ceived the fullest conviction, that the opinion of the ancients respecting the torrid and frigid zones was void of any just foundation.

When an old system is found erroneous in one point, it is natural to suspect it of farther imperfections; and when one difficulty is overcome, others appear less formidable. Such was the case with Columbus; and his views were accelerated by an incident which threatened to put an end to his life. During one of his voyages, the ship in which he sailed took fire in an engagement with a Venetian galley, and the crew were obliged to leap into the sea to avoid perishing in the flames. In this extremity, Columbus, by the help of a floating oar, swam upward of two leagues to the coast of Portugal near Lisbon, and met with a welcome, reception from many of his countrymen who were settled there.*

* [There is some doubt (see Irving's Columbus, i., 11, 17, and ii., 244, note) respecting the date of the engagement mentioned in the text, and whether Columbus came to Lisbon thus by a fortunate accident. Lisbon was then the resort of the adventurous and skilful in navigation, drawn thither by the liberality of Prince Henry and the earnest projects of King John. Mr. Irving places his arrival there in 1470. His sketch of the personal appearance of Columbus at that time is interesting. "He was tall, well formed, muscular, and of an elevated and dignified demeanour. His visage was long, and neither full nor meager; his complexion fair and freckled, and inclined to rud

At Lisbon he married the daughter of Perestrello, an old seaman who had been concerned in the discovery of Porto Santo and Madeira, from whose journals and charts he received the highest entertainment. Pursuing his inquiries in geography, and observing what slow progress the Portuguese made in their attempts to find a way round Africa to India, "he began to reflect that, as the Portuguese travelled so far southward, it were no less proper to sail westward," and that it was reasonable to expect to find the desired land in that direction.

It must here be remembered that India was in part known to the ancients, and that its

dy; his nose aquiline; his cheek bones were rather high; his eyes light gray, and apt to enkindle; his whole countenance had an air of authority. His hair in his youthful days was of a light colour; but care and trouble soon turned it gray, and at thirty years of age it was quite white. He was moderate and simple in diet and apparel, eloquent in discourse, engaging and affable with strangers, and of an amiableness and suavity in domestic life that strongly attached his household to his person." —H.]

* [She was styled Doña Felipa Moñis de Perestrello. Her father was Bartolomeo Moñis de Perestrello, "an Italian cavalier, who had been one of the most distinguished navigators under Prince Henry, and had colonized and governed the island of Porto Santo." He was now dead, and seems to have left no estate beyond his "journals and charts." After his marriage, Co lumbus went to Porto Santo to reside.-H.]

rich and useful productions had for many centuries been conveyed into Europe, either by caravans through the deserts of Syria and Arabia, or by the way of the Red Sea, through Egypt, into the Mediterranean.* This lucrative commerce had been successively engrossed by the Phoenicians, the Hebrews, the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Palmyrenes, the Arabians, the Genoese, and the Venetians. The Portuguese were then seeking it by attempting the circumnavigation of Africa; and their expectation of finding it in that direction was grounded on ancient historical traditions, that a voyage had been formerly made by the orders of Necho, king of Egypt, from the Red Sea, round the southern part of Africa to the Straits of Hercules; and that the same route had been traversed by Hanno the Carthaginian, by Eudoxus the Egyptian, and others. The Portuguese had consumed about half a century in making various attempts, and had advanced no farther on the western coast of Africa than just to cross the equator, when Columbus conceived his great design of finding India in the west.

The causes which led him to entertain this idea are distinguished by his son, the writer

* Robertson's India. Bruce's Travels.

of his life, into these three: "natural reason, the authority of writers, and the testimony of sailors."

By the help of "reason" he argued in this manner: That the earth and sea composed one globe or sphere. This was known by observing the shadow of the earth in lunar eclipses. Hence he concluded that it might be travelled over from east to west, or from west to east. It had been explored to the east by some European travellers as far as Cipango or Japan, and as far westward as the Azores or Western Islands. The remaining space, though now known to be more than half, he supposed to be but one third part of the circumference of the globe. If this space were an open sea, he imagined it might be easily sailed over; and if there were any land extending eastwardly beyond the known limits of Asia, he supposed that it must be nearer to Spain by the west than by the east. For it was then a received opinion that the continent and islands of India extended over one third part of the circumference of the globe; that another third part was comprehended between India and the western shore of Spain; therefore it was concluded that the eastern part of India must be as near to Spain

as the western part. This opinion, though now known to be erroneous, yet being then admitted as true, made it appear to Columbus very easy and practicable to discover India in the west. He hoped, also, that between Spain and India, in that direction, there might be found some islands, by the help of which, as resting-places in his voyage, he might the better pursue his main design. The probability of the existence of land in that ocean he argued, partly from the opinion of philosophers, that there was more land than sea on the surface of the globe, and partly from the necessity of a counterpoise in the west for the immense quantity of land which was known to be in the east.

Another source from which he drew his, conclusion was "the authority of learned men," who had assumed the possibility of sailing from the western coast of Spain to the eastern bounds of India. Some of the ancient geographers had admitted this for truth, and one of them* had affirmed that forty days were sufficient to perform this navigation. These authorities fell in with the theory which Columbus had formed; and having, as early as 1474, communicated his ideas in

*Pliny.