n the late 1400s, people in Le eagerly explored the world around them, searching for new and better ways to trade with people in other parts of the world, especially the Far East. Europeans yearned for the spices, jewels, perfumes, and silk cloth that could be found only in places like China and the East Indies. To get to Asia, the Portuguese sailed around Africa, but the voyage was perilous and took a very long time. Christopher Columbus tried to find a shortcut to Asia by sailing west from Spain, but instead stumbled upon the Americas, a place that Europeans didnt even know existed. Thus, the “old world” of Europe met the “new world” of the Americas. During this “Age of Discovery,” the life of an explorer was both exciting and treacherous. Floating on a seemingly endless ocean aboard a small wooden ship, sailors feared that if they sailed too far from land they would fall off the edge of the earth. Several believed in giant sea monsters and mermaids. And yet for all their superstitious beliefs, religion played a big role in explorers’ lives. A day on board a ship typically began with esy Samet: Ephresosy Simulations: Explorers © 2008 by Tim Bailey, Scholastic Teaching Resources ‘Tue Lire or an ExpLorer (CONTINUED) prayer and ended with religious services. Then the sailors set to work in four-hour shifts, pumping seawater and filth out of the ship's bilge, cleaning and wetting the deck, working the sails, and checking lines and cargo. They slept on the hard wooden deck. (The Native Americans they later encountered taught them how to make and use hammocks.) Meals were cooked on deck in a small firebox when the sea was calm and if someone had been lucky enough to catch a fish. Most meals, however, were eaten cold. Sailors often dined on tasteless hard biscuits (sometimes with weevils in them), oatmeal (also filled with bugs), bacon and dried meat, dried fruit, dried peas, cheese, and oil. Drinking water would go bad after several weeks at sea. Unless there was rainwater to refill the water barrels, sailors drank from a large store of beer and wine, which took longer to spoil. Many sailors died from either consuming spoiled supplies or not having enough to eat or drink. Diseases were another problem for sailors. There were no antibiotics, vaccines, or any modern medicines so many explorers died of a variety of illnesses, such as dysentery, typhus, and scurvy. (The sailors would later spread fatal diseases, such as smallpox, to the Native Americans, wiping out whole populations who had no resistance to these European illnesses.) ‘There were many other challenges that these early explorers faced. A dead calm, in which no wind blew, would leave a sailing ship motionless on the ocean for days, while violent storms could tear a ship apart. Hunger and boredom could drive the crew to mutiny, and sharp underwater reefs could rip through the ship's bottom, Yet despite all of these dangers and difficulties, many explorers sailed into the unknown and brought back the knowledge of what waited beyond the horizon. ‘Easy Simuintinas Featarers ™