The story of Columbus . ife he got a wound, perhapsin one of the sea fights common in that day. AVhileColumbus was in Portugal he married a Portugueselady, of good family, named Philippa Moniz. Columbus was a tall, strong man, with a long face,brilliant blue eyes, an aquiline nose, red hair, and a ruddycomplexion, marked with freckles. He was rather roughand abstracted in his manner, and somewhat quick-tem-pered, though he knew how to be amiable at who saw Columbus said that he was a fine-lookingman, although he dressed almost as plainly as a monk,for he was too thoughtful to care
The story of Columbus . ife he got a wound, perhapsin one of the sea fights common in that day. AVhileColumbus was in Portugal he married a Portugueselady, of good family, named Philippa Moniz. Columbus was a tall, strong man, with a long face,brilliant blue eyes, an aquiline nose, red hair, and a ruddycomplexion, marked with freckles. He was rather roughand abstracted in his manner, and somewhat quick-tem-pered, though he knew how to be amiable at who saw Columbus said that he was a fine-lookingman, although he dressed almost as plainly as a monk,for he was too thoughtful to care much about his clothes. 24 THE STORY OF COLUMBUS. He was very much interested in geography, and learnedto make maps and globes, and he sometimes made hisliving by selling these. Perhaps while he was makingspheres he thought a great deal about what was in thegreat blank spaces. He believed that the part of theworld already known—that is, from the Canary Islandsto a certain city in Asia—made two thirds of the distance. POKTKAIT OF COLUMBUS. around the globe, and that, as Marco Polo said that Asiaextended very far eastward, it must come quite a dis-tance over into the unknown third of the world, andhence it would be quite easily reached by sailing westfrom Europe. In reality, only about one third of theworld was known, while there remained two thirds tobe explored; but learned men in those days made the COLUMBUS IN PORTUGAL. 25 same mistake concernino^ the size of the earth thatCohimbiis did. Probably if the truth about the circum-ference of the world had been known, America wouldnot have been found bj Columbus. We have seen that Columbus was born in an age ofdiscovery. It was not so much a curiosity to knowabout tlie unknown parts of the earth that made menat first bent on discovery as it was the desire forwealth. Italian cities, like Genoa, where Columbuswas born, and Yenice, where Marco Polo lived, hadbecome rich by sending out ships to trade with theMohammedans, who sold s
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, booksubjectcolumbuschristopher
