a.d. THE ENGLISH VOYAGES 



*497- 



quanti nos vestes preciosissimas. Cum bellum gerunt, 

 utuntur arcu, sagittis, hastis, spiculis, clavis ligneis & 

 fundis. Tellus sterilis est, neque ullos fructus affert, ex 

 quo fit, ut ursis albo colore, & cervis inusitatae apud nos 

 magnitudinis referta sit : piscibus abundat, iisque sane 

 magnis, quales sunt lupi marini, & quos salmones vulgus 

 appellat ; soleas autem reperiuntur tam longae, ut ulnas 

 mensuram excedant. Imprimis autem magna est copia 

 eorum piscium, quos vulgari sermone vocant Bacallaos. 

 Gignuntur in ea insula accipitres ita nigri, ut corvorum 

 similitudinem mirum in modum exprimant, perdices 

 autem & aquilae sunt nigri coloris. 



The same in English. 



IN the yere of our Lord 1497 John Cabot a Venetian, 

 and his sonne Sebastian (with an English fleet set out 

 from Bristoll) discovered that land which no man before 

 that time had attempted, on the 24 of June, about five 

 of the clocke early in the morning. This land he called 

 Prima vista, that is to say, First seene, because as I 

 suppose it was that part whereof they had the first sight 

 from sea. That Island which lieth out before the land, 

 he called the Island of S. John upon this occasion, as 

 I thinke, because it was discovered upon the day of John 

 the Baptist. The inhabitants of this Island use to weare 

 beasts skinnes, and have them in as great estimation as 

 we have our finest garments. In their warres they use 

 bowes, arrowes, pikes, darts, woodden clubs, and slings. 

 The soile is barren in some places, & yeeldeth litle fruit, 

 but it is full of white beares, and stagges farre greater 

 then ours. It yeeldeth plenty of fish, and those very 

 great, as seales, and those which commonly we call 

 salmons : there are soles also above a yard in length : 

 but especially there is great abundance of that kinde of 

 fish which the Savages call baccalaos. In the same Island 

 also there breed hauks, but they are so blacke that they 

 are very like to ravens, as also their partridges, and egles, 

 which are in like sort blacke. 



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