Page:The child's pictorial history of England; (IA childspictorialh00corn).pdf/134

 the way to America, which, for a long time, was called the New World.

5. Soon after this, the Portuguese found out the way to India by sea; and then the English began to make voyages of discovery also, and to find that the world had more countries in it than they had ever dreamed of before.

6. Maps and charts, which had been known to the Greeks and Romans, now began to be much improved, though they were still incorrect, as you may suppose.

7. However, all these new discoveries, together with the invention of printing, made people think more about learning, and less about fighting than they used to do; especially as the nobility were beginning to live more in the way they do now, and to have handsome houses in London, instead of living always in their gloomy old castles.

8. Their domestics were no longer slaves, but hired servants; their tenants were not villeins, but free farmers, who paid rent for their land; and the poor pesantry, no longer in bondage, were at liberty to go where they pleased, and were paid for their daily labour.

9. You remember that in the feudal times all the land in the country belonged to the king,