Here be Dragons

Exploration has always been associated with the unknown and possibly dangerous, and here be dragons was a traditional indication by early map-makers that a region was unexplored and might hold terrors. In the 18^th century, Jonathan Swift wrote of geographers who, drawing maps of Africa, "o'er unhabitable downs Place elephants for want of towns." In the 20^th century, the explorer Apsley Cherry-Garrard commented, "Polar exploration is at once the cleanest and most isolated way of having a bad time that has been devised." Captain Scott's last diary said simply, of the South Pole: "Great God! this is an awful place."

There have always been voices to warn against discovery. Disraeli regretted Anson's circumnavigation of the globe, on the grounds that "the illimitable was annihilated", and a fatal blow dealt to the imagination. The American artist Mary Cassatt wondered, "Why do people so love to wander? I think the civilized parts of the world will suffice for me in future." Admiral Fisher could not see the point at all: "What on earth good accrues from going to the North and South Poles...no one is going there when they can go to Monte Carlo!"

Nevertheless, the unknown has always beckoned. Flecker's pilgrims on the road the Samarkand asserted, "We shall go Always a little further...beyond that last blue mountain." And the voice of the 16^th century merchant and writer Robert Thorne still speaks strongly across the centuries for exploration: "There is no land unhabitable nor sea innavigable."

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