"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 Eask 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 Xew 

 York, which has a more southern situation than Home, 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 tbaws 

 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, 



