From the peninsula of Malacca my
boots carried me to Sumatra, Java, Bali and Lamboc. I attempted often
with danger, and always in vain, a northwest passage over the lesser
islet and rocks with which this sea is studded, to Borneo and the
other islands of this Archipelago. I was compelled to abandon the
hope. At length I seated myself on the extreme portion of Lamboc, and
gazing toward the south and east, wept, as at the fast closed bars
of my prison, that I had so soon discovered my limits. New Holland so
extraordinary and so essentially necessary to the comprehension of the
earth and its sun-woven garment, the vegetable and the animal world,
with the South Sea and its Zoophyte islands, was interdicted to me,
and thus, at the very outset, all that I should gather and build up
was destined to remain a mere fragment! Oh, my Adelbert, what, after
all, are the endeavors of men!
Often did I in the severest winter of the southern hemisphere,
endeavor, passing the polar glaciers westward, to leave behind me
those two hundred strides out from Cape Horn, which sundered me
probably from Van Diemen's Land and New Holland, regardless of my
return or whether this dismal region should close upon me as my
coffin-lid--making desperate leaps from ice-drift to ice-drift, and
bidding defiance to the cold and the sea. In vain! I never reached New
Holland, but, every time, I came back to Lamboc, seated myself on its
farthest peak, and wept again, with my face turned toward the south
and east, as at the fast closed bars of my prison.
Pages:
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499