Discoverers and Explorers | Page 3

shores and fragrant vines. This country he called Vinland because of the abundance of wild grapes. When he returned to Greenland, he took a load of timber back with him.
[Illustration: Eric the Red in Vinland.]
Some of the people of Greenland had tried to make a settlement along this shore which Leif discovered, but it is thought that the Indians drove them away. It may now be said of this settlement that no trace of it has ever been found, although the report that the Norsemen paid many visits to the shore of North America is undoubtedly true.
Another bold sea rover of Portugal sailed four hundred miles from land, where he picked up a strangely carved paddle and several pieces of wood of a sort not to be found in Europe.
St. Brandon, an Irish priest, was driven in a storm far, far to the west, and landed upon the shore of a strange country, inhabited by a race of people different from any he had ever seen.
All this time the bold Portuguese sailors were venturing farther and farther down the coast of Africa. They hoped to be able to sail around that continent and up the other side to India. But they dared not go beyond the equator, because they did not know the stars in the southern hemisphere and therefore had no guide. They also believed that beyond the equator there was a frightful region of intense heat, where the sun scorched the earth and where the waters boiled.
Many marvelous stories were told about the islands which the sailors said they saw in the distance. Scarcely a vessel returned from a voyage without some new story of signs of land seen by the crew.
The people who lived on the Canary Islands said that an island with high mountains on it could be seen to the west on clear days, but no one ever found it.
Some thought these islands existed only in the imagination of the sailors. Others thought they were floating islands, as they were seen in many different places. Every one was anxious to find them, for they were said to be rich in gold and spices.
You can easily understand how excited many people were in regard to new lands, and how they wished to find out whether the earth was round or not. There was but one way to find out, and that was to try to sail around it.
For a long time no one was brave enough to venture to do so. To start out and sail away from land on this unknown water was to the people of that day as dangerous and foolhardy a journey as to try to cross the ocean in a balloon is to us at the present time.

MARCO POLO.
In the middle of the thirteenth century, about two hundred years before the time of Columbus, a boy named Marco Polo lived in the city of Venice.
[Illustration: Marco Polo.]
Marco Polo belonged to a rich and noble family, and had all the advantages of study that the city afforded. He studied at one of the finest schools in the city of Venice. This city was then famous for its schools, and was the seat of culture and learning for the known world.
When Marco Polo started for school in the morning, he did not step out into a street, as you do. Instead, he stepped from his front doorstep into a boat called a gondola; for Venice is built upon a cluster of small islands, and the streets are water ways and are called canals.
The gondolier, as the man who rows the gondola is called, took Marco wherever he wished to go. Sometimes, as they glided along, the gondolier would sing old Venetian songs; and as Marco Polo lay back against the soft cushions and listened and looked about him, he wondered if anywhere else on earth there was so beautiful a city as Venice. For the sky was very blue, and often its color was reflected in the water; the buildings were graceful and beautiful, the sun was warm and bright, and the air was balmy.
[Illustration: A Scene in Venice.]
In this delightful city Marco Polo lived until he was seventeen years of age. About this time, his father, who owned a large commercial house in Constantinople, told Marco that he might go with him on a long journey to Eastern countries. The boy was very glad to go, and set out with his father and his uncle, who were anxious to trade and gain more wealth in the East. This was in the year 1271.
The three Polos traveled across Persia into China, and across the Desert of Gobi to the northwest, where they found the great ruler, Kublai Khan. This monarch was a kind-hearted and able man. He wanted to help his subjects to