viii INTEODUCTION. 



thirty in circumference ; they also concluded that it was 

 uninhabited by man, and resolved to send boats on shore 

 to make observations, and leave a few hogs, which might 

 breed and be afterwards useful. When, however, they were 

 preparing to disembark, a strong contrary gale arose, which 

 obliged them to sheer off, and be content with the view 

 already obtaiaed. Oviedo calls it' " the remotest island in 

 the whole world," meaning, we presume, the most distant 

 from any land, and mentions the swarms of birds and 

 flying-fish, with the contests between them, as presenting 

 one of the most amusing spectacles he had ever beheld* 



The first native of England known to have set foot upon 

 the Islands, was a mariner named Henry May, who, while 

 on a voyage from the West Indies to Europe, in a French 

 vessel, in the year 1593, was wrecked upon the north-west 

 reefs, several miles distant from the shore. He found the 

 land overgrown with trees of various kinds, though chiefly 

 with the cedar ; " many hogs " were also met with, but 

 these were so lean as to be unfit for food ; birds, fish, and 

 turtle were in great abundance. Fortunately for May and 

 his French companions, the carpenter's tools, with a portion 

 of the sails and rigging of the ship, were saved by them 

 before the wreck went to pieces. This enabled them to cut 

 down cedars and construct " a barque of eighty tunnes," in 

 which, after a sojourn of nearly five months in those Isles, 

 they aU set sail on the 11th May. On the 20th of the 

 same month they made the Island of Cape Breton, when 

 they took in wood and water, and sailed for the banks of 

 Newfoundland. Here they met with many ships, but none 



Murray's British America. 



