File:The 'Far Cathay'.jpg

Identifier: popularhistoryof00brya (find matches)
Title: A popular history of the United States : from the first discovery of the western hemisphere by the Northmen, to the end of the first century of the union of the states ; preceded by a sketch of the prehistoric period and the age of the mound builders
Year: 1876 (1870s)
Authors: Bryant, William Cullen, 1794-1878 Gay, Sydney Howard, 1814-1888
Subjects:
Publisher: New York : Scribner, Armstrong, and Company
Contributing Library: Lincoln Financial Foundation Collection
Digitizing Sponsor: The Institute of Museum and Library Services through an Indiana State Library LSTA Grant

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tion. New wants were created ; luxury increased, asthe products of different and distant countries became known; ademand arose which gave a new importance and power to commerceand to expeditions to find out new and shorter routes to those distantlands.^ And there was no discovery which offered so magnificent a return, 1 See Robertsons History of A merica, book ii. EFFECT OF REVIVAL OF LEARNING. 91 none which was sought for with so much intrepidity and eagerness, asa shorter way to that marvellous India, with its fabulous riches andstrange peoples, which such travellers as Marco Polo and Sir JohnMandeville had visited and written of, but which, as yet, could onlybe reached by adventurous merchants through long and perilous jour-neys overland. The pursuit of this chimera, rendered possible by thefresh acquisitions of knowledge, and the wants of the age, was thecrowning event which revealed a New World, whose existence hadbeen held to be one of the curious fables of ancient philosophers.
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The Far Cathay. CHAPTER V. INDIA—THE EL DORADO OF COLUMBUS. The Kingdom of Cathay. — Efforts in Europe to find a Sea-way to India. —Prince Henry the Navigator.—Birth and Early Life of ChristopherColumbus. — His Design of a Western Voyage to India.—Faith in hisDivine Mission. —The Theories of Contemporary Geographers. — His LifeIN Spain. — The Council at Salamanca. — His First Voyage. —His beliefthat he has discovered India. — The Delusion of his Life. — His briefHonor and Final Disgrace. In the far East had reigned for centuries a line of mighty monarchsof the race of Kublai Khan. Among many provinces owing them THE CITY OF QUINSAL 93 allegiance was that of Mangi, bordering on the sea. In this provincealone, Marco Polo said, there were twelve thousand cities, all within afew days travel of each other. Quinsai, whose circuit was ahundred miles, was only one of a hundred and forty cities of Mangistanding in such contiguity that they seemed but one. Apermanent g

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