rienced off it, and which, as well as the want of provisions, obliged him to return to Lisbon, after an absence of sixteen months. The name of the Cape of all Torments was changed by the king to that of Good Hope, from the prospect it afforded of accomplishing the passage to India.
Ten years however elapsed after the discovery of the Cape before this passage was attempted; and Vasco de Gama had the honor of doubling the promontory the 20th of November, 1497. Sailing along the coast of Africa, he passed through the Mozambique Channel to Mombaz and thence to Melinda, where he procured pilots, and crossing the Arabian sea, arrived at Callicut the 22d of May, 1498. It is thought that the ridiculous ceremony of ducking,etc., on crossing the line, was first practiced in this voyage.
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
Christopher Columbo or Colon, better known by his Latinized name
of Columbus, was born at Genoa about the year 1436. His father was
a woolcomber, in not very affluent circumstances; although connected,
according to some accounts, with persons of superior rank. Columbus
was the eldest of a family of four. His two brothers, Bartholomew and
Diego, will afterwards be mentioned in connection with his discoveries;
his sister married an obscure person of the name of Bavarello.
Of the early life of Columbus very little is known. Considering the habits of the age, and the condition of his parents, he appears to have received a good education. While yet a mere child, he learned reading, writing, and arithmetic; he was also such a proficient in drawing and painting, that according to one of his biographers, he could have earned a livelihood by them. At an early age he went to the university of Padua, in Lombardy, then a celebrated school of learning. Here he acquired the Latin language, and devoted himself with zeal to the study of mathematics in all its branches, especially those connected with geography and navigation, towards which he seems to have been drawn from the first by an irresistible propensity. His stay at Padua connot have been long; for in his fourteenth year he returned to his father's house in Genoa, where he is said to have pursued for some time the occupation of woolcombing. This, however, was far from his taste; and he made choice of the seafaring profession. Genoa being at that time one of the greatest commercial cities in the world, the enthusiasm for maritime enterprise was universal amongst its inhabitants. A historian of the period speaks of the proneness of the Genoese youth to wander through the world in quest of riches, which they intended to return and spend in their native city: few, however, he says, were able to carry their intention into effect—not one in ten of those who left Genoa ever revisiting it. Of these adventurous youths, whose ambition to be sailors was nursed by the sight of the merchant-vessels landing their rich freights on the quays of Genoa, Columbus was one; and, as we have already seen, his education was suitable for the mode of life he had chosen.
At fourteen years of age Columbus left Genoa in the humble capacity of a sailor boy on board a Mediterranean trader; and for many years, at first as a common sailor, and latterly as master of a vessel, he appears to have sailed along the Mediterranean from the Levant to Gibraltar, possibly
