LOUISIANA. 395 



Penguin ; tliis word is an old Welch one, and 

 fignifies white head -, from hence they conclude, 

 that the natives originali came. from JVaks ■^, 



The EnglijJi are not the only people, who, ac- 

 cording to our hiftorical romances, went to Ame- 

 rica and fettled there : Bayer pretends, that the 

 Normans were the firft Europeans who ventured 

 to fail to that country. 



Do6tor Lochner afTerts that a Bohemian of a 

 diilinguiflied family went to Brqfil^ and difco- 

 vered the ftraights of Magellan^ before Columbus 

 went to the New World ; this Bohemian was 

 called Mariinf, Many German writers who 



feem 



'■^ This, however, is a wrong fuppofitlon ; for It appears, 

 that the bird in queilion has a black and not a white head ; 

 but its name is Spanifh, and fignifies a fat bird, the Penguin 

 or rather Pingutn being very fat. F. 



f Our author miftakes the name of this man for that of 

 his country : he was called Martin Bchaimy a native of Nu- 

 renberg in Germany ; his father was a noble fenator of that 

 city : after ftudying mathematics, and efpecially aftronomy 

 and geography, under the great mathematician Joa?ines Re- 

 giomQutanusy he went to the 1>I ether lands, then governed by 

 the Princefs IfabeUa, daughter to John I. of PortugaJ ; he 

 there obtained the command of a ihip, fitted out for the 

 purpofe of making difcoveries : he fet fail in 1460, and, 



failing 



