Hero Tales from History — Columbus, the Map-maker Who Found a New World
DISCOVERERS AND EXPLORERS
COLUMBUS, THE MAP-MAKER WHO FOUND A NEW WORLD
In a tall narrow house in the midst of a block on a narrow street in Genoa, Italy, lived a poor woolworker named Columbus.
This slender house was only two windows wide and seven stories high.
In the lowest story, in which there were a wide door and a grated window, Signor Columbus stored the bales of wool which he washed and carded, using a tool somewhat like the curry-comb for cleaning horses.
He thus prepared the wool to be spun into yarn, which would later be woven and made up into clothing and blankets.
A small boy named Christopher went in and out of this foul-smelling place to play and work.
Very little is known of the boyhood of Columbus.
As Genoa was a large seaport town, it is supposed that he spent much of his time on the wharves watching the boats-galleys from Venice, with gay-colored sails, and strange-looking craft from Asia and Africa, with long, slim, lateen wings, veering about like swallows of the sea.
There were pirates, or highway-robbers of the sea, in those days.
Little Christopher was sure to hear thrilling stories of how they fought hand-to-hand with sabers and axes, and of how the wicked but powerful pirates murdered the men on merchant ships and carried off the women and children to be slaves in distant lands.
Young Columbus seems to have been fired with a boyish longing for-- “A life on the ocean wave, A home on the rolling deep,” for the next that is known of him is that he narrowly escaped from drowning in a shipwreck by swimming six miles to shore on a boat oar.
He landed near a town in Portugal and soon found work in a map-maker’s shop.
Here he had a chance to learn all the geography that was known four hundred years ago.
Most of the maps he made were drawn as if the world were flat.
But there were curious charts with lands and seas outlined on the six sides of a cube, and others drawn as if the world were shaped like a huge section of stovepipe.
Young Columbus found the maps very interesting; but what seemed most wonderful of all was the idea that the world was round, as every child now knows.
In those days a man was not allowed to believe anything different from what every one else thought.
So when young Columbus began to claim that the earth was round, people laughed at him.
They thought he was crazy.
Of course, a few astronomers and scientists knew how to prove the roundness of the earth by the shadow it casts on the moon in an eclipse, but most of the people could not understand such things.
Columbus himself could notice that the surface of the ocean, within the short distance he could see, was slightly curved.
He resolved to miss no chance to prove his theory, by learning all he could about newly-found lands; and he even began planning to sail around the earth to India and Far Cathay, as China was called in the old days.
Travelers had been overland to the Far East and back.
Daring sailors had sailed along the coast of Africa.
But the great body of water to the west of Portugal was called the Sea of Darkness.
People believed that terrible sea-monsters haunted its dark waters, and that if men were to sail far enough westward, their ship would go beyond the brink of the world, as over a giant waterfall, and fall down, down through space forever.
So when Christopher Columbus tried to persuade the king of Portugal and the princes of other countries to fit out a few ships and let him prove the roundness of the earth by sailing west to the Far East, no one would listen to him seriously.
But the poor man could not give it up, though he spent many years wandering from country to country to persuade some one rich and powerful enough to supply the ships and men for such a dangerous voyage.
Queen Isabella of Spain and her husband, King Ferdinand, listened to him, but when the matter was referred to the royal council, those grave men shook their heads and said such a thing was absurd and unfit for a queen even to think about.
Columbus was in despair.
His wife was now dead and he had his little son Diego with him.
The two were tramping across the country and came, about sunset, to a monastery on the border of Spain, where the boy asked for a drink just as the monk in charge happened to be passing.
This monk spoke to Columbus and, seeing what an interesting man he was, invited the strangers in.
Columbus told his strange, sad story.
This monk had been a friend and adviser to Queen Isabella.
Also he knew two sailors who might be a help in such an undertaking.
He wrote at once to the queen, urging her to let Columbus come and talk [Illustration: COLUMBUS PLEADING HIS CAUSE BEFORE KING FERDINAND AND QUEEN ISABELLA OF SPAIN.
] over the matter once more.
She wrote back that she would like to hear what her friend the monk might have to say about it.
He started the very night he received the queen’s letter, and talked with her about converting to the Christian faith the people of the new lands Columbus might discover.
As a result of this talk the good monk wrote to Columbus who, with his young son, was waiting at the monastery: “Our Lord has heard his servants’ prayers.
My heart swims in a sea of comfort and my spirit leaps with joy.
Start quickly, for the queen awaits you, and I yet more than she.
Commend me to the prayers of my brethren and of the little Diego.
The grace of God be with you.
” The queen received Columbus this time with sympathy and kindness.
She is said to have pledged her jewels to raise money enough to fit out three ships for his great voyage.
Columbus was to command one of these and the monk’s friends were to be captains of the other two.
But after making the little fleet ready, they could not induce sailors to man the vessels for their ghastly voyage across the Sea of Outer Darkness.
Sailors were always superstitious.
Even to-day they will not start out on Friday, and many seafaring men will refuse to sail with a ship if the flag should happen to be raised “union down,” or wrong side up, no matter how quickly it may be set right.
At last Columbus had to take convicts out of prison and condemn them to hard labor as sailors for the terrible trial trip.
Some of these men were desperate criminals.
The unknown western sea was far wider than Columbus had thought.
This showed that the world must be much larger than he supposed.
As they sailed on and on, day after day and week after week, across the untraveled sea, the superstitious convict-sailors were half-dead with fear.
They planned to murder the Admiral, as Columbus was now called, and his two captains, in order to turn the ship about and go back before they were engulfed in some great whirlpool of disaster.
Columbus kept himself well guarded, and coaxed and flattered the frightened creatures, promising them all kinds of wealth and pleasures if they would only keep on a day or two longer.
He offered an extra prize to the man who first caught sight of land.
On the night of the 11th of October, 1492, one of the sailors saw a glimmering light to the west.
On the morning of the 12th, the Admiral was an early riser.
There lay a tropical island, with “gardens of the most beautiful trees I ever saw,” he said afterward.
The sea was as deep blue as that along the shores of his native Italy.
He and his two captains went ashore, with well-armed men in boats from all three ships.
The water was clear and the bottom was white with sand and shells, while strange, bright fish darted about as they paddled along.
On the island were parrots and other birds of gay plumage flitting from tree to tree as if startled by the coming of the first white men into their world.
Columbus did not need his armed soldiers.
After looking a long while he saw naked red men peering at them from behind the strange, tropical plants.
After he made signs of friendship, the natives were no longer afraid.
Christopher Columbus was first to set foot on the new-found shore.
Falling on his knees, his eyes filled with tears of joy, he bowed his face and kissed the sand of the new world.
The happy company repeated prayers and sang a hymn of praise.
The naked natives looked on with wonder to see the leader, who was dressed in rich red velvet, set up a red, white, and gold banner--the combined flag of Ferdinand and Isabella--and go through a long ceremony.
They did not know that those white strangers were claiming the country in the name of a king and queen far across the sea.
Columbus named this island--one of the group now called Bahamas--San Salvador, or Holy Saviour.
He still thought he had reached the Far East.
Admiral Columbus returned to Spain to report upon his reaching eastern India by sailing west.
With him went ten of the red men he had found, whom he called Indians.
He made several voyages after that--only once landing on the continent of South America.
Some of his Spanish followers were jealous of their Italian Admiral, and Columbus died in a prison in Spain, after all he had done for that country, without even knowing that it was America, not India, that he had discovered.
