured to himself, he is pretty sure to be 

 surprised with something or other of interest that he had 

 not anticipated. And much more does the romance of the 

 unknown prevail to the natural history collector in a new 



