From that far port the first cargo carried of sails was sent out, bound
for the shore on which the _Griffin's_ timbers had been hewn. That it
never reached harbor of that calm shelter, or any other, we know; but that
loss, once the path was traced in the waters, is hardly of consequence
save as it helped further to illustrate the indomitable spirit of La Salle
and his companions.
What good came to Thessaly or Greece of the yellow peltry that Jason
brought back is not even kept in myth or fable. The mere adventure was the
all. They did not even think of its worth. The goatskin was valueless
except as a proof or token, and the boat _Argo_, though the greatest ship
known to the early myths of Greece, and though dedicated, we are told, to
Neptune at the end of the voyage, became the pioneer of no such mighty
fleet as did the _Griffin_. The list of the Greek ships and commanders in
the Iliad offers but a pygmy analogy. And if you were to go to Buffalo to-
day, near the site of that first shipyard (a little farther away from the
falls), you would know that the successors of La Salle in new _Griffins_
had actually brought back the golden fleece--the priceless fleece, the
fleece of the plains if not of the forests.
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