A month later Christopher saw a galley flying the flag of Genoa enter the harbor. When the captain came on shore the boy went to him, and telling him who he was, asked for a chance to go as sailor back to Genoa. The captain knew the boy's father, Domenico Colombo, and gave Christopher a place on the galley. She was sailing north, homeward bound, and a few days later, having safely avoided all hostile ships and storms, the galley came into sight of the beautiful white city in its nest against the hills. It was a happy day when the young sailor landed and surprised his father and mother by walking in upon them. News of Colombo's defeat by the ship of Naples had come to Genoa, and Christopher's family had given him up as lost. But narrow as his escape on that voyage had been, such chances were part of the sailor's life in that age, and Christopher was quite ready to take his share of privation and danger with his mates. It was only by weathering such storms that he could ever hope to be put in charge of rich merchantmen or to command his own vessel in his city's defense. So he sailed again soon after, and in a year or two had come to know the Mediterranean Sea as well as the back of his hand. Captains found he was good at making maps, and paid him to draw them, and when he was on shore he spent all his time studying charts and plans, and soon became so expert that he could support himself by preparing new charts. Yet, in spite of all his study, he found that the maps covered only a small part of the sea, and gave him no knowledge of the waters to the west. There he now began to believe the long-looked-for sea passage to the East Indies must lie. Christopher grew to manhood, and then a chance shipwreck threw him in Lisbon, the capital of Portugal. The Portuguese were the great sailors of the age, and the young man met many famous captains who were planning trips to the western coast of Africa and about the Cape of Good Hope. Some of the captains took an interest in the sailor who made such splendid maps and was so eager to go on dangerous exploring trips, and they brought him to the notice of the King of Portugal. One of them, Toscanelli, wrote of the young Christopher's "great and noble desire to pass to where the spices grow," and listened with interest to his plans to reach those rich spice lands by sailing west. The ideas of Columbus seemed too visionary to most princes, and it was years before he was able to persuade the Spanish sovereigns, Ferdinand and Isabella, to grant him three small ships and enough men to start upon his voyage. But on August 3, 1492, he finally set sail from Palos, in Spain. All the world knows the history of that great voyage, of the tremendous difficulties that beset Columbus, how his men grew fearful and would have turned back, how he had to change the ship's reckoning as he had seen his cousin change the compass, how he had sometimes to plead with his men and sometimes to threaten them.