eant Iceland,
he may have heard of the explorations in the direction of Greenland and
Newfoundland; and that, although by other navigators these lands were
regarded as a part of the continent of Europe, he may have had some
glimmerings of an idea that they were part of land and islands in the
West; and he was much too jealous of his own reputation as the great and
only originator of the project for voyaging to the West, to give away any
hints that he was not the only person to whom such ideas had occurred.
There is deception and untruth somewhere; and one must make one's choice
between regarding the story in the first place as a lie, or accepting it
as truth, and putting down Columbus's silence about it on a later
occasion to a rare instinct of judicious suppression. There are other
facts in his life, to which, we shall come later, that are in accordance
with this theory. There is no doubt, moreover, that Columbus had a very
great experience of the sea, and was one of the greatest practical
seamen, if not the greatest, that has ever lived; and it would be foolish
to deny, except for the greatest reasons, that he made a voyage to the
far North, which was neither unusual at the time nor a very great
achievement for a seaman of his experience.

Christopher returned from these voyages, of which we know nothing except
the facts that he has given us, towards the end of 1477; and it was
probably in the next year that an event very important in his life and
career took place. Hitherto there has been no whisper of love in that
arduous career of wool-weaving, sailoring, and map-making; and it is not
unlikely that his marriage represents the first inspiration of love in
his life, for he was, in spite of his southern birth, a cool-blooded man,
for whom affairs of the heart had never a very serious interest. But at
Lisbon, where he began to find himself with some footing and place in the
world, and where the prospect of at least a livelihood began to open out
before him, his thoughts took that turn towards domesticity and family
life which marks a moment in the development of almost every man. And
now, since he has at last to emerge from the misty environment of
sea-spray that has veiled him so long from our intimate sight, we may
take a close look at him as he was in this year 1478.

Unlike the southern Italians, he was fair in colouring; a man rather
above the middle height, large limbed, of a shapely breadth and
proportion,