We know, however, from the best of evidence that he early became interested in geographical studies. His father’s business does not seem to have been very prosperous,--at least, we find him about this time selling out his little property in Genoa and establishing himself at Savona. Meantime, the youthful Christopher found himself yielding to the strong current which in those years carried so many of the Genoese into a life of maritime adventure. If our conjecture in regard to the time of his birth is correct, it was about 1460 when he took his first voyage. From that initiative experience for about ten years, that is to say until 1470, we have only glimpses here and there of the events of his life. Nor can we regard the details of this experience as important, except as they throw light upon the development of his intelligence and character. Fortunately for this purpose evidence is not altogether wanting. Bits of information have been picked up here and there, which, though it is impossible to weave them very confidently into a connected whole, still show, in a general way, the nature of the training he received during those important years. If we condense into a useful form all that is positively known of his life during the ten years from the time he was fourteen until he was twenty-four, we shall perhaps conclude that there are only three results that are worthy of note. The first is the fact that he had considerable maritime experience of a very turbulent nature. There is some reason to believe that he accompanied the unsuccessful expedition of John of Anjou against Naples in 1459. However this may have been, it is certain that he joined several of the expeditions of the celebrated corsairs bearing the same family name of Columbus. Modern eulogists of the great discoverer have hesitated to write the ugly word which indicates the nature of the business in which these much-dreaded fleets were engaged; but the state papers of the time uniformly refer to the elder of these commanders as “the Pirate Columbus.” To the younger they also refer in no more complimentary terms. Fernando Columbus is authority for the statement that his father accompanied the celebrated expedition that fought the great battle off Cape St. Vincent. But the statement is a curious illustration of the necessity of accepting the assurances of this historian with extreme caution. He says that it was by escaping from the wreck of the fleet that his father came for the first time to his new home in Portugal. Now, we know that the battle alluded to did not take place until 1485, the year after Columbus left Portugal and went to Spain; and as he was otherwise occupied ever after he reached Spanish soil, it is not possible that the young navigator was even with the fleet during the engagement. We know, moreover, that he moved to Lisbon before 1473.