as in the city of Lisbon, in Portugal, where he married and settled
down and had little boys of his own.

At that time some of the most learned people had odd notions about the
earth. You may have seen globes as round as an orange, with the
countries laid out on them. But the people then had never seen such a
globe, and the most of them thought that the earth was as flat as a
table, and that any one who sailed too far over the ocean would come to
the edge of the earth and fall off.

This seems very absurd, does it not? But you must remember that people
then knew very little about the earth they lived on, and could not
understand how people could keep on a round globe like flies on a ball
of glass.

But there were some who thought the earth to be round, and Columbus was
one of these.

At that time silk and spices and other rich goods were brought from
China and India, thousands of miles to the east, by caravans that
traveled overland. Columbus thought that by sailing west, over the broad
Atlantic, he would come to these far countries, just as a fly may walk
around the surface of an orange, and come to the place it started from.

The more Columbus thought about this, the more certain he became that he
was right. He was so sure of it that he set out to try and make other
people think the same way. He wanted ships with which to sail across the
unknown seas to the west, but he had no money of his own to buy them
with.

Ah! what a task poor Columbus now had. For years and years he wandered
about among the kings and princes of Europe, but no one would believe
his story, and many laughed at him and mocked him.

First he tried Genoa, the city where he was born, but the people there
told him he was a fool or had lost his senses.

Then he went to the king of Portugal. This king was a rascal, and tried
to cheat him. He got his plans from him, and sent out a vessel in
secret, hoping to get the honor of the discovery for himself. But the
captain he sent was a coward and was scared by the rolling waves. He
soon came back, and told the king that there was nothing to be found but
water and storm. King John, of Portugal, was very sorry afterward that
he had tried to rob Columbus of his honor.

Columbus was very angry when he heard what the king had done. He left
Portugal for Spain, and tried to get the king and queen of that country
to let him have ships and sailors. But they were at war with a people
called the Moors, and had