these sea-stories, and heard many wonderful things about a very rich
land away to the East that folks called Cathay.

If you look in your geographies you will not find any such place on the
map as Cathay, but you will find China, and that was what men in the
time of Columbus called Cathay. They told very big stories about this
far-off Eastern land. They said its kings lived in golden houses, that
they were covered with pearls and diamonds, and that everybody there was
so rich that money was as plentiful as the stones in the street.

This, of course, made the sailors and storekeepers, who were part
pirate, very anxious to go to Cathay and get some of the gold and jewels
and spices and splendor for themselves. But Cathay was miles and miles
away from Italy and Spain and France and England. It was away across the
deserts and mountains and seas and rivers, and they had to give it up
because they could not sail there.

At last a man whose name was Marco Polo, and who was a very brave and
famous traveler, really did go there, in spite of all the trouble it
took. And when he got back his stories were so very surprising that men
were all the more anxious to find a way to sail in their ships to Cathay
and see it for themselves.

But of course they could not sail over the deserts and mountains, and
they were very much troubled because they had to give up the idea, until
the son of the king of Portugal, named Prince Henry, said he believed
that ships could sail around Africa and so get to India or "the Indies"
as they called that land, and finally to Cathay.

Just look at your map again and see what a long, long voyage it would