298 General History of Europe It is hard for us to understand this enthusiasm for spices. One former use of spices was to preserve food, which could not then as now be carried rapidly, while still fresh, from place to place ; nor did our conveniences then exist for keeping it by the use of ice. Moreover, spice served to make even spoiled food more palat- able than it would otherwise have been. 500. Idea of reaching the Spice Islands by sailing Westward. It inevitably occurred to thoughtful men that the East Indies could be reached by sailing westward. Intelligent people knew, all through the Middle Ages, that the earth was a globe. The chief authority upon the form and size of the earth continued to be the ancient astronomer Ptolemy (265), who had lived about A.D. 150. He had reckoned the earth to be about one sixth smaller than it is ; and as Marco Polo had given an exaggerated idea of the distance which he and his companions had traveled eastward, and as no one suspected the existence of the American continents, it was supposed that it could not be a very long journey from Europe across the Atlantic to Japan. 501. Columbus discovers America (1492). In 1492, as we all know, a Genoese navigator, Columbus (b. 1451), who had had much experience on the sea, got together three little ships and undertook the journey westward to Zipangu, the land of gold, which he hoped to reach in five weeks. After thirty-two days from the time he left the Canary Islands he came upon land, the island of San Salvador, and believed himself to be in the East Indies. Going on from there he discovered the island of Cuba, which he believed to be the mainland of Asia, and then Haiti, which he mistook for the longed-for Zipangu. Although he made three later expeditions and sailed down the coast of South America as far as the Orinoco, he died without realizing that he had not been exploring the coast of Asia. 502. Magellan's Expedition around the World. After the bold enterprises of Vasco da Gama and Columbus an expedition headed by the Portuguese Magellan succeeded in circumnavigat- ing the globe. There was now no reason why the new lands should
- npt become jnore and more familiar to the European nations.
