and explored.

For any man thirsting to learn more about geography and exploration,
there was no more vital spot in Europe than Lisbon in the fifteenth
century. Why it was so is such an interesting story that it must be
told. We have read how zealously the Spaniards had been striving for
centuries to drive out the Moors, whom they considered the arch enemies
of Christian Europe. Portugal, being equally near to Africa, was also
overrun by Moors, and for ages the Portuguese had been at war with them,
finally vanquishing them early in Columbus's century. A wise Portuguese
prince then decided on a scheme for breaking their power utterly; and
that was to wrest from them their enormous trade with Arabia and India;
for their trade made their wealth and their wealth was their power.

This trade was known as the Indian trade, and was carried on by overland
caravans up through Asia and Northern Africa to the Mediterranean
coasts. The goods brought into Europe by this means--gold, pearls,
spices, rare woods--naturally set Europe to thinking that the lands
producing them must be the most favored part of the world, and "the
Indies" stood for wealth of all kinds. No one knew precisely where "the
Indies" lay; no one knew about the Indian Ocean or the shape of Southern
Africa; "the Indies" was simply an indefinite term for the rich and
mysterious regions from which the caravans came.

The old maps of the fifteenth century show three different countries of
this name--Far India, beyond the Ganges River; Middle India, between the
Ganges and the Indus; and Lesser India, including both sides of the Red
Sea. On the African side of the Red Sea was located the legendary
kingdom of a great monarch known as Prester John. _Prester_ is a
shortening of Presbyter, for this John was a Christian priest as well as