Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/254

204 such great work for it that it could not be what it is now but for them and those others who did like them, andyet who ever mentions or remembersthem now, or gives them a word of thanks? The great fathers of that colony are almost forgotten already, yet their names are really written for ever in the history of the land, and in far future ages countless people will with pride try to trace their descent from them, and they will be honoured as they are not now. The man who explores and makes known an unknown part of the world does work that lasts for ever, for all who come after reap the results. No man is a hero to his valet; but that is not because the man is not a hero, but because the valet is a valet. So in the same way those who belittle or disdain explorers are only showing what they are themselves—the “little ones” of the earth, incapable of understanding anything beyond the feeble vision of their feeble mind. We cannot all rise to the great heights, but we can honour those who do, or else we dishonour ourselves.

Here, though they never realise it, every man is in almost daily, even hourly, peril of losing his life. Many lives are always sacrificed to build up a new country; it has always been so, and always will be so. Few people realise it, least of all those who long after reap the benefit of it. Yet every trifle connected with a new land is of interest, and each name mentioned is that of an Empire-Builder. What would we not give to know more of those Saxons who drove the Romans from our shores—their names, what they did, what they saw, what they thought? What would we not give to know what race, if any, conquered the wild aborigines of Scotland, lived with them, bred with them, and made the race what it is?

No one cares at the time, but one hundred, five hundred, or one thousand years hence will they