Inasmuch as we are studying not so much the history of voyages as of the ships that actually carried the voyagers there is not here the scope to enter into a discussion of the reasons that prompted Columbus to go West. But it may not be out of place to point to the fact that it was no mere haphazard undertaking. We mentioned in an earlier chapter that the Vikings who colonised Iceland in a previous century also sailed further on from there to the American Continent. Now Columbus had visited Iceland and may in all probability have heard of the tradition that there was land to the far west across the seas. As Lord Dunraven mentions, Columbus knew that the world was more or less round, and that consequently the more he sailed West the nearer he would come to the well-known regions of the East. We must remember, too, that for some time the Portuguese and Spaniards had been applying themselves to the study of charts and the science of navigation. Columbus, himself, was a mapmaker, and a man with a scientific mind. But besides all this there was the story of the “unknown pilot,” whose ship having been blown from Spain or Portugal across the Atlantic had reached new land. Taking these considerations in conjunction with an age almost bursting with energy, that was thirsting for knowledge only to be obtained through adventure and perseverance, it was inevitable that the New World should be discovered. As to the navigational instruments Columbus had with him a compass divided into 360° and 32 points as to-day, although the points were named somewhat differently. Nor was he prevented through lack of knowledge from taking observations of the sun. He had a cross-staff, a quadrant and a sea astrolabe. The voyage five years later of John Cabot, an Italian, to the mainland of America with a Bristol ship and Bristol sailors; of Vasco de Gama doubling the Cape of Good Hope _en route_ to India, and of other enterprising and courageous navigators could only have the effect of influencing the subsequent building of ships of greater tonnage and seaworthiness. [Illustration: FIG. 46. THE FRENCH SHIP “CORDELIÈRE” IN THE FOREGROUND, WITH THE ENGLISH “REGENT” IN THE BACKGROUND, ON FIRE OFF BREST.]