A.D. 



c. 1380-90. 



[III. 128.] 



Estotiland 

 first dis- 

 covered. 



The second 



discoverie 



thereof. 



THE ENGLISH VOYAGES 



Historie of Messer Nicolas and Messer Antonio Zeni 

 (which for some fewe respects may perhaps bee called in 

 question) I have heere annexed the judgement of that 

 famous Cosmographer Abraham Ortelius, or rather the 

 yealding and submitting of his judgement thereunto : 

 who in his Theatrum Orbis, fol. 6. next before the map 

 of Mar del Zur, boroweth proofe and authoritie out of 

 this relation, to shew that the Northeast parte of America 

 called Estotiland, and in the original alwayes affirmed 

 to bee an Islande, was about the yeere 1390 discovered 

 by the aforesayd Venetian Gentleman Messer Antonio 

 Zeno, above 100 yeeres before ever Christopher Colum- 

 bus set saile for those Westerne Regions ; and that the 

 Northren Seas were even then sayled by our European 

 Pilots through the helpe of the loadstone : with divers 

 other particulars concerning the customes, religion and 

 wealth of the Southern Americans, which are most 

 evidently confirmed by all the late and moderne Spanish 

 Histories of Nueva Espanna and Peru. 



ANd here I shall not (as I suppose) commit any great 

 inconvenience, or absurditie, in adding unto this 

 History of the new world, certaine particulars as touching 

 the first discovery therof, not commonly known. Which 

 discoverie al the writers of our time ascribe (& that not 

 unworthily) unto Christopher Columbus. For by him 

 it was in a maner first discovered, made knowen, and 

 profitably communicated unto the Christian world, in the 

 yeere of our Lord 1492. Howbeit I finde that the 

 North part thereof called Estotiland, (which most of 

 all extendeth toward our Europe and the Islands of 

 the same, namely, Groneland, Island, and Frisland,) was 

 long ago found out by certaine fishers of the Isle of 

 Frisland, driven by tempest upon the shore thereof: and 

 was afterward about the yeere 1390 discovered a new, 

 by one Antonio Zeno a gentleman of Venice ; which 

 sayled thither under the conduct of Zichmni king of the 

 saide Isle of Frisland, a prince in those parts of great 



464 



