God made me the messenger of the new heaven and the new earth . . . and he showed me the spot where to find it. Columbus to a Lady of the Spanish Court.10

Columbus' Early Life. More famous than the Vikings, more famous than any other sailor on the Sea of Darkness, as men once called the Atlantic, was Christopher Columbus; he was born about 1445 A.D., and his own letters and journals give us our next records. In a letter written to Ferdinand and Isabella, king and queen of Spain, he writes:

Most serene princes; I went to sea very young [in another letter he says at fourteen years of age] and have continued it to this day; ... and I have dealt and conversed with wise people, . . . Latins, Greeks, Indians, and Moors, . . . and our Lord has . . . made me very skilful in navigation, knowing enough in astrology, and so in geometry and arithmetic. God hath given me a genius and hands apt to draw this globe, and on it the cities, rivers, islands, and ports, all in their proper places. During this time I have . . . endeavored to see all books of cosmography [geography] . . . and of other sci

ences....

In one of his memoranda he adds:

In . 1467, I sailed ... an hundred leagues beyond Thule. . . To this island, which is as big as England, the English trade, especially from Bristol. At the time when I was there, the sea was not frozen.

From 1470 to 1484 Columbus lived in Lisbon, where his son

tells us,

he knew there were many Genoese, his countrymen, [and] where ... he set up house and married a wife;... his father-in-law . . . being dead, they went to live with the mother-in-law, . . . and she seeing him so much addicted to cosmography... gave him the journals and sea-charts left her by her husband, [a famous sailor and explorer under Prince Henry the Navigator of Portugal; and these] still more inflamed the admiral."

Then, too, old histories of that time say, sailors had told Columbus of picking up pieces of wood far out at sea, wrought by man's hand, but not with tools of iron; furthermore,

The Sea cast upon the Island of Flores [one of the Azores] two dead bodies of men, who seemed to have very broad faces and different features from the Christians. . . . Antony Leme, married in the Island of Madera, affirm'd, that having sail'd. . . a considerable Space to the Westward, he fancy'd he had seen three Islands near to the Place where he then was; and many in . . . the Azores asserted that they every year saw some Islands to the Westward.12

Toscanelli's Letter.

While living here in Portugal, he had the following letter from Toscanelli, a Florentine physician and

astronomer:

I have become acquainted with the great and noble wish entertained by you, to visit the country of spices, on which account I send in answer to your letter, the copy of one directed by me, a few days since, to one of my friends, in the service of the king of Portugal. . . . The copy. . . is as follows:

...

Although I have spoken many times concerning the short passage by sea from hence to the Indies, . . . I have determined to mark down the route in question upon a marine chart. . . . The whole territory is... under the dominion of a prince called Great Can.... This is a nobie country, and ought to be explored by us,

on account of... the quantity of gold, silver, and precious stone“. which might be obtained there. . . .13

How Columbus seeks Royal Help.

Now Columbus being very positive in this Notion... that there were new Lands undiscovered. . . resolved to make the same publick; but being sensible that such an enterprize was only fit for great Princes, he . . . proposed it to King John, of Portugal, who, though he gave him a favourable hearing, being then taken up with the Discovery of the Coast of Africk... did not think fit to undertake so many things at once; ... [Columbus now] resolv'd to go away into Spain. . . . Their Catholic majesties giving some Attention to the Affair referr'd it to . . . the Queen's Confessor. ... He held an Assembly of Cosmographers [1487] who debated about it; some alledging, that since . . . from the Creation of the World, Men so well versed in Marine Affairs had known nothing of those Countries which Columbus persuaded them... must be found, it was not to be imagin'd, that he could know more than all of them. Others urg'd, that the world was so large, that there would be no coming to the utmost extent of the East in Three Years Sail. . . . There were still others who affirm'd that... whosoever should go beyond the Hemisphere known by Ptolemy, would fall down so low that it would be impossible ever to return. . .

...

After much delay, their Catholick Majesties order'd this answer to be given to Columbus. That being engag'd in several Wars, . . . they could not enter upon fresh Expences. . . . Having receiv'd this Answer... Columbus went away to Seville, very melancholy and discontented, after having been five Years at Court to no Effect.

...

[In January, 1492, he set out] from Santa Fé for Cordova, in great Anguish. . . . The same day . . . a Clerk of the Revenue of the Crown... told the Queen, he wonder'd, that she, who had never wanted a Spirit for the greatest Undertakings, should now fail inasmuch as it became great and generous monarchs to be acquainted with the Wonders and Secrets of the World, by which other Princes have gained everlasting Renown. ... [The Queen at last