Chapter 1 - Marco Polo Springs A Surprise
How would you have liked to sail to America with Christopher Columbus in 1492?
Imagine yourself crossing the Atlantic in an open boat or one with only a small, stuffy cabin and taking two months to do it. And then to make matters worse, add the fact that nobody aboard the ships was sure when land would be sighted or whether it would be seen at all. When one has no idea how long his courage must hold out it is always harder to keep it up. Moreover, Columbus and his crew, accustomed to the warm sunshine and fair blue skies of Spain, were strangers to the gray bleakness of the Atlantic and shivered with cold.
Nor had it been easy for the three small vessels to carry provisions or water enough for such a long voyage. The food you may be sure became scarce and unappetizing before a landing was made; and the men aboard ship became pretty tired of one another's company. They were hungry, cold and frightened, and many of them, grown men though they were, cried to be taken home.
Perhaps you might have done the same had you been there - perhaps I might. The ocean is an awesome place and even a gallant liner seems small when set down in the midst of it.
Only a few maps existed and those were faultily drawn. Having only a meager knowledge of the world, how could anyone be expected to make pictures of it? Those who tried, drew the countries they lived in and knew about; and such lands as they did not know about they either sketched according to what travelers had told them or filled in as imagination suggested. Even at best map making was not often attempted.
Those who went to sea drew their own charts and the correctness of them depended almost entirely on how intelligent the artist was and how well he could draw; and since no two sailors called the bays, islands or rivers by the same names, such drawings, as you can well understand, frequently confused more than they helped.