22 EEADE ON BASQUES 



names, " Antillia " and " De la man Satanaxio ", " which ", he says, " some have daimed 

 as indicating a knowledge of the two Americas '." Perhaps, says M. GatFarel, with respect 

 to Biauco's chart, Echaido had communicated his discovery to others who had made it 

 known to the cartographer. However that may be, it is certain that from the middle of 

 the iifteenth century, all the ocean charts indicate the existence of a number of islands, 

 which bear the name either of Stockfish, in one or other form, or of Baccalaos, which has 

 virtually the same meaning. The strange thing about this last word is that it is the 

 ordinary Basque term for " cod. " The Spanish borrowed it from the Basques, and 

 Cervantes uses it in his immortal story of the Knight of La Mancha. The memory of its 

 attribution to Newfoundland is perpetuated in the islet of Baccalaos, at the northern 

 extremity of Conception Bay. Nor is this the only memorial left by the Basques of their 

 early visits to North American waters. 



Not long since, the attention of the Eev. M. Harvey, author of " Newfoundland ", was 

 directed to a couple of tombs in an ancient cemetery near Placentia, which bore inscrip- 

 tions in a language unknown to the islanders. In the summer of 1886, Mr. Courtney 

 Kenny, M. P. for Barnsley, Yorkshire, while on a visit to Newfoundland, copied these in- 

 scriptions, and, on his return to England, submitted them to Dr. Robertson Smith, the well 

 known orientalist. With little hesitation, that learned professor pronounced them to be 

 Basque. " Who could have expected ", writes Mr. Harvey, in the Montreal Gazette, " to find 

 such a relic of a world that has passed away in such a remote and little known locality as 

 Placentia ? What changes have passed over the New World since those ancient mai-i- 

 ners lay down for their last sleep in the Placentia ' God's Acre ? ' Their names, cut 

 deep in one of our hardest rocks, have been able to resist the gnawing tooth of time." The 

 former presence of the Basc[ues in Newfoundland is also evidenced by the names of places 

 on its coast. Rognouse is supposed to be a corruption of Orrougne, near Saint Jean de Luz. 

 Cape Ray is said to be derived from the Basque urraico, pursuit or approach. Cape 

 Breton was so designated from its resemblance to the projection of the same name north 

 of Bayonne. Cape de Gratz comes from grata, a fishing station. Ulicillo, Ophorportu, and 

 Portuchoa, are also Basque terms, signifiying respectively, "fly-hole," "milk-vessel" and 

 " little harbour." Labrador is also claimed to be a remembrancer of the Labourde district, 

 which gives a distinctive name to a dialect of the Basque language. M. Joseph Mar- 

 mette suggests that the name Canada (canal) may have been given by the Spanish Basques 

 to the St. Lawrence, of which the first glimpse from the entrance of the Gulf would 

 suggest the implied resemblance." Seuhor Luciano Cordeiro gives the same derivation.' 

 Although, writes M. GafFarel, there is no authentic proof of those early voyages, there are 

 still strong presumptions in their favour. There is, indeed, every reason to believe that, 

 what in 1492 was accomplished with all the éclat of official authority, had long before 

 been effected silently and noiselessly by those humble Basque fishermen. 



Confirmatory evidence is found in an extract from an ancient manuscript, dated 1497, 

 which is reproduced in the " Collection de Manuscrits, " recently published by the 

 Government of Quebec. " Although, " it runs, " we have no written record of the earliest 



' Narrative and Critical History of America, ii. 38. 



- Le Canada at les Basques, par F. de Saint-Maurice, Joseph JMarmette et N. Levasseur, avec avant-propos 

 par le Comte de Premio Real. 



^ L'Amérique et les Portugais, in Compte-Rendu du Congrès des Américanistes, 1875, vol. i. p. 475. 



