he sailed
away to the West he should find Cathay.

At that time there was an old man who lived in Florence, a city of
Italy. His name was Toscanelli. He was a great scholar and studied the
stars and made maps, and was a very wise man. Columbus knew what a wise
old scholar Toscanelli was, for Florence is not very far from Genoa. So
while he was living in the Azores he wrote to this old scholar asking
him what he thought about his idea that a man could sail around the
world until he reached the land called the Indies and at last found
Cathay.

Toscanelli wrote to Columbus saying that he believed his idea was the
right one, and he said it would be a grand thing to do, if Columbus
dared to try it. "Perhaps," he said, "you can find all those splendid
things that I know are in Cathay--the great cities with marble bridges,
the houses of marble covered with gold, the jewels and the spices and
the precious stones, and all the other wonderful and magnificent things.
I do not wonder you wish to try," he said, "for if you find Cathay it
will be a wonderful thing for you and for Portugal."

That settled it with Columbus. If this wise old scholar said he was
right, he must be right. So he left his home in the Azores and went to
Portugal. This was in 1475, and from that time on, for seventeen long
years he was trying to get some king or prince to help him sail to the
West to find Cathay.

But not one of the people who could have helped him, if they had really
wished to, believed in Columbus. As I told you, they said that he was
crazy. The king of Portugal, whose name was John, did a very unkind
thing--I am sure you would call it a mean trick. Columbus had gone to
him with his story and asked for ships and sailors. The king and his
chief men refused to help him; but King John said to himself, "Perhaps
there is something in this worth looking after and, if so, perhaps I can
have my own people find Cathay and save the money that Columbus will
want to keep for himself as his share of what he finds." So one day he
copied off the sailing directions that Columbus had left with him, and
gave them to one of his own captains without letting Columbus know
anything about it. The Portuguese captain sailed away to the West in the
direction Columbus had marked down, but a great storm came up and so
frightened the sailors that they turned around in a hurry. Then they
hunted up Columbus and began to abuse him for getting them into such a
scrape.