Time glided by, and man advanced in his acquaintance with Land and Sea; but with the latter slowly. It was not until five centuries ago--and five centuries are but as a day, compared with the full stretch of history--that two weighty steps were taken. One step was southward. One step was westward. The African Continent, all along its northern region, had been the scene of very old-world history. But the south was shrouded in darkness. A brief glimmer of light, perhaps thrown there in Phenician days, had been long long lost sight of. In the year A.D. 1486, a far leap from Phenician and Grecian days, Bartholomew Diaz made discovery of the Cape of Good Hope, and one year later Vasco da Gama sailed round it. These two explorers were only a little in advance of two greater voyagers. In 1492 Christopher Columbus started on his first cruise into the unknown West--and touched Land. Less than thirty years later, Magellan’s famous voyage was accomplished to those Straits, between Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego, which bear his name. By that time the existence of the American Continent had become an established fact. But that Continent had to be searched out. And the Ocean, though its limits were widened in men’s imaginations, was very far from being mapped and fenced around with definite boundaries. Years of exploration still lay ahead; and many a valiant explorer had to fall a martyr in the cause of Science, before mystery should yield to knowledge. Doubtless, in those days as in these, there was always somebody to ask, “But what is the use? What good can it do to us to learn that there are lands beyond the sea? What shall we gain by it all?” Time alone, with its developments, with the growth of the human race, with the enormous possibilities then undreamt-of, could answer such questionings. Happily, brave explorers have seldom been lacking, who loving knowledge for its own sake have been content to labour patiently, not for money, not for fame, not for immediate results, but for the simple delight of better understanding the world around them, and for the benefit of future generations. And indeed, if once we begin clearly to realise that the things which we see and hear, the wonders of Land and Ocean, are the outcome and expression of Divine Thought, we shall scarcely deem time wasted, which is spent in trying to find out a little more about those wonders. CHAPTER II. SALT WATER “The new sight, the new wondrous sight, The waters around me turbulent.” E. B. BROWNING. “Water, water, everywhere, And not a drop to drink.”--S. T. COLERIDGE.