Читать книгу Children's Stories in American History - Henrietta Christian Wright - Страница 7

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COLUMBUS AND THE DISCOVERY OF AMERICA.

If you will look at your map you will see on the western shore of Italy a city which has become celebrated as the birthplace of a great man. It is called Genoa, the Superb, and in this city was born, over three hundred years ago, the man who was to make it immortal. Genoa is a beautiful city. It looks from the sea like a great picture. Its churches, palaces, promenades, and gardens stretch in terraces from the Mediterranean up to the slopes of the Apennines, and behind are seen the ice-covered peaks of the Alps. It has a mild and healthy climate, and on the mountains around grow grain, grapes, oranges, figs, almonds, chestnuts, etc. The streets of the city are mostly narrow, irregular, and sometimes so steep that carriages cannot be used in them, although there are a few that are straight and handsome. Genoa is famed for its palaces and for its great works of sculpture and painting. But its narrow, crooked streets are, after all, the most interesting thing about it, for in them Columbus, when a boy, walked and played. Of course, having been born near the sea, he was naturally very fond of it, and doubtless spent many hours standing on the wharves watching the ships enter and leave the harbor, and while yet a boy he determined that he would be a sailor and spend his life on the great sea which he loved so well. At ten years of age he was sent by his father to the university of Pavia to study navigation and other things, as it was considered necessary that seamen should be well educated, although at that time very few people, even among the nobles, knew how to write. He stayed in Pavia nearly four years, and then returned to Genoa and entered his father's workshop. But here he remained but a short time, for at the age of fourteen he went to sea in a vessel under command of his granduncle, Colombo. For twenty years he followed the sea, during which time he was in many battles, always appearing brave, and often encouraging his sailors by his example. During this time he visited nearly all the ports that were then known, but still he was not satisfied.