[Sidenote: Leif Ericson.]

1. Leif Ericson discovers America, 1000.--In our early childhood
many of us learned to repeat the lines:--

Columbus sailed the ocean blue
In fourteen hundred, ninety-two.

[Sidenote: Leif discovers America, 1000. _Higginson_, 25-30; _American
History Leaflets_, No. 3.]

We thought that he was the first European to visit America. But nearly
five hundred years before his time Leif Ericson had discovered the New
World. He was a Northman and the son of Eric the Red. Eric had already
founded a colony in Greenland, and Leif sailed from Norway to make him a
visit. This was in the year 1000. Day after day Leif and his men were
tossed about on the sea until they reached an unknown land where they
found many grape-vines. They called it Vinland or Wineland. They Then
sailed northward and reached Greenland in safety. Precisely where
Vinland was is not known. But it certainly was part of North America.
Leif Ericson, the Northman, was therefore the real discoverer
of America.

[Illustration: EUROPE, ICELAND, GREENLAND, AND NORTH AMERICA.]

[Sidenote: Marco Polo, Cathay, and Cipango.]

2. Early European Travelers.--The people of Europe knew more of the
lands of Asia than they knew of Vinland. For hundreds of years