LIFE OF COLUMBUS. 357 



ate and simple in apparel and diet, eloquent in discourse, 

 engaging and affable with strangers. He resided in or 

 about Lisbon for fourteen years. This circumstance was 

 partly owing, no doubt, to a matrimonial connection 

 which he formed with an Italian cavalier's daughter 

 whom he met with in attending religious services, as he 

 did with scrupulous regularity, at the chapel of the con- 

 vent of All-Saints. The father-in-law being dead, the 

 young couple lived with the mother ; and the latter soon 

 perceiving the interest which Columbus took in mari- 

 time matters, told him all she knew of the voyages of her 

 late husband, who had been a distinguished navigator un- 

 der Prince Henry of Portugal, and brought him all his 

 charts, journals, and memorandums. Columbus devoted 

 himself with unwearied diligence to the examination of 

 these papers, and of whatever others of a similar nature 

 he could obtain. Thus he acquainted himself with all 

 the routes and plans of the enterprising Portuguese. He 

 also occasionally joined in expeditions to the African 

 coast, then a country of great and novel interest. Some 

 other leisure, meanwhile, was devoted to making maps 

 and charts, in which he finally acquired a proficiency then 

 quite rare, and which assisted him, too, in the mainte- 

 nance of his family. His wife inheriting some property in 

 the recently discovered island of Porto Santo, he went to 

 reside there with her for some time. There, on the very 

 frontiers of discovery, they were frequently visitt d, no 

 doubt, by the African voyagers going to and fro, while he 

 held daily familiar conversations upon all the popular 

 topics of the day, with Correo, the husband of his wife's 

 sister, a man of influence upon the island and a naviga- 

 tor of great note. This was a period of general excite- 

 ment, and it is not wonderful that Columbus, situated as 

 he was and had been, and with his ardent temperament, 

 should enter into it with his whole soul. 



At this time he seems to have gradually matured his 

 theory concerning undiscovered lands in the west. This 

 was founded, 1. Upon the nature of things. 2. The 

 authority of learned writers. 3. The reports of naviga- 

 tors. Under the first head, he considered the earth to be 

 a sphere, of which about one third still remained unex- 



VOL. i. NO. xv. 32* 



