1. Find from a map in the geography how many miles goods must have been carried to reach Venice from Persia, India, the Moluccas, or China. How far is it from Venice by sea to Bruges or London? 2. Where and how do we now obtain cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves? 3. What line of emperors has been recently ruling over China? Where has been their capital? Find out about the present Mongols. Collect pictures of China and Japan. 4. Read a longer account of Marco Polo. 5. Study the geography of Portugal. Collect pictures of Portugal. Find out if many Portuguese are living in the United States. REVIEW _Steps Towards the Discovery of America_ Greek colonies in Italy, Gaul, and Spain. Roman conquest of Gaul, Spain, and Britain. Viking voyages to Greenland and Vinland. Venetian trade in spices with the East, and Venetian voyages to London and Bruges. Marco Polo's travels in China and the East. Portuguese voyages down the coast of Africa and about the Cape of Good Hope. CHAPTER XIV THE DISCOVERY OF A NEW WORLD CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. Six years before Vasco da Gama made his famous voyage to India around Africa and opened a new trade route for the Portuguese merchants, another seaman had formed and carried out a much bolder plan. This was Christopher Columbus, and his plan was to sail directly west from Europe into the unknown ocean in search of new islands and the coast of Asia. Columbus, who was a native of Genoa in Italy, had followed his younger brother to Portugal. Both were probably led there by the fame of Prince Henry's explorations. The brothers became very skilful in making maps and charts for the Portuguese. They also frequently sailed with them on their expeditions along the coast of Africa. All the early associations of Columbus were with men interested in voyages of discovery, and particularly with those engaged in the daring search for a sea route to India. HOW COLUMBUS FORMED HIS PLAN. Columbus gathered all the information on geography which he could from ancient writers and from modern discoverers. Many of them believed that the world was shaped like a ball. If such were its shape, Columbus reasoned, why might not a ship sail around it from east to west? Or, better, why not sail directly west to India, and perhaps find many wonderful islands between Europe and Asia? His imagination was also fired by Marco Polo's description of the marvelous riches of China, Japan, and the Spice Islands. But the idea of going directly west into the midst of the unknown and seemingly boundless waste of water, and on and on to Asia, appeared to most men of the fifteenth century to be madness. [Illustration: CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS The oldest known picture of Columbus, in the National Library, Madrid]