Accounts of the navigation from the eastern coast of Africa to Arabia had reached the western kingdoms of Europe, and adventurous Venetians, returning from travels beyond the Ganges, had filled the world with dazzling descriptions of the wealth of China, as well as marvelous reports of the outlying island empire of Japan. It began to be believed that the continent of Asia stretched over far more than a hemisphere, and that the remaining distance around the globe was comparatively short. Yet from the early part of the fifteenth century the navigators of Portugal had directed their explorations to the coast of Africa; and when they had ascertained that the torrid zone is habitable, even under the equator, the discovery of the islands of Madeira and the Azores could not divert them from the purpose of turning the southern capes of that continent and steering past them to the land of spices, which promised untold wealth to the merchants of Europe, new dominions to its princes, and heathen nations to the religion of the cross. Before the year 1474, and perhaps as early as 1470, Columbus was attracted to Lisbon, which was then the great center of maritime adventure. He came to insist with immovable resoluteness that the shortest route to the Indies lay across the Atlantic. By the words of Aristotle, received through Averroes, and by letters from Toscanelli, the venerable cosmographer of Florence--who had drawn a map of the world, with Eastern Asia rising over against Europe--he was riveted in his faith and lived only in the idea of laying open the western path to the Indies.