aravan.]

As time went on, these land journeys grew more difficult and more
dangerous, until the traders saw that the day would soon come when
they would be entirely cut off from traffic with India and the rich
Eastern countries. The Turks would secure all their profitable
business. So the men of that time tried to think of some other way
of reaching the East.

Among those who wished to find a short route to India was Prince Henry
of Portugal, a bold navigator as well as a studious and thoughtful
man. He was desirous of securing the rich Indian trade for his own
country. So he established a school for navigators at Lisbon, and
gathered around him many men who wanted to study about the sea.

Here they made maps and charts, and talked with one another about the
strange lands which they thought might be found far out in that
mysterious body of water which they so dreaded and feared. It is
probable that they had heard some accounts of the voyages of other
navigators on this wonderful sea, and the beliefs about land beyond.

There was Eric the Red, a bold navigator of Iceland, who had sailed
west to Greenland, and planted there a colony that grew and thrived.
There was also Eric's son Leif, a venturesome young viking who had
made a voyage south from Greenland, and reached a strange country with
wooded 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