ta tierra fue descubierta por loan Caboto Veneciano, y Sebastian Cabote su hijo, anno del nascimiento 

 luado lesu Christo de ISI.CCCC. XCIIII. a ueinte y quarto de .Tunio por la mannana, a la quai pusieron 



ON CAPE BEETON. 293 



Leif, " take .ye and all on board my ship, and as niucli of the goods as the sliip will store." ïliey took up this 

 offer, and sailed away to Erictiord witli tlie cargo, and from thence to Brattahlid, wliere they uidoaded tlie ship. 

 Leif ofiered ïliorer and his wife, Gudrid, and three utliers lodging with liiniself, and oliering lodging elsewhere for 

 ttie rest of the people, both of 'L'horer's crew and his own. Leif took fifteen men from the rock, and thereafter was 

 called Leif the Lucky. Afier that time Leif advanced greatly in wealth and consideration. That winter sickness 

 came among Thorer s people, and he himself and a great part cf his crew died. The same winter Erie Red died. 

 This expedition to Vinland was much talked of, and Leif 's brother, Thorvald, thought that the country liad not 

 been explored enough in different ijlaces. Then Leif said to Thorvald, " You may go, brother, in my ship to Vin- 

 land if you like ; but I will first send the ship for the timber which Thorer left upon tlie rock." So it was done. 



II. The Caiîot Voyages- 



Here we enter into the realm of earnest disputation, in which learned historians and archœologists broach 

 their favourite theories. All the authorities that the writer has consulted, seem, in his opinion, to show that .John 

 Cabot first discovered America in 1497, and not in 1494, as argued by M. d'Avezac (See his letter at end of Dr. 

 Kohl's "History of the Discovery of Maine'"). The landfall of that famous voyage is still, and is likely to remain, in 

 dispute ; but as long as the Sebastian Cabot mappe monde of 1544, discovered in Germany in 1843 by Von Martius, 

 and deposited in the National Library of Paris, is believed by many authorities on such subjects to be authentic, 

 some point on the northeastern coast of the island of Cape Breton must be accepted as the actual '' prima tierra 

 vista" of 1497. The delineation of Cape Breton, then considered a part of the mainland or the terre des Bretons, 

 and the jMsition of the island of St. John, (P. E. Island) named by Cabot, and the language of the legend or inscrip- 

 tion on the map, referring to the discovery on the 24th June, go to support the Cape Breton theory. So much 

 depends on the legend. No. S, that 1 give it entire, as it appears on the Paris map in Spanish. I may here add, for 

 the information of the reader wdio has not seen a copy of the original map, that it lias numerous inscriptions or 

 legends, in Spanish and Latin — the latter presumably a translation of the former : — 



" No. 8. Esta 

 de nuestro Sauluado 1 



nôbre prima tierra uista, y a una isla grade que esta par ladha tierra, le pusieron nôbre Sant loan, por auer sido 

 descubierta el mismo dia lagente della andan uestidos depieles de animales, usan en sus gaerras arcos, y fléchas, 

 lanças, y dardos, y unas porrasde palo, y hondas. Es terra muy steril.ay enella a muchos orsos plancos. y cieruos 

 muy grades como canollos, y otras muchas animales, y semeiantemête ay pescado infinite, sollof, salmôes, lenguados, 

 muy grandes de uara enlarge y otras muchas diversidades de poscados, y la mayor multitud délies se dizen 

 baccallaos, y asi mismie ay en la dha tierra Halconos prietes como cueruos Aquillas, Perdiccs, Pardilles, y otras 

 muchas aues de duiersas maneras." [See supra, sec. L] 



It is a strong fact in support of the Sebastian Cabot^claim to the authorship of this map,— of which the legends 

 could hardly have been written by one not present at the time of the discovery — that Hakluyt reprinted for the 

 first time in Latin, with a translation: "An extract taken out of tho map of Sebastian Cabot, cut by Clement 

 Adams, concerning his discovery of the West Indies, which is to be seene in Her Majesties privie gallerie at 

 Westminster, and in many other ancient merchants' houses." Clement Adams is said to have been a schoolmaster 

 by profession, not an engraver, but we have no traces of his map except the extract in Hakluyt- One learned 

 writer (Richard Biddle, in his erudite, though badly arranged, Sabastian Cabot Memoir, Philadelphia, 1831), 

 expresses the opinion that " the disappearance of this curious document may probably be referred, either to the 

 sales which took place after the death of Charles I., or to the fire in the reign of William III," but it is neveitlie- 

 ]ess strange that no copy of it has come down to us from the "ancient merchants," in many of whose houses 

 Adams declares it was to be seen in his time. That my readers may, however, see that the Latin inscription of 

 the Adams extract — we may assume it was taken out of the map by Adams himself, from the general tenor of 

 Hakluyt's introduction given above — is to all intents and purposes the Spanish inscription of the mappe monde, I 

 quote it below : — 



Anno Domini, 1497, Joannes Cabotus venetus et Sebastianus illius filius earn terram fecerunt perviam, quam 

 nullus prills adire ausus fuit, die 24 Junij, circiter horam quintam bene manè. Plane autem appellauit Terram 

 primiim visam, credo quod ex mari in eam partem primùm oculos iniecerat. Nam qu;e ex aduerso sita est insula, 

 earn appellauit insulam Dini loannis, hac opinor ratione, quod aperta fuit eo die qui est Sacer Duio loanni Baptistic: 

 Huius inco!» pelles animalium, exuuiasque ferarum pro indumentis liabent, easque tanti faciunt, <iuanti nos 

 vestes preciosissimas. Cum helium gerunt, vtuntur arcu, sagittis, hastis, spiculis, clauis ligneis et fundis. Telhis 

 sterilis e^t, neque vlles fructus affert, ex quo fit, vt vrsis albo colore, et cernis inusitat;c apud nos magnitudinis 

 refertasit: piscibus abundat, ijsque sane magnis, quales sunt lupi marini, et quos salmones vulgus appellat; 

 solere autem reperiuntur tarn lengte, ut vlnre mensuram excédant- Imprimis autem magna est copia eorum 

 piscium, quos vulgari sermone vocant Bacallaos. Gignunter in ea insula accipitres ita nigri, vt coruorum simili- 

 tudinera mirum in modum exprimant, perdices autem et aquilse sunt nigri coloris." [See Harisse, " Jean et Se- 

 bastian Cabot " (Paris, 1882) as to date, pp. 52-60, lôl-'J.] 



The slight discrepancies between the Spanish and the Latin versions I have here given perplex students ; for 

 it would seem that if Adams had had tlie original map before him he would have copied the Latin version exactly 



