Page:The life of Christopher Columbus.djvu/91

] discoveries, and to acquire notions more and more advanced in regard to the ocean, and the regions of the south.

The idea that increased silently within him, the principle which reflection had fecundated, the study and the impassioned contemplation of the divine works, received soon, in the bosom of the family circle, a rapid development. In their friendly chattings, his mother-in-law, a lady of eminent piety, and very zealous for the cause of the Church, struck with his desire to discover unknown countries, recounted to him the life of her husband, who had been an able mariner. She told him how he had cooperated in the discovery of several islands. She confided to him the notes and the journals of his voyages. From the observations they contained, Columbus soon drew a support for his project. He examined the whole of the progress of the Portuguese on the coast of Guinea, and the route they followed to arrive there. Some time after, he embarked with Doña Felippa for her sterile possessions at Porto Santo, and remained there for a certain time. It was there that his first son, Diego, was born.

Surrounded by the immensity of the ocean, — an image of the Infinite, — under the dazzling light of a tropical sun, the genius of Columbus matured in the depths of his thoughts a superhuman idea, — a project bolder than that of any known heroism. What he had seen, what he had heard, served only to corroborate the justness of his inductions. His habits, his tastes, his family connections, seemed to be pre-arranged for the furtherance of the plan which was elaborated in the depths of his reflections.

The second sister of Doña Felippa had also her claims on the possessions of Porto Santo. She became the wife of a noble mariner, Pedro Correa, who was governor of the island. During their conversations Columbus could communicate to this mariner his cosmographic inductions, and avail himself of his observations. Pedro had occasion to make some voyages to the farthest islands of the Atlantic, far from the African coast. He had been to Madeira and