At a very early age he became a student at the University of Pavia, where
he laid the foundations of that knowledge of mathematics and natural
science, which stood him in good stead throughout his life. At Genoa he
would naturally regard the sea as the great field of enterprise which
produced harvests of rich wares and spoils of glorious victories; and he
may have heard, now and then, news of the latest conclusions of the
Arabic geographers at Senaar, and rumours of explorations down the African
coast, which would be sure to excite interest among the maritime
population of his birthplace. It is not wonderful that, exposed to such
influences, he preferred a life of adventure on the sea to the drudgery of
his father's trade in Genoa. Accordingly, after finishing his academical
course at Pavia, he spent but a few irksome months as a carder of wool
(tector panni) and actually entered on his nautical career before he was
fifteen years old.


EARLY VOYAGES OF COLUMBUS.

Of his many voyages, which of them took place before, and which after, his
coming to Portugal, we have no distinct record; but are sure that he
traversed a large part of the known world, that he visited England, that
he made his way to Iceland and Friesland[7] (where he may possibly have
heard vague tales of the discoveries by the Northmen in North America),
that he had been at El Mina, on the coast of Guinea, and that he had seen
the Islands of the Grecian Archipelago. "I have been seeking out the
secrets of nature for forty years," he says, "and wherever ship has
sailed, there have I voyaged." But beyond a few vague allusions of this
kind, we know scarcely anything of these early voyages. However, he
mentions particularly his having been employed by King Rene of Provence to