e never lost
hope. He never stopped trying. Even when he failed, he kept on hoping
and kept on trying. He felt certain that sometime he should succeed.

As we have seen, he tried to interest the rulers of different countries,
but without success. He tried to get help from his old home-town of
Genoa and failed; he tried Portugal and failed; he tried the Republic of
Venice and failed; he tried the king and queen of Spain and failed; he
tried some of the richest and most powerful of the nobles of Spain and
failed; he tried the king of England (whom he got his brother,
Bartholomew Columbus, to see) and failed. There was still left the king
of France. He would make one last attempt to win the king and queen of
Spain to his side and if he failed with them he would try the last of
the rulers of Western Europe, the king of France.

He followed the king and queen of Spain as they went from place to place
fighting the Moors. He hoped that some day, when they wished to think of
something besides fighting, they might think of him and the gold and
jewels and spices of Cathay.

The days grew into months, the months into years, and still the war
against the Moors kept on; and still Columbus waited for the chance that
did not come. People grew to know him as "the crazy explorer" as they
met him in the streets or on the church steps of Seville or Cordova, and
even ragged little boys of the town, sharp-eyed and shrill-voiced as
such ragged little urchins are, would run after this big man with the
streaming white hair and the tattered cloak, calling him names or
tapping their brown little foreheads with their dirty fingers to show
that even they knew that he was "as crazy as a loon."

At last he decided to make one more attempt before giving it up in
Spain. His money was gone; his friends were few; but he remembered his
acquaintances at Palos and so he journeyed back to see once more his
good friend Friar Juan Perez at the Convent of Rabida on the hill that
looked out upon the Atlantic he was so anxious to cross.

It was in the month of November, 1491, that he went back to the Convent
of Rabida. If he could not get any encouragement there, he was
determined to stay in Spain no longer but to go away and try the king of
France.

Once more he talked over the finding of Cathay with the priests and the
sailors of Palos. They saw how patient he was; how persistent he was;
how he would never give up his ideas until he had tried them. They