me time before 1484 a
proposal to find Marco Polo's Cipangu by a few weeks' sail west, from
the Azores, he was treated as a dreamer. John, as Henry's disciple and
successor, was, like other disciples, narrower than his master in the
master's own way.

He was ready for any expense and trouble, but no novelty. He would only
go on as he had been taught. He had reason to be confident, and his
scientific Junto of four, Martin Behaim of Nuremburg among them, to whom
Columbus was referred, were too much elated with their new improvements
in the astrolabe, and the now assured confidence that the Southern Cape
would soon be passed. They could not endure with patience the vehement
dogmatism of an unknown theorist.

But as he was too full of his message to be easily shaken off, he was
treated with the basest trickery. At the suggestion of the Bishop of
Ceuta, Columbus was kept waiting for his answer, and asked to furnish
his plans in detail with charts and illustrations. He did so, and while
the Council pretended to be poring over these for a final decision, a
caravel was sent to the Cape Verde islands to try the route he had
suggested,--a trial with the pickings of Italian brains.

The Portuguese sailed westward for several days till the weather became
stormy; then, as their heart was not in the venture, they put back to
Europe with a fresh stock of the legends Henry had so heartily despised.
They had come to an impenetrable mist, which had stopped their progress;
apparitions had warned them back; the sea in those parts swarmed with
monsters; it became impossible to breathe.

[Illustration: MAP OF 1492. (SEE LIST OF MAPS)]

Columbus learned how he had been used, and his wife's death helped to
decide him, in his disgust for place and people. Towards the end of
1484, he left Lisbon. Three years later, when he had become fully as
much disgusted with the dilatory sloth and tricks of Spain, he offered
himself again to Portugal. King John had repented of his meanness; on
March 20, 1488, he wrote in answer to Columbus, eagerly offering on his
side to guarantee him against any suits that might be taken against him
in Lisbon. But the Court of Castille now became, in its turn, afraid of
quite losing what might be infinite advantage; Columbus was kept in the
service of Ferdinand and Isabella; and at last in August, 1492, the
"Catholic Kings" sent him out from Palos to discover what he could on
his own terms.

What followed, the disco