Symzonia: Voyage of Discovery

After a few hours the clouds dispersed, and the reflected light became sufficiently strong to enable us to see dangers several miles, but not to admit of a clear distant view. We therefore drew slowly in with the land, to be ready to run in to the nearest harbour during the next interval of sunshine. When near the shore, we again hove to with the ship's head off shore. With my night glass I could discern buildings and moving objects on the land, which assured me that the country was inhabited. I walked the deck with impatient yet pleasing anxiety. I was about to reach the goal of all my wishes; to open an intercourse with a new world and with an unknown people; to unfold to the vain mortals of the external world new causes for admiration at the infinite diversity and excellence of the works of an inscrutable Deity; to give to them fresh motives for adoration, and hopes of continued advancement in discovering the infinite works of God. My imagination became fired with enthusiasm, and my heart elated with pride. I was about to secure to my name a conspicuous and imperishable place on the tablets of History, and a niche of the first order in the temple of Fame. I moved like one who trod on air; for whose achievements had equalled mine? The voyage of Columbus was but an excursion on a fish pond, and his discoveries, compared with mine, were but trifles; a summer sea and a strip of land, where common sense must have convinced any man of ordinary capacity that there must be land, unless Providence were in that one instance more wasteful of its works than in all its other doings. His was the discovery of a continent, mine of a new World!