The Potala at Lhasa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 513 From KIRCHER'S _China Illustrata_. Dr. Nansen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 525 After a Photograph. The Ship that went Farthest North: the _Fram_ . . . . . . . . . . 527 From a Photograph. A BOOK OF DISCOVERY CHAPTER I A LITTLE OLD WORLD No story is complete unless it begins at the very beginning. But where is the beginning? Where is the dawn of geography--the knowledge of our earth? What was it like before the first explorers made their way into distant lands? Every day that passes we are gaining fresh knowledge of the dim and silent past. Every day men are patiently digging in the old heaps that were once the sites of busy cities, and, as a result of their unwearying toil, they are revealing to us the life-stories of those who dwelt therein; they are disclosing secrets writ on weather-worn stones and tablets, bricks and cylinders, never before even guessed at. Thus we read the wondrous story of ancient days, and breathlessly wonder what marvellous discovery will thrill us next. For the earliest account of the old world--a world made up apparently of a little land and a little water--we turn to an old papyrus, the oldest in existence, which tells us in familiar words, unsurpassed for their exquisite poetry and wondrous simplicity, of that great dateless time so full of mystery and awe. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was waste and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep: and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.... And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God ... divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament.... And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear.... And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas." Thus beautifully did the children of men express their earliest idea of the world's distribution of land and water. And where, on our modern maps, was this little earth, and what was it like? Did trees and flowers cover the land? Did rivers flow into the sea? Listen again to the old tradition that still rings down the ages-- "And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden ... and a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became four heads. The name of the first is Pison ... and the name of the second river is Gihon; the name of the third river is Hiddekel (Tigris). And the fourth river is Euphrates." [Illustration: THE GARDEN OF EDEN WITH ITS FOUR RIVERS. From the Hereford Map of the World.]