, if any one would provide
him with ships.

[Illustration: Christopher Columbus.]

People jeered and scoffed.

"If the earth is a sphere," they said, "in order to sail round it you
must sail uphill! Who ever heard of a ship sailing uphill?"

But this man, whose name was Christopher Columbus, remained firm in
his belief.

When a boy, Columbus had listened eagerly to the stories the sailors
told about strange lands and wonderful islands beyond the water. He
was in the habit of sitting on the wharves and watching the ships.
Often he would say, "I wish, oh, how I wish I could be a sailor!"

At last his father, who was a wool comber, said to him, "My son, if
you really wish to become a sailor, I will send you to a school where
you will be taught navigation."

Columbus was delighted at this, and told his father that he would study
diligently. He was sent to the University of Pavia, where he learned
all the geography that was then known, as well as how to draw maps
and charts. He became a skillful penman, and also studied astronomy,
geometry, and Latin.

But he did not spend a long time at his studies, for at the age of
fourteen he went to sea. What he had learned, however, gave him an
excellent groundwork, and from this time forward he made use of every
opportunity to inform himself and to become a scholarly man.

His first voyage was made with a distant relative, who was an
adventurous and daring man, and who was ever ready to fight with any
one with whom he could pick a quarrel. In course of time Columbus
commanded a ship of his own, and became known as a bold and daring
navigator. He made a voyage along the coast of Africa as far south
as Guinea, and afterwards sailed northward to Iceland.

At an early day he became familiar with the wildest kind of adventure,
for at this time sea life on the Mediterranean was little more than
a series of fights with pirates. Some say that during one of these
conflicts Columbus's ship caught fire. In order to save his life, he
jumped into the water and swam six miles to shore, reaching the coast
of Portugal. Others say that he was attracted to that country by the
great school of navigation which Prince Henry had established. However
that may be, he appeared at Lisbon at the age of thirty-five, filled
with the idea of sailing westward to reach those rich Eastern countries
in which every one was so much interested.

He was laughed at for expressing such an idea. It is not pleas