[The True Story of Christopher Columbus by Elbridge S. Brooks]@TWC D-Link book
The True Story of Christopher Columbus

CHAPTER I
7/11

But Cathay was miles and miles away from Italy and Spain and France and England.

It was away across the deserts and mountains and seas and rivers, and they had to give it up because they could not sail there.
At last a man whose name was Marco Polo, and who was a very brave and famous traveler, really did go there, in spite of all the trouble it took.

And when he got back his stories were so very surprising that men were all the more anxious to find a way to sail in their ships to Cathay and see it for themselves.
But of course they could not sail over the deserts and mountains, and they were very much troubled because they had to give up the idea, until the son of the king of Portugal, named Prince Henry, said he believed that ships could sail around Africa and so get to India or "the Indies" as they called that land, and finally to Cathay.
Just look at your map again and see what a long, long voyage it would be to sail from Spain and around Africa to India, China and Japan.

It is such a long sail that, as you know, the Suez Canal was dug some twenty years ago so that ships could sail through the Mediterranean Sea and out into the Indian Ocean, and not have to go away around Africa.
But when Columbus was a boy it was even worse than now, for no one really knew how long Africa was, or whether ships really could sail around it.

But Prince Henry said he knew they could, and he sent out ships to try.


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