s to
Constantinople and the ports of the Black Sea, where they took on board
the rich fabrics and spices which by boats and by caravans had come up
the valley of the Euphrates and the Tigris from the Persian Gulf. The
men of Venice, on the other hand, sent their vessels to Alexandria, and
carried on their trade with the East through the Red Sea.

[Illustration: Routes to India]

%3. New Routes wanted.%--Splendid as this trade was, however, it was
doomed to destruction. Slowly, but surely, the Turks thrust themselves
across the caravan routes, cutting off one by one the great feeders of
the Oriental trade, till, with the capture of Constantinople in 1453,
they destroyed the commercial career of Genoa. As their power was
spreading rapidly over Syria and toward Egypt, the prosperity of Venice,
in turn, was threatened. The day seemed near when all trade between the
Indies and Europe would be ended, and men began to ask if it were not
possible to find an ocean route to Asia.

Now, it happened that just at this time the Portuguese were hard at work
on the discovery of such a route, and were slowly pushing their way down
the western coast of Africa. But as league after league of that coast
was discovered, it was thought that the route to India by way of Africa
was too long for the purposes of commerce.[1] Then came the question, Is
there not a shorter route? and this Columbus tried to answer.

[Footnote 1: Read the account of Portuguese exploration in search of a
way to India, in Fiske's _Discovery of America_, Vol. I., pp. 274-334.]

%4. Columbus seeks the East and finds America.%[2]--Columbus was a
native of Genoa, in Italy. He began a seafaring life at fourteen, and in
the intervals between his voyages made maps and globes. As Portugal was
then the center of nautical enterprise, he wandered there about 1470,
and probably went on one or two voyages down the coast of Africa. In
1473 he married a Portuguese woman. Her father had been one of the King
of Portugal's famous navigators, and had left behind him at his death a
quantity of charts and notes; and it was while Columbus was studying
them that the idea of seeking the Indies by sailing due westward seems
to have first started in his mind. But many a year went by, and many a
hardship had to be borne, and many an insult patiently endured in
poverty and distress, before the Friday morning in August, 1492, when
his three caravels, the _Santa Maria_ (sahn'-tah mah-ree'-ah),