mbus, who was one of the
greatest men the world ever produced. He was born in the city of Genoa,
in Italy; his family were almost all sailors, and he was brought up for
a sailor also, and after being taught geography and various other things
necessary for a sea captain to know, he was sent on board ship at the
age of fourteen. Columbus was tall, muscular, and of a commanding
aspect; his hair, light in youth, turned prematurely grey, and ere he
reached the age of thirty was white as snow.

His first voyages were short ones, but after several years, desiring to
see and learn more of distant countries, and thinking there were still
new ones to be discovered, he went into the service of the King of
Portugal and made many voyages to the western coast of Africa, and to
the Canaries, and the Madeiras, and the Azores, islands lying off that
coast, which were then the most westerly lands known to Europeans.

In his visits to these parts, one person informed him that his ship,
sailing out farther to the west than usual, had picked up out of the sea
a piece of wood curiously carved, and that very thick canes, like those
which travellers had found in India, had been seen floating on the
waves; also that great trees, torn up by the roots, had often been cast
on shore, and once two dead bodies of men, with strange features,
neither like Europeans nor Africans, were driven on the coast of the
Azores.

All these stories set Columbus thinking and considering that these
strange things had come drifting over the sea from the west, he looked
upon them as tokens sent from some unknown countries lying far distant
in that quarter: he was therefore eager to sail away and explore, but as
he had not money enough himself to fit out ships and hire sailors, he
determined to go and try to persuade some king or some state to be at
the expense of the trial.

First he went to his own countrymen the Genoese, but they would have
nothing to say to him: he then submitted his plan to the Portuguese, but
the King of Portugal, pretending to listen to him, got from him his
plan, and perfidiously attempted to rob him of the honour of
accomplishing it, by sending another person to pursue the same track
which he had proposed.

The person they so basely employed did not succeed, but returned to
Lisbon, execrating a plan he had not abilities to execute.

On discovering this treachery, Columbus quitted the kingdom in disgust
and set out for Spain, to King Fer