CHAPTER 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 in- 

 terest 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 

 naturalist 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 inter- 

 est that he had not anticipated. And much -more 

 does the romance of the unknown prevail to the 

 natural history collector in a new and unexplored 

 country. It has been my lot to pursue various 

 branches of zoology, in regions where the produc- 

 tions were to science largely, to myself wholly, 

 unknown. In a rich tropical island, such as 

 Jamaica, where nature is prodigal in variety and 

 256 



