erhaps 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. You might as well expect to find land in the sky, they said, as
in those terrible waters.

And when, in this way, Columbus found out that King John had tried to
use his ideas without letting him know anything about it, he was
very angry. His wife had died in the midst of this mean trick of the
Portuguese king, and so, taking with him his little five-year-old son,
Diego, he left Portugal secretly and went over into Spain.

Near the little town of Palos, in western Spain, is a green hill looking
out toward the Atlantic. Upon this hill stands an old building that,
four hundred years ago, was used as a a convent or home for priests. It
was called the Convent of Rabida, and the priest at the head of it was
named the Friar Juan Perez. One autumn day, in the year 1484, Friar
Juan Perez saw a dusty traveler with a little boy talking with the
gate-keeper of the convent. The stranger was so tall and fine-looking,
and seemed such an interesting man, that Friar Juan went out and began
to talk with him. This man was Columbus.

As they talked, the priest grew more and more interested in what
Columbus said. He invited him into the convent to stay for a few days,
and he asked some other people--the doctor of Palos and some of the sea
captains and sailors of the town--to come and talk with this stranger
who had such a singular idea about sailing across the Atlantic.

It ended in Columbus's staying some months in Palos, waiting for a
chance to go and see the king and queen. At last, in 1485, he set out
for the Spanish court with a letter to a priest who was a friend of
Friar Juan's, and who could help him to see the king and queen.

At that time the king and queen of Spain were fighting to drive out of
Spain the people called the Moors. These people came from Africa, but
they had lived in Spain for many years and had once been a very rich and
powerful nation. They