60 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA, 
boat with seven strange-featured men, was captured by a French 
vessel in the North Sea. The description given of them cor- 
responds exactly with the appearance of the Esquimaux; they 
were of a middle-size, of a dark colour, and had a broad face with 
spreading features, marked with a violet scar. No one under- 
stood their language. They were clothed in seal-skins. They 
ate raw flesh, and drank blood as we do wine. Six of these 
men died on the journey; the seventh, a youth, was presented 
to the King of France, who at that time was residing at Orleans. 
The appearance of so-called Indians on the coast of the 
German Sea, under the Othos and Frederic Barbarossa, or even, 
as Cornelius Nepos, Pomponius Melas, and Pliny relate, at the 
time when Quintus Metellus Celer was proconsul in Gaul, 
may be explained by similar effects of the current and continu- 
ous north-easterly winds. A king of the Boians made a present 
of the stranded dark-coloured men to Metellus Celer. Gomara, 
in his General History of the Indies,” expresses a belief that 
these Indians were natives of Labrador, which would be doubly 
interesting as the first instance recorded in history of the natives 
of the Old and the New World having been brought into contact 
with each other. We can easily account for the appearance of 
Esquimaux on the North European coasts in former times; as 
during the eleventh and twelve centuries, their race was much 
more numerous than at present, and extended, as we know, 
from the researches of Rask and Finn Magnussen, from Labrador 
to the good Winland, or the shores of the present State of 
Massachusetts and Connecticut. 
If we compare the climates on the opposite coasts of the 
Northern Atlantic, we find a remarkable difference in favour of 
the Old World. The frozen regions of Labrador, lie under the 
same degree of latitude as Plymouth, where the myrtle and 
laurel remain perpetually verdant in the open air. In New 
York, which has a more southern situation than Rome, the 
winter is colder than at Bergen in Norway, which lies 20° 
farther to the north. While on the northern coasts of the old 
continent, the waters remain open a great part of the year, 
even beyond the latitude of 80°, the ice never completely thaws 
on the opposite shores of Greenland. What a contrast between 
the Feroe islands, where the harbours are never frozen, where 
fertile meadows afford pasturage to numerous flocks of sheep, 
