Cipango be reached by crossing the Eastern Continent, for the
journey was full of perils, dangers, and insurmountable obstacles.

Among those who meditated on this geographical mystery was a
young sea captain of Genoa, who had studied in the University of
Pavia, but spent his early life upon the waves,--intelligent,
enterprising, visionary, yet practical, with boundless ambition,
not to conquer kingdoms, but to discover new realms. Born probably
in 1446, in the year 1470 he married the daughter of an Italian
navigator living in Lisbon; and, inheriting with her some valuable
Portuguese charts and maritime journals, he settled in Lisbon and
took up chart-making as a means of livelihood. Being thus trained
in both the art and the science of navigation, his active mind
seized upon the most interesting theme of the day. His studies and
experience convinced him that the Cipango of Marco Polo could be
reached by sailing directly west. He knew that the earth was
round, and he inferred from the plants and carved wood and even
human bodies that had occasionally floated from the West, that
there must be unknown islands on the western coasts of the
Atlantic, and that this ocean, never yet crossed, was the common
boundary of both Europe and Asia; in short, that the Cipango could
be reached by sailing west. And he believed the thing to be
practicable, for the magnetic needle had been discovered, or
brought from the East by Polo, which always pointed to the North
Star, so that mariners could sail in the darkest nights; and also
another instrument had been made, essentially the modern quadrant,
by which latitude could be measured. He supposed that after
sailing west, about eight hundred leagues, by the aid of compass
and quadrant, and such charts as he had collected and collated, he
should find the land of gold and spices by which he would become