History of the United States, Volume 1 | Page 8

carry the Gospel to those
opulent heathen and partake their unbounded temporal riches in return.
Poor specimen of a saint as Columbus is now known to have been, he
believed himself divinely called to this grand enterprise.
Christopher Columbus, or Christobal Colon, as he always signed
himself after he entered the service of Spain, was born in Genoa about
1456. Little is certainly known of his early life. His father was a
humble wool-carder. The youth possessed but a sorry education, spite
of his few months at the University of Pavia. At the age of fourteen he
became a sailor, knocking about the world in the roughest manner, half
the time practically a pirate. In an all-day's sea fight, once, his ship took
fire and he had to leap overboard; but being a strong swimmer he swam,
aided by an oar, eight leagues to land.

[1470]
From 1470 to 1484 we find him in Portugal, the country most
interested and engaged then in ocean-going and discovery. Here he
must have known Martin Behem, author of the famous globe, finished
in 1492, whereon Asia is exhibited as reaching far into the same
hemisphere with Europe. Prince Henry of Portugal earnestly patronized
all schemes for exploration and discovery, and the daughter, Philippa,
of one of his captains, Perestrello, Columbus married. With her he lived
at Porto Santo in the Madeiras, where he became familiar with Correo,
her sister's husband, also a distinguished navigator. The islanders fully
believed in the existence of lands in the western Atlantic. West winds
had brought to them strange woods curiously carved, huge cane-brakes
like those of India described by Ptolemy, peculiarly fashioned canoes,
and corpses with skin of a hue unknown to Europe or Africa.
[Illustration: Prince Henry of Portugal--"The Navigator." From an old
print.]
[1475-1484]
Reflecting on these things, studying Perestrello's and Correo's charts
and accounts of their voyages, corresponding with Toscanelli and other
savans, himself an adept in drawing maps and sea-charts, for a time his
occupation in Lisbon, cruising here and there, once far northward to
Iceland, and talking with navigators from every Atlantic port,
Columbus became acquainted with the best geographical science of his
time.
This had convinced him that India could be reached by sailing
westward. The theoretical possibility of so doing was of course
admitted by all who held the earth to be a sphere, but most regarded it
practically impossible, in the then condition of navigation, to sail the
necessary distance. Columbus considered the earth far smaller than was
usually thought, a belief which we find hinted at so early as 1447, upon
the famous mappe-Monde of the Pitti Palace in Florence, whereon
Europe appears projected far round to the northwest. Columbus seems
to have viewed this extension as a sort of yoke joining India to

Scandinavia by the north. He judged that Asia, or at least Cipango,
stretched two-thirds of the way to Europe, India being twice as near
westward as eastward. Thirty or forty days he deemed sufficient for
making it. Toscanelli and Behem as well as he held this belief; he dared
boldly to act upon it.
[Illustration: Queen Isabella of Spain.]
But to do so required resources. There are indications that Columbus at
some time, perhaps more than once, urged his scheme upon Genoa and
Venice. If so it was in vain. Nor can we tell whether such an attempt, if
made, was earlier or later than his plea before the court of Portugal, for
this cannot be dated. The latter was probably in 1484. King John II.
was impressed, and referred Columbus's scheme to a council of his
wisest advisers, who denounced it as visionary. Hence in 1485 or 1486
Columbus proceeded to Spain to lay his project before Ferdinand and
Isabella.
On the way he stopped at a Franciscan convent near Palos, begging
bread for himself and son. The Superior, Marchena, became interested
in him, and so did one of the Pinzons--famous navigators of Palos. The
king and queen were at the time holding court at Cordova, and thither
Columbus went, fortified with a recommendation from Marchena. The
monarchs were engrossed in the final conquest of Granada, and
Columbus had to wait through six weary and heart-sickening years
before royal attention was turned to his cause. It must have been during
this delay that he despatched his brother Bartholomew to England with
an appeal to Henry VII. Christopher had brought Alexander Geraldinus,
the scholar, and also the Archbishop of Toledo, to espouse his mission,
and finally, at the latter's instance, Ferdinand, as John of Portugal had
done, went so far as to convene, at Salamanca, a council of reputed
scholars to pass judgment upon Columbus and his proposition. By
these, as by the Portuguese, he was declared a misguided enthusiast.
They were too much behind the