speaks of the death
of Columbus in the year 1506, "at a good old age, being seventy years old,
a little more or less." But this statement has an air of vagueness, and
is, moreover, inconsistent with several passages in Columbus's own
letters.[6] And the evidence of the ancient authorities who seem
most to be relied on, points rather to the year 1447 or 1448 as the
probable date.

[Footnote 6: "His hair," says his son Fernando, "turned white before
he was thirty." This would add to his apparent age, and might have
deceived Bernaldez.]

HIS EDUCATION.

His father was a wool-carder; but this fact does not necessarily imply, in
a city of traders like Genoa, that his family was of particularly humble
origin. At any rate, like most others, when the light of a great man's
birth is thrown upon its records, real and possible, it presents some
other names not altogether unworthy to be inscribed among the great man's
ancestors. Christopher was not, he says in a letter to a lady of the
Spanish court, the first admiral of his family--referring, evidently, to
two naval commanders bearing his name, who had attained some distinction
in the maritime service of Genoa and France, and the younger of whom,
Colombo el Mozo, was in command of a French squadron in the expedition
undertaken by John of Anjou against Naples for the recovery of the
Neapolitan crown. But his relationship with these Colombos, if traceable
at all, was probably only a very distant one, and his son, in admitting
this, wisely says that the glory of Christopher is quite enough, without,
there being a necessity to borrow any from his ancestors.

At a very early age he became a student at the University of Pavia, where
he laid the foundations of that knowledge of mathematics and natural
science, which stood him in good stead throughout his life. At Genoa he
would naturally regard the sea as the great field of enterprise which
produced harvests of rich wares and spoils of glorious victories; and he
may have heard, now and then, news of the latest conclusions of the
Arabic geographers at Senaar, and rumours of explorations down the African
coast, which would be sure to excite interest among the maritime
population of his birthplace. It is not wonderful that, exposed to such
influences, he preferred a life of adventure on the sea to the drudgery of
his father's trade in Genoa. Accordingly, after finishing his academical
course at Pavia, he spent but a few irkso