for the next that is known of him is that he narrowly escaped from drowning in a shipwreck by swimming six miles to shore on a boat oar.
He landed near a town in Portugal and soon found work in a map-maker’s shop. Here he had a chance to learn all the geography that was known four hundred years ago. Most of the maps he made were drawn as if the world were flat. But there were curious charts with lands and seas outlined on the six sides of a cube, and others drawn as if the world were shaped like a huge section of stovepipe. Young Columbus found the maps very interesting; but what seemed most wonderful of all was the idea that the world was round, as every child now knows.
In those days a man was not allowed to believe anything different from what every one else thought. So when young Columbus began to claim that the earth was round, people laughed at him. They thought he was crazy. Of course, a few astronomers and scientists knew how to prove the roundness of the earth by the shadow it casts on the moon in an eclipse, but most of the people could not understand such things. Columbus himself could notice that the surface of the ocean, within the short distance he could see, was slightly curved. He resolved to miss no chance to prove his theory, by learning all he could about newly-found lands; and he even began planning to sail around the earth to India and Far Cathay, as China was called in the old days.
Travelers had been overland to the Far East and back. Daring sailors had sailed along the coast of Africa. But the great body of water to the west of Portugal was called the Sea of Darkness. People believed that terrible sea-monsters haunted its dark waters, and that if men were to sail far enough westward, their ship would go beyond the brink of the world, as over a giant waterfall, and fall down, down through space forever.
So when Christopher Columbus tried to persuade the king of Portugal and the princes of other countries to fit out a few ships and let him prove the roundness of the earth by sailing west to the Far East, no one would listen to him seriously. But the poor man could not give it up, though he spent many years wandering from country to country to persuade some one rich and powerful enough to supply the ships and men for such a dangerous voyage. Queen Isabella of Spain and her husband, King Ferdinand, listened to him, but when the matter was referred to the royal council, those grave men shook their heads and said such a thing was absurd and unfit for a queen even to think about.
Columbus was in despair. His wife was now dead and he had his little son Diego with him. The two were tramping across the country and came, about sunset, to a monastery on the border of Spain, where the boy asked for a drink just as the monk in charge happened to be passing. This monk spoke to Columbus and, seeing what an interesting man he was, invited the strangers in. Columbus told his strange, sad story. This monk had been a friend and adviser to Queen Isabella. Also he knew two sailors who might be a help in such an undertaking. He wrote at once to the queen, urging her to let Columbus come and talk
