le, fitted out an
expedition under Christopher Columbus, a master-mariner and
cartographer, the funds being provided by Isabella, who pledged her
private property as security for the cost of the expedition. This
expedition resulted in the discovery, October 10-21, 1492, of the West
India Islands. In a subsequent voyage, Columbus discovered the mainland
of South America.

Even before the voyage of Columbus, the Portuguese had been trying to
find a way around Africa to India, and Pope Eugenius IV. had conferred
on Portugal "all heathen lands from Cape Bojador eastward even to the
Indies." Little by little, therefore, Portuguese navigators were pushing
southward until, in 1487, Bartholomew Dias sighted the Cape of Good
Hope, and got about as far as Algoa Bay. Then he unwillingly turned back
because of the threats of his crew. It was a most remarkable voyage, and
one of the shipmates of Dias was Bartholomew Columbus, a brother of the
discoverer of the New World.

Ten years later, or five years after the voyage of Columbus, Vasco da
Gama sailed from Lisbon for the Cape of Good Hope. As he passed the Cape
he was terribly storm-tossed, but the storms carried him in a fortunate
direction. And when at last he got his reckonings, he was off the coast
of India; he therefore kept along the coast until in sight of a port.
The port was the well-known city of Calicut. Two years later he returned
to Europe by the same route, his ships laden with spices, precious
stones, beautiful tapestries and brocades, ivory and bronzes. The
long-sought sea-route to India had been discovered.

[Illustration: A HANSE CITY--HAMBURG, ALONG THE WATER-FRONT]

=Commerce in Western Europe.=--After the discovery of the new route,
Venice and Genoa were scarcely heard of in relation to commerce; they
lost everything and gained nothing. The great commerce with the Orient
was to have a new western terminus, and the latter was to be on the
shores of the North and Baltic Seas.

The commerce between Europe and India stimulated trade in western Europe
as well. As early as the twelfth century the manufacture of linen and
woollen cloth had grown to be a very important industry that had
resulted in the rapid growth of population. The older cities grew
rapidly, and new ones sprang up wherever the commodities of trade were
gathered, manufactured, or distributed.

These centres of trade had two hostile elements against them. The feudal
lords used to pillage them le