Christopher Columbus was a tall, good-looking, sharp-nosed man. He had high cheekbones, a long face, blue eyes, red hair and a pleasant smile — but no sense of humour. He was a map maker, book salesman, sugar buyer and sailor.

He was a good talker, proud of his accomplishments and, for the most part, respectable and honest. His discovery of America was one of the most important single feats of courage in history.

Some of the things we take for granted about Columbus are wrong. For example, he was not the only person of his time who believed the earth was round. A lot of people believed it. The schools and universities taught it as a fact. People could even buy a globe not very different from those you see today.

Columbus's trip to the West was a great risk, but it was not taken without some advance knowledge. European ports were full of stories of men who had made either all or part of such a journey. There were reports that the Queen of Sheba had gone west, past Spain, and out into the sea as far as Japan. Some Portuguese churchmen, it was said, had sailed to an island not far from Cuba which they called Antilla. And, of course, Leif Ericson had led his Norsemen to a safe landing in what is now New England.

There was also a map, drawn by an Italian doctor and astronomer named Toscanelli, which was regarded as sound and trustworthy. It showed Japan to be about where America really is. Curious tree trunks and other things that could not have grown in Africa were picked up at sea. Such things made it pretty clear that there was land out there which a brave sailor could go and find. But nobody did anything about it — at least as far as the records show — until Columbus had his idea.

Christopher Columbus was born in 1451, as the oldest son of a weaver. Little is known of what he did between birth and the age of 23, except that he worked in his father's business and later became a sailor.

Since Genoa was a port city and a centre of sea trade at that time, ships crowded its harbour. A bright young man had many opportunities to learn the arts of sailing and map-making.

There are records of a number of Columbus's voyages, including one to Iceland. But one of those played an especially important part in his life. He was a sailor on a ship which a Portuguese ship attacked and sank. Although wounded, Columbus jumped overboard and swam to shore at Lagos, Portugal. Later he travelled on to Lisbon.

It was the year 1476. Lisbon was a good place for a man with a dream of adventure, for it was a port where all sorts of ideas for exploring received financial support. It was also a place to learn mathematics and astronomy and shipbuilding — the knowledge a master seaman needed.

Columbus and his brother Bartholomew set up a map-making shop and did well. Columbus married the daughter of a wealthy man and wanted to settle in one place and become a stay-at-home member of the community.

But Columbus's idea never left him — the idea that he could reach the Far East by sailing West. It worried him and wouldn't let him rest.

That was the difference between Columbus and others of his time. He was sure. He knew. He wanted to go. But he was forced to wait a long time before anyone would give him a ship. Still, he talked of his idea to everybody who would listen.

John II, King of Portugal, was interested, and he took Columbus's idea to a committee of experts. They refused to consider it. But the King didn't actually say no to Columbus until Bartholomew Diaz, a Portuguese explorer, sailed around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa and thus opened the eastern way to treasure places of the Far East. After that, John II was no longer interested in the western route.

When Columbus's wife died he went to Spain. King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella were fighting a costly war with the Moors. They therefore listened to Columbus's proposal with only half an ear. However, the Queen liked Columbus immediately and put him on a pension, while her own committee of experts studied the matter.

The pension wasn't much, but until it ceased a year or two later, it kept Columbus from starving. For three and a half years he made a living by selling books and drawing maps while waiting for Spain's war with the Moors to end. His red hair turned silver and he got arthritis; his coat and shoes became so full of holes that he couldn't go out on rainy days. But still he kept on talking about his dream.

In 1491, he decided to leave Spain and seek in France financial help for his explorations. On the way he stopped at a monastery near the Spanish seaport of Palos de la Frontera. The prior there — much interested in Columbus's story arranged for him to see the Queen again. Although Isabella's experts had not supported Columbus's proposal when it was presented the first time, the Queen now listened to his whole story and liked the idea. She did think, howewer, that his price for discovery was rather high: he wanted to be Admiral of the Ocean Sea and viceroy of all the lands he discovered, and to receive ten per cent of all treasure he might collect.

When Isabella didn't agree to his conditions immediately, he thanked her for listening, got on his horse and started again for France. After six years of waiting, he was not going to accept anything less.

After Columbus left, Luis Santangel, the King's treasurer, said to Isabella: "Any money you lack, I'll supply myself. What can you lose? And think what you might gain — thousands of converts, glory for Spain and gold." The Queen asked Columbus to come back.

The total cost of the greatest voyage in history, which gave Spain the whole of the New World, was about as much as the price of a small house today. Compared with this, the price of $ 24 the Dutch paid Indians for Manhattan Island (now part of New York City) seems very high.

Columbus's three ships — the "Pinta", the "Nina" and the "Santa Maria" — were strong little vessels which in good weather could travel six to seven knots. Each contained a cabin for the master but the crew slept on deck.

Once each day a fire was lighted in an open firebox, and a hot meal was cooked. Time was kept by means of an hourglass which was turned by deck boys.

The three ships carried about 87 men. Among them were three doctors, a servant for Columbus, an interpreter and a man sent by the Queen to make a record of the gold and precious stones that would be taken on the ships.

The crew was not made up of convicts, as we have been told, although one had been a murderer. Most of them were ordinary seamen who had learned the art of sailing by going to sea whenever they had the opportunity.

Columbus's skill in navigation was admired by all those who came after him. The Portuguese, in their attempts to find the new land, had started too far north, and so had to battle with the western winds which finally forced them back. But Columbus started well to the south and thus caught the good east winds which pushed his ships straight across the ocean. It took him exactly 33 days to reach land in the West.

When the ships struck seaweed in the Sargasso Sea, the captains asked Columbus to turn aside and look for islands. But Columbus refused to listen and kept going westward. He did turn southwest once, but only to follow a flight of birds which, he judged correctly, were heading for land. If he had not changed his course, he would have found himself among the islands at the southern tip of Florida.

The crew became worried because they had been out of sight of land for so many days. They urged Columbus to turn the ships back toward Spain. He called the men together on October 10 and said, "If we don't find land within two days, we'll turn back." Columbus was certain that land was nearby because he had seen birds flying in the area and branches floating in the water.

On October 12, 1492, the ships reached San Salvador Island, in the Bahamas. There Columbus knelt, thanked God for their safe voyage and took possession of the island in the name of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. The natives, who were naked and simple and friendly, watched with interest.

"They are so simple, and free with all they have," wrote Columbus, "that no one would believe it who has not seen it. They invite you to share anything they possess, and they are happy with any trifle you give them." These people, called the Tainos, disappeared long ago. Columbus told Queen Isabella they would make good slaves because they were gentle and had good minds.

Of the first days on shore, Dr. Samuel E. Morison writes in his biography of Columbus: "So ended 48 hours of the most wonderful experience that perhaps any seamen have ever had." Other discoveries, according to Dr. Morison, have drawn wider attention than the discovery of this sandy island. But it was there that the ocean for the first time gave up the secret which had baffled Europeans since they began to wonder about what lay beyond the waters to the west.

On San Salvador everything was different from what they had ever seen before. Every tree, every plant that the Spaniards saw was strange to them, and the natives were not only strange but spoke an unknown language.

From San Salvador Columbus sailed south, discovering other islands, including Cuba. He finally landed in Hispaniola — the island on which Haiti and the Dominican Republic are now situated.

Here he lost control of his men; they stole things and attacked the natives. Here also the "Santa Maria" went aground and could not be floated again. So Columbus decided to leave a colony of about 40 men in a place he called Isabella, on the island's north coast. He never saw them again; it is believed that the natives murdered them. Columbus headed north, caught the western winds and at length arrived back in Spain.

Columbus's account of his journey drew wide attention in Spain. He received a royal welcome and was honoured in Spanish cities, where he showed gold, birds and Indians brought from the New World.

When he knelt before King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, they even invited him to sit beside them. All that they had agreed to give him, they gave. They urged him to get ready to start again, this time with priests and soldiers and workmen, to unite and extend his discoveries.

On Columbus's second voyage, in 1493, he again had trouble in controlling his crew. Sometimes he was too gentle and at other times too brutal.

On his third voyage, five years later, he sighted South America for the first time. He still thought that all the lands he saw were islands.

In Hispaniola in 1500 a judge who was sent out from Spain found Columbus had committed several crimes, including brutalities and injustices. Columbus was returned to Spain as a prisoner. The Queen, very angry on hearing of it, quickly freed him.

However, when Columbus demanded the one-tenth share of the treasure which they had promised him, the King and Queen were unwilling to give it to him. The western lands were providing greater and greater wealth and the amount agreed upon would have made Columbus very, very rich. So they were in no hurry to pay him.

Finally, in 1502, he was given four ships, and his fourth and final voyage began. On this one he passed along the coast of Central America, searching for a passage to the Pacific. His men mutinied and came close to killing him. Lying in bed with arthritis, his ships in bad condition, he was forced to wait for help at Jamaica.

On his return to Spain, Columbus found that his good friend Isabella had died. Ferdinand took no notice of his requests for money to pay his crew. Still suffering from arthritis, he went on horseback to see the King. Ferdinand offered to make him a duke, with the power and wealth that went with the title. But this was not enough to satisfy Columbus. As a result, he refused the offer and got nothing.

If Columbus had remained in Spain after his first voyage, he would have lived comfortably for the rest of his days, enjoying fame and money and hereditary titles. But he wasn't that sort of man.

He believed he had touched the East Indies. He thought the palace of the ruler of China was somewhere in Costa Rica. On his voyage he had carried a royal letter of introduction to this ruler. He wanted not wealth alone, but to find the passage that would lead him to the place Marco Polo had mentioned — where there were great delights and comforts.

This, in brief, is the story of the man who gave Spain control of more territory than its rulers had ever imagined, and whose discoveries turned the eyes of Europe westward.

Columbus died at the age of 55, poor and forgotten. But his fame and the recognition of his accomplishments have been growing with each passing century.

Sean Townes

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