THE MOTIVE OF CONQUEST
A different force, but one which has at all times been effective, is that of war or conquest. To the explorer enrichment of experience, not increase of possessions, is the aim; he does not care to whom the world belongs if only he may be free to travel therein. The conqueror, however, demands possession, and the lust for it and for revenge has, in the case of savage and civilized alike, led men into distant lands and among strange people. From the Iroquois who, sometimes alone, sometimes in company with a handful of others, went from the Hudson a thousand miles westward to the Mississippi to strike a blow at the hated Sioux, to Attila and the other leaders of those hordes which poured their thousands into mediæval Europe from the farthest East; from Alexander and his conquest of most of the old world to Cortez and Pizarro and their conquest of much of the new, in varying degree and at different times war has made of the conqueror a traveler. To such as these it is not the beauty but the wealth of a country that makes it desirable, and interest in its people lies more in their exploitation than in any other field.