EARLY VISITOKS TO THE LABRADOR COAST. 39 



Labrador and Newfoundland being a nebulous mtiss. 

 In a Portuguese map of 1520, nevertheless, we have 

 the name of " Lavrador," which, however, was applied to 

 Greenland, while the Labrador coast and Newfoundland 

 were confounded and given the name " Bacalhaos." 



But yet it is to the Portuguese that we owe the name 

 of Labrador. Kohl tells us that "King Emanuel, hav- 

 ing heard of the high trees growing in the northern 

 countries, and having seen the aborigines, who appeared 

 so well qualified for labor, thought he had found a new 

 slave-coast like that which he owned in Africa ; and 

 dreamed of the tall masts which he would cut, and the 

 men-of-war which he would build, from the forests of 

 the country of the Cortereals.'' 



The word Labrador is a Portuguese and Spanish word 

 for laborer. On a photograph of a Mexican field-hand, 

 or peon, ploughing in a field, which we lately purchased 

 in Mexico, is written " Labrador." In a recent book on 

 Cuba the author thus speaks of a wealthy Cuban planter : 

 " He is, by his own account, a Hijo de Labrador (labor- 

 er's son) from Alava, in the Basque Provinces."* Cor- 

 tereal's land was thus the "laborer's land," whence it 

 was hoped slave laborers might be exported to the 

 Portuguese colonies. 



The Portuguese also, as is well known, applied to 

 Newfoundland the name Bacalhaos, which means dried 

 codfish or stockfish. 



As the result of Cortereal's voyage the Portuguese 

 fishermen through the rest of the i6th century habitually 

 visited the shores and banks of Newfoundland, and 

 undoubtedly were more or less familiar with the Labra- 



* A. Gallenga. The Pearl of the Antilles, p. loo. 1874. 



