FOOTNOTES:
[11] The green knight fell in this battle.
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
Christopher Columbo, or Columbus, was born in the city of Genoa, about the year 1436. His father, Domenico Columbo, earned the bread of his family by combing wool, which, however lowly it may be thought at the present time, was once a very honourable occupation, and was invented three hundred years after the birth of our Lord by Blaise, the good martyr-bishop of Armenia, who to this day is regarded as the patron of woolcombers.
Christopher had two brothers, Bartholomew, and Diego, and one sister; of the latter there is nothing particular recorded. The three brothers loved one another dearly. Bartholomew had a brave and ardent spirit, and was fond of an active life; in the troubles and dangers they shared in after years Christopher would call him "another self;" and he said not long before he died that his brothers had always been his best friends. Christopher as a child was quiet and thoughtful. He loved to stand on the shore of the beautiful bay spreading out at the feet of Genoa, "the city of marble palaces," and to watch the waves under their different aspects; now dancing joyously in the sunshine; then great sea-horses, foaming and dashing with terrible noise on the sands; now again, loveliest of all, lying at rest as if tired, in the solemn quiet of night, and giving back myriads of golden gleams for every star that twinkled in the clear Italian sky. And whilst Christopher thus watched the sea, he had very strange ideas for a young child, for he thought that the whole of the world had not been discovered, and that beyond the great Atlantic Ocean, which he had only heard of, there were lands that had never yet been trodden by Europeans. At the time he lived the Portuguese had discovered the Cape Verde Isles in the Atlantic, much of the western coast of Africa, and the Cape of Good Hope. They wanted some of the gold, amber, and ivory, the rich silks, and the fragrant woods and spices of India, and to trade in these things they had to find out a way to the East by sea, because the Venetians took care to keep the overland route to India clear for themselves. Venice, on the eastern side of Italy, and Genoa, on the western side, shared all the commerce of that country, but they were not on friendly terms; and for years and years the Genoese were trying to drive the Turks, Venetians, and Spaniards out of the Mediterranean Sea, that they might carry on their own commerce without being molested.
When Domenico Colombo found that his son Christopher had a very strong desire to be a sailor, he did not force him to pass his life in combing wool, but sent him to a famed school at Pavia, where he might learn such things as would be useful to him in the career he had chosen. So Columbus learned diligently about the earth, the sea, and the stars, and something of drawing and mathematics beside. When he was fourteen he returned to Genoa, and went to sea for the first time with one of his relations, who was likewise named Colombo. This man was a corsair, and had many a bold skirmish with the Turks and Venetians. During several years Christopher sailed with him from one place to another, and got used to a seafaring life. It happened in one of the skirmishes which took place between Lisbon and Cape St. Vincent, that fire broke out in a huge Venetian galley to which the vessel Christopher commanded for his kinsman had been chained during the fight; the flames quickly spread to the spot where he stood, and to save his life he was obliged to jump from the deck into the waves. Fortunately he had grasped an oar, and with this he was enabled to reach the shore of Portugal, at the distance of two leagues from the burning vessels. From thence he went to Lisbon, where he was kindly received by some Genoese, and he determined to remain in that city, because there were better means there of studying and of carrying out the plans he was making for a voyage in search of unknown lands. The Portuguese themselves were eager to make fresh discoveries: their mariners, sailing westward from the Azores, had seen floating on the waters corpses belonging to a race of men unknown in Europe, Africa, or Asia; besides these there were trunks and branches of strange trees, and huge sugar-canes which had been wafted through the Atlantic by the Gulf Stream. All these objects made them think that only a portion of the inhabited world had yet been revealed to them.