Italy. The mountains were behind it; the sea was in front of it, and
it was so beautiful a place that the people who lived there called it
"Genoa the Superb." Christopher Columbus was born in this beautiful
city of Genoa in the year 1446, at number 27 Ponticello Street. He was
a bright little fellow with a fresh-looking face, a clear eye and golden
hair. His father's name was Domenico Columbus; his mother's name was
Susanna. His father was a wool-comber. He cleaned and straightened out
the snarled-up wool that was cut from the sheep so as to make it ready
to be woven into cloth.

Christopher helped his father do this when he grew strong enough, but he
went to school, too, and learned to read and write and to draw maps and
charts. These charts were maps of the sea, to show the sailors where
they could steer without running on the rocks and sand, and how to sail
safely from one country to another.

This world was not as big then as it is now--or, should say, people
did not know it was as big. Most of the lands that Columbus had studied
about in school, and most of the people he had heard about, were in
Europe and parts of Asia and Africa. The city of Genoa where Columbus
lived was a very busy and a very rich city. It was on the Mediterranean
Sea, and many of the people who lived there were sailors who went in
their ships on voyages to distant lands. They sailed to other places on
the Mediterranean Sea, which is a very large body of water, you know,
and to England, to France, to Norway, and even as far away as the cold
northern island of Iceland. This was thought to be a great journey.

The time in which Columbus lived was not as nice a time as is this in
which you live. People were always quarreling and fighting about one
thing or another, and the sailors who belonged to one country would try