IN NORTHERN MISTS 



25° W.), this will mean that the coast extended a little to 

 the north of west by compass, which exactly agrees with 

 La Cosa's map. On account of contrary winds, and of the care 

 necessary in sailing along an unknown coast, the voyage 

 may have proceeded slowly, and Cabot greatly overestimated 

 his distances, which is not an uncommon thing with explorers 

 in unknown waters, ever since the days of Pytheas. Finally, 

 about three hundred miles on, Cabot came to the south- 

 western point of Nova Scotia, which at first he must have taken 

 for the end of the land. But as he certainly would be bent 

 upon deciding this, he may have continued to sail across the 

 mouth of the Bay of Fundy until he again sighted land, the 

 fertile coast of smiling Maine, stretching westward as far 

 as the eye could reach, and he would then have thought that 

 he had surely arrived at the coast of the mainland of the 

 vast kingdom of the Great Khan. Here it must have been that 

 he landed, as related by Pasqualigo and Soncino,^ and saw 

 signs of inhabitants but met with none. He may, of course, 

 have landed earlier at Cape Breton or in Nova Scotia without 

 finding trace of inhabitants, and said nothing about it; for 

 he was not looking for an uninhabited country, but the wealthy 

 eastern Asia. It may also very well be the spot where he 

 first found signs of men that is called " Cauo descubierto " ; for 

 it is striking that on La Cosa's map this name is not placed on; 

 any projecting headland of the coast, but in front of a com- 

 paratively deep gulf, which, in that case, might be the mouth 

 of the Bay of Fundy. And it is in the sea to the west of this 

 bay, across which Cabot sailed, that La Cosa has placed his 



the Cantino map, where the direction of the north-eastern coast of Newfound- 

 land gives a magnetic error of between 31° and 38°, and the direction between 

 Cape Farewell and Cape Race gives an error of 28°, which is certainly some- 

 what too high. 



1 To this it might be objected that he says " the tides are sluggish, and do 

 not run" as in England ("le aque e stanche e non han corso come qui "). The 

 tide is considerable inside the Bay of Fundy, but on the coast of Maine and 

 in the outer waters of Nova Scotia it is slight in comparison with the tide 

 Cabot was acquainted with in the Bristol Channel. 

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