Now, it happened that just at this time the Portuguese were hard at work
on the discovery of such a route, and were slowly pushing their way down
the western coast of Africa. But as league after league of that coast
was discovered, it was thought that the route to India by way of Africa
was too long for the purposes of commerce.[1] Then came the question, Is
there not a shorter route? and this Columbus tried to answer.

[Footnote 1: Read the account of Portuguese exploration in search of a
way to India, in Fiske's _Discovery of America_, Vol. I., pp. 274-334.]

%4. Columbus seeks the East and finds America.%[2]--Columbus was a
native of Genoa, in Italy. He began a seafaring life at fourteen, and in
the intervals between his voyages made maps and globes. As Portugal was
then the center of nautical enterprise, he wandered there about 1470,
and probably went on one or two voyages down the coast of Africa. In
1473 he married a Portuguese woman. Her father had been one of the King
of Portugal's famous navigators, and had left behind him at his death a
quantity of charts and notes; and it was while Columbus was studying
them that the idea of seeking the Indies by sailing due westward seems
to have first started in his mind. But many a year went by, and many a
hardship had to be borne, and many an insult patiently endured in
poverty and distress, before the Friday morning in August, 1492, when
his three caravels, the _Santa Maria_ (sahn'-tah mah-ree'-ah), the
_Pinta_ (peen'-tah), and the _Niña_ (neen'-yah), sailed from the port of
Palos (pah'-los), in Spain.

[Footnote 2: There is reason to believe that about the year 1000 A.D.
the northeast coast of America was discovered by a Norse voyager named
Leif Ericsson. The records are very meager; but the discovery of our
country by such a people is possible and not improbable. For an account