[s. B. DAWSON] THE VOYAGES OF THE CABOTS 203 



There is, therefore, no a priori reason why Cape Breton should not 

 have been the landfall, and even the '* infinite pains " expended upon Sir 

 Clements Markham have not resulted in eliciting from him an opinion 

 to the contrary. Dr. Justin Winsor said, in 1892, of Cape Breton : "It 

 " is quite possible that more satisfactory proofs can be adduced of another 

 " region for the landfall, but none such have yet been presented to 

 " scholars." 109 



On the other hand, there are strong documentary proofs in favour 

 of Cape Breton, such as exist for no other place named. There is the 

 map of La Cosa, which locates the Cavo descubierto on a course west by 

 compass from Cape Eace ; the point of contact is thus located upon a 

 definite line. We have, then, the Cabot map of 1544 definitely fixing the 

 landfall on the northeast point of Cape Breton island. Here is the inde- 

 pendent testimony of father and son at an interval of forty-four years. 

 As to the meaning of Cavo descubierto, we have a clue upon the map itself. 

 On the coast of South America, opposite Cape St. Augustine, we have 

 the landfall of the expedition of Vincent Yanez Pinzon in 1499 set forth 

 as follows : ^^ Este cavo se descubrio en ano de mily CCCCXGIX. p)or Cas- 

 " tella syendo descubridor Vincensians." (This cape was discovered in 

 1499 for Castile by Vincent Yanez.) On the south coast of Newfound- 

 land, and on a course west by compass from Cape Eace, the words 

 cavo descubierto plainly tell us, was the landfall of the people who sailed 

 in the mar descubierto por Yngleses prior to A. D. 1500. Moreover, the 

 conditions recorded on group A of contemporary documents agree with 

 Cape Breton better than with any other place mentioned. The landfall 

 was in a temperate, pleasant region, where the land was good, and gave 

 promise that silk and brazil-wood grew there. Though the point of the 

 cape itself, like every ocean-washed promontory, is bare and rocky, the 

 country near and especially around Sydney is very beautiful. There is 

 nothing on the continent of North America to equal the scenery of the 

 Bras d'Or, which is open from the sea close to Sydney harbour. In mid- 

 summer the climate is perfect. Fogs are infrequent there compared with 

 other parts of the coast, and the summer heat is tempered by the ocean. 

 Even this has been contradicted, although the beauty of the scenery and 

 the special charm of its climate in the summer months are the constant 

 theme of the Intercolonial railway guide books and are the attractions 

 for summer tourists. They are the commonplaces of the newspapers. 

 To put Cape Breton in the same category with northern Labrador is 

 to underrate the information of one's readers. A few notices of the 

 summer climate of Cape Breton have been placed in Appendix D, and to 

 that I would refer ; for to digress here would confuse the argument. 



In my first paper I stated at length my reasons for believing that 

 Cape Breton and not Cape North was the landftill, and in Appendix C to 

 my second paper I showed, by a careful tracing from a photograph of 



