Page 79 - The Interest of America in Sea Power Present and Future

6o The Isthmus and Sea Power.

its breast the rich island of Zipangu. Hith-
erto an envious waste of land, entailing years
of toilsome and hazardous journey, had barred
them asunder. A rare traveller now and again
might penetrate from one to the other, but
it was impossible to maintain by land the con-
stant exchange of influence and benefit which,
though on a contracted scale, had constituted
the advantage and promoted the development
of the Mediterranean peoples. The micro-
cosm of the land-girt sea typified then
that future greater family of nations, which
one by one have been bound since into a
common tie of interest by the broad enfold-
ing ocean, that severs only to knit them more
closelv together. So with a seers eve, albeit
as in a glass darkly, saw Columbus, and was
persuaded, and embraced the assurance. As
the bold adventurer, walking by faith and not
by sight, launched his tiny squadron upon its
voyage, making the first step in the great
progress which was to be, and still is not
completed, he little dreamed that the mere
incident of stumbling upon an unknown re-
gion that lay across his route should be with
posterity his chief title to fame, obscuring the