358 LIFE OF COLUMBUS. 



plored. This he believed was occupied by a continuation 

 of the continent of Asia, which might extend so far as to 

 approach the western shores of Africa and Europe, within 

 no very great distance. Of course a navigator would 

 reach Asia, by sailing from east to west, and would dis- 

 cover any intervening land. This reasoning was con- 

 firmed in the mind of Columbus, not only by passages of 

 ancient writers, and the more recent travels of Mandeville 

 and Marco Polo in the east, but by various conversations 

 with African voyagers, Portuguese pilots, and the inhabit- 

 ants of the lately discovered islands. From some of these 

 he learned that a piece of carved wood had been picked 

 up, which must have drifted from the west; and that 

 reeds of an immense size, trunks of huge pine trees of 

 unknown kind, and lastly, the bodies of two dead men of 

 strange features and color, had been cast either upon 

 the main coast or upon some of the neighboring islands. 

 He derived great additional aid from the correspondence 

 of Toscanelli, a learned Florentine ; and especially from 

 a map furnished by him, in which the eastern coast of 

 Asia was drawn in front of the western coast of Europe, 

 at a moderate distance. He also procured and perused 

 carefully, the enthusiastic and vague history of Polo. 

 His increasing enterprise is proved by a voyage which he 

 made in 1477, several hundred miles beyond Iceland, 

 (which was then called Thule.) 



From the time when the theory of Columbus was matur- 

 ed, it remained unalterably fixed in his mind and heart, 

 and he never afterwards spoke of it with doubt, hesitation 

 or indifference. He is said even to have regarded it with 

 superstitious awe, and to have looked upon himself as- a 

 chosen instrument for great future purposes in the hand 

 of Heaven. Several years, however, elapsed, without any 

 steps being taken towards his ultimate design, owing partly 

 to his poverty, and partly to the circumstance that the age 

 was not yet prepared for his theory, or at least for attempt- 

 ing to ascertain its correctness. But the time was fast 

 approaching, and two fortunate events seemed particu- 

 larly to favor his scheme. One was the application of 

 the astrolabe to navigation ; and the other, the com- 

 mencement of the reign of the enterprising king John II. 



