VOYAGES OP THE CABOTS IN 1407 AND U98. 



77 



Wo have arrived at the year 1531, thirty-four years after Cahot's first voyage, and 

 while the ishmd of St. John has been indicated it is always in tlie Atlantic and in close 

 contiguity with what would appear to be the landfall of 1497, namely the east point of Cape 

 Breton. We have found openings to the north and south of ^Newfoundland but they lead 

 nowhei'e and sometimes the lines are closed at a greater or less depth and the coast is con- 

 tinuous. The gulf of St. Lawrence is, so far, non-existent and Prince Edward island is yet 

 unborn into the world. 



Fishermen were, however, mosdng all around the coast. A map in the Ptolemy of 1511, 

 although most fragmentary and incomplete, seems to indicate a vague knowledge of the 



ot} flHf^ I Grand Bay in the north at an early ^&v- 



iod. It was there that Cartier found the 

 I port of Brest on his first voyage. A fre- 

 (piented port evidently ; because he met 

 on the coast a vessel from Rochelle look- 

 ing for it. The Portuguese were then 

 working more on the east coast of JSTew- 

 foundland and to the south at Cape Bre- 

 ton and Nova Scotia, for in 1534 the gulf 

 of St. Lawrence commenced to appear in 

 embryo upon a group of Portuguese 

 maps ; and that same yeai- Jacques Car- 

 tier sailed into it through the straits of 

 Belle-Isle. Of this group of maps Viegas' 

 (1534) is a type, showing a small round 

 gulf with a few rivers opening into it. 

 Viegas' map separates Cape Breton island from the mainland by a narrow strait and Cape 

 Breton, the headland itself, is the neighbouring point of ISTova Scotia now Cape Canso, and 

 there is, out in the ocean off the coast, a small island called do Breta. A map in an atlas in 



the Riccardiana library at Florence given 

 in Kretschmer &% plate XXXIII. illustrates 



O^ 



o 



•^f-eJo 



'orriJ^ 



Caspar Viegas, A. D. 1534. 



,- 



JLI-UL-ÛI, 





'"'<;'/ 



Portuguese Map from Kretschnier. 



this l)y naming the island of Cape Breton 

 (unnamed in Viegas') as Sam Joa. From 

 Ilarrisse's description of the Wolfenbuttel 

 map of 1534" the same features are 

 shown upon it. These maps display a 

 much fuller knowledge of the coast 

 around the strait of Canso ; while to the 

 north, Newfoundland still forms part of 

 the solid continent. In commentinff 

 upon them Harrisse falls into an error 

 resulting, probably, fi-om his not having 

 sailed in those waters or studied them 

 on local maps of large scale. He is 

 unable to recognize the square island 

 at the mouth of the gulf as Cape Breton 

 island, because the passage between it and 



