hope nor rescue for any ship that should be drawn into that awful
pit.

Again it was believed that the ocean flowed downhill, and that if a
ship sailed down too far it would never be able to get back again.
These and many other dangers, said the ignorant people of those
days, threatened the rash sailors who should attempt to sail upon
the Sea of Darkness. So it was not wonderful that for hundreds of
years men contented themselves with the well-known routes which
indeed offered adventure enough to satisfy the heart of the most
daring.

But as time passed these old trade-routes fell more and more into
the hands of Turks and Infidels. Port after port came under their
rule, and infidel pirates swarmed in the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean
until no Christian vessel was safe. At every step Christian traders
found themselves hampered and hindered, and in danger of their
lives, and they began to long for another way to the lands of spice
and pearls.

Then it was that men turned their thoughts to the dread Sea of
Darkness. The less ignorant among them had begun to disbelieve the
tales of dragons and fiery pits. The world was round, said wise
men. Why then, if that were so, India could be reached by sailing
west as well as by sailing east.

Many men now came to this conclusion, among them an Italian sailor
named Christopher Columbus. The more Columbus thought about his
plan of sailing west to reach India, the more he believed in it,
and the more he longed to set out. But without a great deal of money