they called Skrellings. In the end the Northmen left the country, and
before many years all was forgotten about it. Only lately the story has
been found again in some old writings. And so time went on for nearly
five hundred years more, and nothing was known in Europe about the land
beyond the seas.

Now let us go from the north to the south of Europe. Here there is a
kingdom called Italy, which runs down into the Mediterranean Sea almost
in the shape of a boot. On the western shore of this kingdom is a famous
old city named Genoa, in which many daring sailors have dwelt; and here,
long ago, lived a man named Columbus, a poor man, who made his living by
carding wool.

This poor wool-carder had four children, one of whom (born about 1436)
he named Christopher. Almost everybody who has been at school in the
world knows the name of this little Italian boy, for he became one of
the most famous of men.

Many a boy in our times has to help his father in his shop. The great
Benjamin Franklin began work by pouring melted tallow into moulds to
make candles. In the same way little Columbus had to comb wool for his
father, and very likely he got as tired of wool as Franklin did of
candles.

The city he lived in was full of sailors, and no doubt he talked to many
of them about life on the wild waters, and heard so many stories of
danger and adventure that he took the fancy to go to sea himself.

At any rate we are told that he became a sailor when only fourteen
years old, and made long and daring voyages while he was still young.
Some of those were in Portuguese ships down the coast of Africa, of
which continent very little was known at that time. He went north, too;
some think as far as Iceland. Who knows but that he was told there of
what the Northmen had done?

Columbus spent some time in the island of Madeira, far out in the
Atlantic ocean, and there the people told him of strange things they had
seen. These had come over the seas before the west winds and floated on
their island shores. Among them were pieces of carved wood, and canes so
long that they would hold four quarts of wine between their joints. And
the dead bodies of two men had also come ashore, whose skins were the
color of bronze or copper.

These stories set Columbus thinking. He was now a man, and had read many
books of travel, and had studied all that was then known of geography.
For a time he lived by making maps and charts for ship captains. This
w