9i 
THE QUEST FOR THE WILD HORSE. 
The sustaining hope of the discoverer of the un- 
known is seldom wholly vague or visionary. No 
man, as a rule, breaks into a new world by accident or 
hap-hazard. New worlds, or lands, or men, or beasts, 
have lived in the imagination, and been foreshadowed 
and foretold by a hundred minute and subtle in- 
ductions, grouping themselves round the central idea 
in minds so set on finding what they felt was to be 
found, that in the end their quest was gained, and they 
have been able to tell the world that what they felt 
must exist, did exist, and was found. Even though 
the nominal object of his search be prosaic and 
matter-of-fact, the explorer generally cherishes some 
dear ideal, some side-issue, some pet project of his 
own in the realm of discovery, which his efforts shall 
bring to light, and which will realize some reasoned 
result of his own sagacity and foresight. When 
Pythias, the first navigator of the Northern seas, was 
sent on a “ commercial mission ” by the colonists of 
Marseilles to find the tin-islands, he performed the 
practical part of his mission with all good faith and 
