34 THE GEOGRAPHICAL EVOLUTION OF LABUAUOR. 



I suppose it was that part whereof they had the first 

 sight from sea. That Island which lieth out before the 

 land, he called the Island of S. lohn vpon this occasion, 

 as I thinke, because it was discouered vpon the day of 

 lohn the Baptist. The inhabitants of this Island vse to 

 weare beast skinnes, and haue them in as great estima- 

 tion as we haue our finest garments. In their warres 

 they vse bowes, arrowes, pikes, darts, vvoodden clubs, 

 and slings. The soile is barren in some places, and 

 yeildeth little fruit, but it is full of white beares, and 

 stagges farre greater than ours." (Page 27.) 



Kohl seems fully persuaded that the landfall of John 

 Cabot was Labrador, because of the presence of white 

 bears. ■"■ But if the inscription and map are genuine, the 

 description of the inhabitants of the island, both men 

 and beasts, would better apply to those of the eastern or 

 southern coast of Newfoundland. The human beings 

 were more probably red Indians than Eskimo. On the 

 Labrador coast the soil is " barren" in all places, while 

 the "stagges far greater than ours" may have been the 

 moose, which then abounded and still exists in New- 

 foundland, and must have been rare, if it ever lived, on 

 the coast of Labrador. Moreover the " white bears" 

 spoken of as being so abundant may have been a white 

 variety of the black bear, or perhaps. the " barren ground" 

 pale bear of Sir John Richardson may have been fre- 

 quent in Newfoundland. It appears to have been of 

 smaller size than the brown bear of Europe, because in 

 Parmenius' account of Newfoundland, published in 1583, 



* " This agrees much better with the coast of Labrador than with that of 

 Newfoundland, to which the white bears very seldom, if ever, come down." 

 (Paere 133); 



