The most fearless who,
at evening, upon the cliffs of Spain or Portugal, watched
black night settle upon the far-spreading waters of the
Atlantic, might well turn shuddering from any attempt to
sail into those unknown wastes.
It was the stern logic of events which compelled the
enterprise. Barbarous Turks swept westward. Arabia, Syria,
the Isles of Greece, and, at last, in 1453, Constantinople
itself, fell into their hands. The Eastern Empire, the
last survival of the Empire of the Romans, perished
beneath the sword of Mahomet. Then the pathway by land
to Asia, to the fabled empires of Cathay and Cipango,
was blocked by the Turkish conquest. Commerce, however,
remained alert and enterprising, and men's minds soon
turned to the hopes of a western passage which should
provide a new route to the Indies.
All the world knows the story of Christopher Columbus,
his long years of hardship and discouragement; the supreme
conviction which sustained him in his adversity; the
final triumph which crowned his efforts. It is no detraction
from the glory of Columbus to say that he was only one
of many eager spirits occupied with new problems of
discovery across the sea.
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