We have already seen that the period was one of the greatest excitement and expectancy in regard to maritime discovery. Columbus had long reflected upon the existence of land in the west, upon the sphericity of the earth, and upon the possibility of crossing the Atlantic. He had already conceived the idea of reaching Asia by following the setting sun across the immensity of the waters. His mind, too, was kindled to religious enthusiasm by the allusions in the Bible to the universal diffusion of the gospel, and, in his dreams of nautical discovery, the belief that he was destined to be an apostle, sent to extend the dominion of the cross, predominated over more worldly aspirations. For years, while struggling with disappointment and harassed by poverty, he pursued this idea with the pertinacity of a monomaniac. When forty years old, and residing at Lisbon, he proposed to the Senate of Genoa to leave the Mediterranean by the Straits of Gibraltar and to proceed to the west, in the sea known as the Ocean, as far as the "lands where spices bloom," and thus circumnavigate the earth. The Genoese, whose maritime knowledge was confined to the Mediterranean, and who had no fancy for adventures upon the ocean, declined listening to the proposition, pretexting the penury of the treasury. It would also seem that overtures made by Columbus to the Council of Venice were similarly rejected. For a time, therefore, he abandoned all efforts to further his desires. In 1477, he made a voyage to Iceland, in order to discover whether it was inhabited, and even sailed one hundred leagues beyond it,--where, to his astonishment, he found the sea not frozen.