3. Columbus believed a new route could be found by sailing due westward from Europe.
4. After many years of fruitless effort to secure aid to test his plan, he obtained help from Spain.
5. On his first voyage westward Columbus discovered the Bahama Islands, Cuba, and Haiti; on his later voyages, various other lands about the Caribbean Sea.
6. In the belief that he had reached the Indies, the lands Columbus found were called the Indies, and their inhabitants Indians.
FOOTNOTES
[1] In the Middle Ages, when food was coarse and cookery poor, cinnamon and cloves, nutmeg and mace, allspice, ginger, and pepper were highly prized for spicing ale or seasoning food. But all these spices were very expensive in Europe because they had to be brought so far from the distant East. Even pepper, which is now used by every one, was then a fit gift from one king to another. Camphor and rhubarb, indigo, musk, sandalwood, Brazil wood, aloes wood, all came from the East. Muslin and damask bear the names of eastern cities whence they were first obtained. In the fifteenth century the churches, palaces, manor houses, and homes of rich merchants were adorned with the rugs and carpets of the East.
[2] Prince Henry was the fourth son of John I, king of Portugal. In 1419 he established his home on Cape St. Vincent, gathered about him a body of trained seamen, and during forty years sent out almost every year an exploring expedition. His pilots discovered the Azores and the Madeira Islands. He died in 1460. His great work was training seamen. Many men afterward famous as discoverers and navigators, as Dias (dee'ahss), Da Gama (dah gah'ma), Cabral (ca-brahl'), Magellan, and Columbus, served under Henry or his successors.
In those days there were neither steamships nor such sailing vessels as we have. For purposes of exploration the caravel was used. It was from 60 to 100 feet long, and from 18 to 25 feet broad, and had three masts from the heads of which were swung great sails. Much of the steering was done by turning these sails. Yet it was in such little vessels that some of the most famous voyages in history were made.
[3] These voyages were possible because of the great progress which had recently been made in the art of navigation. The magnetic compass enabled seamen to set their course when the sun and stars could not be seen. The astrolabe (picture, p. 35) made it possible roughly to estimate distances from the equator, or latitude. These instruments enabled mariners to go on long voyages far from land. Read the account of the Portuguese voyages in Fiske's Discovery of America, Vol. I, pp. 294-334.
[4] Christopher Columbus was a native of Genoa, Italy, where he was born about 1436. He was the son of a wool comber. At fourteen he began a seafaring life, and between voyages made charts and globes. About 1470 he wandered to Portugal, went on one or two voyages down the African coast, and on another (1477) went as far north as Iceland. Meantime (1473) he married a Portuguese woman and made his home at the Madeira Islands; and it was while living there that he formed the plan of finding a new route to the far East.