As Portugal was then the center of nautical enterprise, he wandered there about 1470, and probably went on one or two voyages down the coast of Africa.

In 1473 he married a Portuguese woman.

Her father had been one of the King of Portugal's famous navigators, and had left behind him at his death a quantity of charts and notes; and it was while Columbus was studying them that the idea of seeking the Indies by sailing due westward seems to have first started in his mind.

But many a year went by, and many a hardship had to be borne, and many an insult patiently endured in poverty and distress, before the Friday morning in August, 1492, when his three caravels, the _Santa Maria_ (sahn'-tah mah-ree'-ah), the _Pinta_ (peen'-tah), and the _Nina_ (neen'-yah), sailed from the port of Palos (pah'-los), in Spain.
[Footnote 2: There is reason to believe that about the year 1000 A.D.
the northeast coast of America was discovered by a Norse voyager named Leif Ericsson.

The records are very meager; but the discovery of our country by such a people is possible and not improbable.