A Book of Discovery
The History of the World's Exploration From the Earliest Times to the Finding of the South Pole
9781465544728
pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
Hope went before them, and the world was wide. Such was the spirit in which the exploration of the world was accomplished. It was the inspiration that carried men of old far beyond the sunrise into those magic and silent seas whereon no boat had ever sailed. It is the incentive of those to-day with the wander-thirst in their souls, who travel and suffer in the travelling, though there are fewer prizes left to win. But The reward is in the doing, And the rapture of pursuing Is the prize. To travel hopefully, says Stevenson, is a better thing than to arrive. This would explain the fact that this Book of Discovery has become a record of splendid endurance, of hardships bravely borne, of silent toil, of courage and resolution unequalled in the annals of mankind, of self-sacrifice unrivalled and faithful lives laid ungrudgingly down. Of the many who went forth, the few only attained. It is of these few that this book tells
