12. Ah, to be the discoverer of Atlantis or Paradise! "But, if the world is round," said Columbus, "it is not hell that lies beyond that stormy sea. Over there _must_ lie the eastern strand of Asia, the Cathay of Marco Polo, the land of the Kubla Khan, and Cipango, the great island beyond it." "Nonsense!" said the neighbors; "the world isn't round--can't you _see_ it is flat? And Cosmas Indicopleustes, who lived hundreds of years before you were born, says it is flat; and he got it from the Bible. You're no good Christian to be taking up with such heathenish notions!" Thought Columbus, "I will write to Paolo Toscanelli, at Florence, and see what be will say." 13. So Columbus wrote, and Toscanelli, the wise scientist, answered that the idea of sailing west was good and feasible; and with the letter came a map, on which Asia and the great island Cipango were laid down opposite Europe, with the Atlantic between, exactly as Columbus imagined it. Toscanelli said it was easy enough: "You may be certain of meeting with extensive kingdoms, populous cities, and rich provinces, abounding in all sorts of precious stones; and your visit will cause great rejoicing to the king and princes of those distant lands, besides opening a way for communication between them and the Christians, and the instruction of them in the Catholic religion and the arts we possess." It was 1474 when this encouragement came, and from this time all the sailor's thoughts and plans turned toward the west. 14. The life at home between his voyages, whether spent with his brother, the cosmographer, at Lisbon, or with his wife and sailor brother-in-law, on the Porto Santo island, was hardly less nautical than the voyages themselves. Porto Santo was in line with the ship-routes to and from Spain and all the new-found African coast and islands; and the family there, with the men sailors and geographers, and the women, wives and daughters of sailors and geographers, lived in the bracing salt sea-air, full of the tingle of adventure. 15. Wild stories tell the sailors, coming and going, whom one can scarce contradict for lack of certain knowledge; and is it not an age of wonders in real life? And the round earth, the round earth--_is_ it round? And the empire of the Grand Khan just over the western water there--not far! The sailors said that on the shores of one of the islands two dead men of strange appearance had been washed in from the west. The sailors said they had picked up curiously-carved sticks drifting from the west. Pedro Correa himself, Columbus's brother-in-law, and a man to be trusted, had found one floating from the west. And there was a legend of the sight of land lying like a faint cloud along that western horizon.