Page:California Inter Pocula.djvu/133



CHAPTER VI.

THE VOYAGE  TO  CALIFORNIA— NEW  YORK  TO  CHAGRES.

Some set  out,  like  crusaders  of  old,  with  a  glorious  equipment  of  hope and enthusiasm,  and  get  broken  by  the  way,  wanting  patience  with  each other and  the  world. — Geonje Eiiot.

Everybody is  supposed  to  know,  though  everybody does not  know,  that  Phryxos  fled  from  the  wrath  of his  father  Athamas,  king  of  Orchomenus,  in  Boeotia, riding through  the  air  to  Colchis  upon  the  ram  with the golden  fleece,  which  was  the  gift  of  Hermes. The ram  was  then  sacrificed  to  Zeus,  and  the  fleece given to  King  ^tes,  who  hung  it  upon  a  sacred  oak in the  grove  of  Ares,  where  it  was  guarded  night  and day by  an  ever- watchful  dragon. Pelias, king  of lolcos,  in  Thessaly,  sent  Jason  his  half  brother  s  son, who claimed  the  sovereignty,  with  the  chief  heroes of Greece,  in  the  ship  Argo  to  fetch  the  golden  fleece. Jason obtained  the  fleece,  though  Pelias  had  hoped he should  have  been  destroyed. Of the  Argonauts there were  fifty  in  number,  and  among  them  Hercules, and the  singer  Orpheus,  Castor  and  Pollux,  Zetes  and Calais, Mopus,  Theseus,  and  others,  the  stories  con- cerning whose enterprise,  it  is  thought,  grew  out  of the  commercial  expeditions  of  the  Munyans  to  the coasts of  the  Euxine. Ulysses, returning  from  the seige of  Troy,  made  a  ten  year's  voyage,  being  driven about by  tempests,  during  which  time  he  underwent many strange  adventures. Other Mediterranean mythological voyages  there  were,  and  hypothetical navigations to  the  near  shores  and  islands  of  the Atlantic and   Indian  oceans;    folio wino-   which   were