They all
kept me swinging long at anchor, but they have never given
me a furthering wind. Eighteen years going to India! But
why do I say eighteen? The Lord put me forth from landside
the day I was born. Before I was fourteen, at the
school in Pavia, He said, `Go to sea. Sail under thy cousin
Colombo and learn through long years all the inches of salt
water.' Later He said, one day when we were swinging
off Alexandria, `Study! Teach thyself! Buy books, not
wine nor fine clothes nor favor of women. Study on land
and study at sea. Look at every map that comes before you.
Learn to make maps. When a world map comes before you,
look at the western side of it and think how to fill it out
knowingly. Listen to seamen's tales. Learn to view the
invisible and to feel under foot the roundness of my
earth!'
"And He said that same year off Aleppo, `Learn to
command ships. Learn in King Reinier's war and in what
other war Genoa makes. Learn to direct men and patiently
to hear them, winding in and out of their counsels, keeping
thyself always wiser than they.' Well, I studied, and learned,
and can command a ship or ships, and know navigation, and
can make maps and charts with the best, and can rule seamen,
loving them the while. Long ago, I went to that school
which He set, and came forth _magister!_ Long after His
first speaking, I was at Porto Santo, well named, and there
He said, `Seek India, going westward.
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