CABOT THE DISCOVERER OF LABRADOR. 35 



it is said: " Beares also appear about the fishers' stage 

 of the countrey, and are sometimes killed, but they 

 seeme to be white, as I conjectured by their skinnes, 

 and somewhat lesse than ours." (Hakluyt.) 



On the other hand, the true white or polar bear may 

 have frequently visited the eastern coast of Newfound- 

 land, as it formerly abounded on the Labrador coast. 



Moreover, nothing is said in the inscription of any 

 ice, which at that date, the 24th of June, so abounds 

 from the Strait of Belle Isle northward to the polar re- 

 orjons. Besides, if we contrast the account of this voy- 

 age of the two Cabots in 1497 with that of the younger 

 Cabot the following year, it seems plain that John 

 Cabot's " I-*rima vista" was Newfoundland rather than 

 Labrador.* 



In May, 1498, Sebastian Cabot, under license of 

 Henry VII., in command of two ships, manned with 

 three- hundred mariners and volunteers, again sailed to 

 the northwest in search of Cathay. Kohl says : ''We 

 have no certain information regarding his route. But 

 he appears to have directed his course again to the coun- 

 tr\ which he had seen the year before on the voyage 

 with his father, our present Labrador." Farther on he 

 remarks : " The Portuguese Galvano, also one of the 

 original and contemporary authorities on Cabot's voyage 

 of 1498^ says that, having reached 60° north latitude, he 

 and his men found the air very cold, and great islands 

 of ice, and from thence putting about and finding the 

 land to turn eastward, they trended along by it, to see 



* According to Charles Dean, LL.D., in the Critical History of America, vol. 

 iil., John Cabot's landfall was the northern part of Cape Breton Island. 



