me months as a carder of wool
(tector panni) and actually entered on his nautical career before he was
fifteen years old.

EARLY VOYAGES OF COLUMBUS.

Of his many voyages, which of them took place before, and which after, his
coming to Portugal, we have no distinct record; but are sure that he
traversed a large part of the known world, that he visited England, that
he made his way to Iceland and Friesland[7] (where he may possibly have
heard vague tales of the discoveries by the Northmen in North America),
that he had been at El Mina, on the coast of Guinea, and that he had seen
the Islands of the Grecian Archipelago. "I have been seeking out the
secrets of nature for forty years," he says, "and wherever ship has
sailed, there have I voyaged." But beyond a few vague allusions of this
kind, we know scarcely anything of these early voyages. However, he
mentions particularly his having been employed by King Rene of Provence to
intercept a Venetian galliot. And this exploit furnishes illustrations
both of his boldness and his tact. During the voyage the news was brought
that the galliot was convoyed by three other vessels. Thereupon the crew
were unwilling to hazard an engagement, and insisted that Columbus should
return to Marseilles for re-inforcement. Columbus made a feint of
acquiescence, but craftily arranged the compass so that it appeared that
they were returning, while they were really steering their original
course, and so arrived at Carthagena on the next morning, thinking all the
while that they were in full sail for Marseilles.

[Footnote 7: The account of this voyage to the north of Europe, as
commonly quoted, furnishes a singular instance of the inaccuracy of
translators in the matter of figures. Columbus is there made to say,
that at the Ultima Thule, which be reached, "the tides were so great as
to rise and fall twenty-six fathoms," i.e. 156 feet. Of course this an
absurdity; for no tides in Europe rise much above 50 feet. We have no
record of the exact words used by Columbus, but in the extant Italian
translation he is made to speak of the rise being venti sei bracchia,
i.e. twenty-six ells (not fathoms), or about fifty-two feet. But even
this reduced estimate must be excessive. Except in the Bristol Channel
there is no rise of tide in the seas of Northern Europe which at all
approaches this limit. At Reikiavik (Iceland) the rise is seventeen and
a half feet. In Greenland it