Page:The life of Christopher Columbus.djvu/97

] scripts, which, from time to time, he took to Genoa, where he bought and sold printed books.

If the double refusal he received, and perhaps the impossibility of his having immediate recourse to another State, with the chance of success, caused Columbus to postpone his project, he did not the less assiduously continue his observations, or the less seek to enlarge the sphere of his cosmographic comparisons. We see him crossing the German Ocean, and advancing to the Polar Seas. In February, 1474, he was a hundred leagues beyond Iceland, and verified some phenomena interesting to hydrography. From the sombre horizons of the North, from the Ultima Thule of the ancients to the splendid skies of the tropics, with his powerful faculty of generalization, he united together in his memory the harmonies of land and sea, seeking to penetrate beyond the poetry of appearances the great laws of the globe. Passing from the contemplation of the works of God to the investigation of the works of men, during the brief periods of his stay on land, he consecrated to the study of the writings of philosophers, historians, and naturalists, every hour that was not employed in copying manuscripts, and constructing spheres for gaining his daily bread.

He thus pursued his voyages, from which it does not appear that he gained any other profit than a superior experience in navigation. He continued his life of hardship and labor until the time came when the King of Portugal, John II., appeared to wish to revive the traditions of his grand-uncle, Don Henry, of glorious memory.

This monarch had gathered in his marine some pilots of the first rank, real mariners, such as Diego Cam, Bartholomew and Peter Diaz. Like his grand-uncle, he welcomed the services of all foreigners of eminent abilities. He wished to extend his conquests to the Indies. The energy of his mind, and his penetration, enabled him to divine merit. It