d another grand scheme of his own, to which he wished to make
his maritime venture contribute. It was natural that his feelings toward
Turks should have been no more amiable than those of Hannibal toward the
Romans. It was the Turks who had ruined the commerce of his native
Genoa, in his youth he had more than once crossed swords with their
corsairs, and now he looked forward to the time when he might play the
part of a second Godfrey de Bouillon and deliver Jerusalem from the
miscreant followers of Mahound.[507] Vast resources would be needed for
such work, and from Cipango with its gold-roofed temples, and the
nameless and numberless isles of spices that crowded the Cathayan seas,
he hoped to obtain them. Long brooding over his cherished projects, in
which chimeras were thus mixed with anticipations of scientific truth,
had imparted to his character a tinge of religious fanaticism. He had
come to regard himself as a man with a mission to fulfil, as God's
chosen instrument for enlarging the bounds of Christendom and achieving
triumphs of untold magnificence for its banners. In this mood he was apt
to address kings with an air of equality that ill comported with his
humble origin and slender means; and on the present occasion, if
Talavera felt his old doubts and suspicions reviving, and was more than
half inclined to set Columbus down as a mere vendor of crotchets, one
can hardly wonder.

[Footnote 505: Our Scandinavian friends are fond of pointing to
this demand of Columbus as an indication that he secretly
expected to "discover America," and not merely to find the way
to Asia. But how about Ferdinand and Isabella, who finally
granted what was demanded, and their ministers who drew up the
agreement, to say nothing of the clerks who engrossed it? What
did they all understand by "discovering islands and continents
in the ocean"? Were they all in this precious Vinland secret?
If so, it was pretty well kept. But in truth there was nothing
singular in these stipulations. Portugal paid for discovery in
just this way by granting governorships over islands like the
Azores, or long stretches of continent like Guinea, along with
a share of the revenues yielded by such places. See for example
the cases of Gonzalo Cabral, Fernando Gomez, and others in
Major, _Prince Henry the Navigator_, pp. 238, 32