The Voyage of Verrazzano Part 2

In general, the geography of the coast is very indefinitely described. Of its lat.i.tudes, with the exception of the landfall and termination of the exploration, which are fixed also by other means, and are necessary to the ground work of the story, only a single one is mentioned. The particular features of the coast are for the most part unnoticed. Long distances, embracing from two hundred to six hundred miles each, are pa.s.sed over with little or no remark.

Islands, rivers, capes, bays, and other land or seamarks, by which navigators usually describe their progress along an unknown coast, are almost entirely unmentioned. For a distance of over two thousand miles, adopting the narrowest limits possible a.s.signed to the discovery, only one island, one river, and one bay are attempted to be described, and not a single cape or headland is referred to. No name is given to any of them, or to any part of the coast, except the one island which is named after the king's mother. It was the uniform practice of the Catholic navigators of that early period, among whom, according to the import of the letter, Verrazzano was one, to designate the places discovered by them, by the names of the saints whose feasts were observed on the days they were discovered, or of the festivals of the church celebrated on those days; so that, says Oviedo, it is possible to trace the course of any such explorer along a new coast by means of the church calendar. This custom was not peculiar to the countrymen of that historian. It was observed by the Portuguese and also by the French, as the accounts of the voyages of Jacques Cartier attest. But nothing of the kind appears here. These omissions of the ordinary and accustomed practices of voyagers are suspicious, and of themselves sufficient to destroy all confidence in the narrative. But to proceed to what is actually stated in regard to the coast.

Taking the landfall to have occurred, as is distinctly claimed, at lat.i.tude 34 Degrees, which is a few leagues north of Cape Fear in North Carolina, and which is fixed with certainty, for the purposes of the letter, at that point by the estimate of the distance they ran northerly along the coast before it took an easterly direction, the discovery must be regarded as having commenced somewhat south of Cape Roman in South Carolina, being the point where the fifty leagues terminated which they ran along the coast, in the first instance, south of the landfall. It is declared that from thence, for two hundred leagues, to the Hudson river, as it will appear, there was not a single harbor in which the Dauphine could ride in safety. [Footnote: A league, according to the Verrazzano letter, consisted of four miles; and a degree, of 15,625 leagues or 62 1/3 miles.] The size of this craft is not mentioned, but it is said she carried only fifty men, though manned as a corsair. Judging from the size of the vessels used at that time on similar expeditions, she was small. The two which composed the first expedition of Jacques Cartier carried sixty men and were each of about sixty tons burden.

The Carli letter, which must be a.s.sumed to express the idea of the writer on the subject, describes her as a caravel; which was a vessel of light draught adapted to enter shallow rivers and harbors and to double unknown capes where shoals might have formed, and was therefore much used by the early navigators of the new world.

[Footnote: Le Moyen Age et la Renaissance. Tome Second. Marine, par M. A. Jal. fol. V. (Paris 1849.)] Columbus chose two caravels, out of the three vessels with which he made his first voyage; and the third one, which was larger than either of the caravels, was less than one hundred tons. The Dauphine is therefore to be considered, from all the representations in regard to her, of less than the latter capacity, and as specially adapted to the kind of service in which she is alleged to have been engaged. In running north from their extreme southerly limit, they must have pa.s.sed the harbor of Georgetown in South Carolina, and Beaufort in North Carolina, in either of which the vessel could have entered; and in the latter, carrying seventeen feet at low water and obtaining perfect shelter from all winds. [Footnote: Blunt's American Coast Pilot, p. 359 (19th edition.)] But if they really had been unable to find either of them, it is impossible that they should not have discovered the Chesapeake, and entered it, under the alleged circ.u.mstances of their search. That it may be seen what exactly is the statement of the letter in regard to this portion of the coast, it is here given in its own terms. Having represented the explorers as having reached a point fifty leagues north of the landfall, which would have carried them north of Hatteras, but still on the coast of North Carolina, their movements over the next four hundred miles north are disposed of in the following summary manner: "After having remained here,"

(that is, at or near Albemarle,) "three days riding at anchor on the coast, as we could find no harbor, we determined to depart and coast along the sh.o.r.e to the northeast, keeping sail on the vessel ONLY BY DAY, and coming to anchor by night. After proceeding one hundred leagues we found a VERY PLEASANT SITUATION AMONG SOME STEEP HILLS, THROUGH WHICH A VERY LARGE RIVER, DEEP AT ITS MOUTH, FORCED ITS WAY TO THE SEA." There can be no mistake in regard to the portion of the coast here intended. Upon leaving this river they found that the coast stretched, it is stated, as will presently appear, in an EASTERLY direction. A stream coming from the hills, its situation at the bend of the coast, its lat.i.tude as fixed by that of the port which, after leaving it, they found in nearly the same parallel and which is placed in 41 Degrees 40', all point distinctly to the embouchure of the Hudson at the highlands of Navesink as the termination of the hundred leagues. Within this distance the Chesapeake empties into the sea.

The explorers were not only in search of a harbor for the purpose of recruiting, but they were seeking, as the great end of the voyage, a pa.s.sage to Cathay, rendering, therefore, every opening in the coast an object of peculiar interest and importance. They were sailing with extreme caution and observation, in the day-time only, and constantly in sight of land. The bay of the Chesapeake is the most accessible and capacious on the coast of the United States. It presents an opening into the sea of twelve miles from cape to cape, having a broad and deep channel through which the largest s.h.i.+ps of modern times, twenty times or more the tonnage of the Dauphiny, may enter and find inside of Cape Henry ample and safe anchorage.

[Footnote: Blunt's American Coast Pilot, p. 340.] That an actual explorer could not have failed to have discovered this bay and found a secure harbor at that time, is shown by the account of the expedition, which the Adelantado, Pedro Menendes, of infamous memory, despatched under the command of Pedro Menendez Marquez, for the survey of this coast in 1573; when the means and facilities of navigators for exploration were not different from what existed at the date of the Verrazzano voyage. Menendez Marquez was the first to enter the Chesapeake after Gomez, who gave it the name of the bay of Santa Maria. [Footnote: This name occurs on the map of Ribero on this part of the coast, which establishes its application by Gomez; but its position is evidently misplaced and carried too far south.]

Barcia thus summarizes the result of the expedition, so far as it relates to this bay.

"Pedro Menendez Marquez, governor of Florida for his uncle the Adelantado reduced many Indians to obedience and took possession of the provinces particularly in the name of the king, in the presence of Rodrigo de Carrion, notary of the government of Santa Elena.

Afterwards, he, being a great seaman, inasmuch as he had formerly been admiral of the fleet, as Francisco Cano relates, Lib. 3, de la Histor. de las Ordenes Militares, fol. 184, went, by order of the Adelantado, to explore the coast, which exploration commenced at the cape of the Martyrs, and the peninsula Tequesta [point of Florida], where the coast begins to run north and south, at the outlet of the Bahama channel, and extended along the coast to beyond the harbor and bay of Santa Maria, which is three leagues wide and which is entered towards the northwest; and within it are many rivers and harbors where, on both sides of it, they can anchor. At the entrance, near the sh.o.r.e, on the south, there are from nine to thirteen fathoms of water, and on the north, from five to seven. Two leagues outside, in the sea, the depth is the same, north and south, but more sandy than inside. Going through the channel there are from nine to thirteen fathom; and in the harbor about fifteen, ten and six fathoms were found in places where the lead was thrown."

"The bay of Santa Maria is in thirty-seven degrees and a half.

[Footnote: Ensayo Chronologico, pp. 146, 8.]"

To ignore the existence of this great bay, the most important hydrographical feature of our coast, as Verrazzano, according to the letter, does, and to pretend that no harbor could be found there, in which the diminutive Dauphiny could lie, is, under the circ.u.mstances under which this exploration is alleged to have been conducted, to admit that he was never on that part of the coast.

Suddenly leaving the river of the hills, in consequence of an approaching storm, they continued their course directly east for a distance of ninety-five leagues, pa.s.sing in sight of the island and arriving finally at the bay, which are the only ones described, and that very briefly, in the whole voyage along the coast.

"Weighing anchor," reads the letter, "we sailed eighty leagues TOWARDS THE EAST, as the coast stretched in that direction, and ALWAYS IN SIGHT OF IT. At length we discovered an island of triangular form, about ten leagues from the main land, in size about equal to the island of Rhodes, having many hills covered with trees and well peopled, judging from the great number of fires which we was all around its sh.o.r.es; we gave it the name of your majesty's ill.u.s.trious mother. WE DID NOT LAND THERE, as the weather was unfavorable, but proceeded to another place, fifteen leagues distant from the island, where we found a very excellent harbor. * * * This land is situated in the parallel of Rome, being 41 degrees 41' of north lat.i.tude. It looks towards the south, on which side the harbor is half a league broad; afterwards, upon entering it between the east and the north it extends twelve leagues, [Footnote: A slight correction of the translation of Dr. Cogswell, which is the one we have adopted, here becomes necessary. It reads: "upon entering it the extent between the east [misprinted coast], and north, is twelve leagues." The text is, "entrando in quello infra oriente e settentrione s'esteude leghe XII."] and then enlarging itself it forms a very large bay, twenty leagues in circ.u.mference, in which are five small islands of great fertility and beauty, covered with large and lofty trees. Among these islands any fleet, however large, might ride safely, without fear of tempests or other dangers.

Turning towards the south, at the entrance of the harbor on both sides there are very pleasant hills and many streams of clear water which flow down to the sea. In the midst of the entrance, there is a rock of freestone, formed by nature and suitable for the construction of any kind of machine or bulwark for the defence of the harbor."

This island is a mere fancy; none such exists any where upon this coast. The distance which they thus ran easterly, of eighty leagues, would have carried them more than an hundred miles into the ocean beyond Cape Cod. That distance, however, may be regarded only as approximate, because they possessed no means of determining longitude with accuracy, and therefore this, like all statements in the letter, of distances running east and west, is to be considered an estimate only, formed from the circ.u.mstances attending the sailing of the vessel, and liable to serious error. But the island and bay were objects of actual observation, and are therefore to be regarded as they are described. After leaving Long Island, which forms the coast in an easterly direction for a little over an hundred miles from the Hudson, only three islands occur, except some insignificant ones and the group of the Elizabeth islands all near the sh.o.r.e, in the entire distance to the easterly sh.o.r.e of Cape Cod, when the coast turns directly north. They are all three somewhat of a triangular shape, and in that respect are equally ent.i.tled to consideration in connection with the description of the island of Louise, but are all incompatible with it in other particulars.

Louise is represented as being a very large island, equal in size to the famous island of Rhodes, which has an area of four hundred square miles, and as being situated ten leagues distant from the main land. The first of the three islands met with, eastward of Long Island, is Block island. It contains less than twenty square miles of territory and lies only three leagues from the land; and thus both by its smallness and position cannot be taken as the island of Louise. It has, however, been so regarded by some writers, because on the main land, about five leagues distant, are found Narraganset bay and the harbor of Newport, which, it is imagined, bear some resemblance to the bay and harbor which the explorers entered fifteen leagues beyond the island of Louise, and which cannot be elsewhere found.

But Narraganset bay does not correspond in any particular with the bay described in the letter, except as to its southern exposure and its lat.i.tude, and as to them it has no more claim to consideration than Buzzard's bay, three leagues further east, and in other respects not so much. Newport harbor, several miles inside of Narraganset bay, faces the north and west, and not the south. The whole length of that bay, including the harbor of Newport from the ocean to Providence river, is less than five leagues, and its greatest breadth not more than three. But the harbor described in the letter first as extending twelve leagues and then enlarging itself, formed a large bay of twenty leagues in circ.u.mference. The two, it is clear, are essentially unlike. The great rock rising out of the sea at the entrance of the harbor, has no existence in this bay or harbor. Narraganset bay, therefore, affords no support to the idea that Block island, or any other, is the island of Louise.

Martha's Vineyard, the second of the three islands before mentioned, is the largest of them, but it contains only one hundred and twenty square miles of land, and is within two leagues of the main land.

Nantucket, the last of the three, is less than half the size of Martha's Vineyard, and is about thirty miles from Cape Cod, the nearest part of the continent. From neither of them is any harbor to be reached corresponding with that mentioned in the letter. It is incontrovertible, therefore, that there is neither island nor bay on this coast answering the description. It is not difficult to perceive that the island of Louise was a mere invention and artifice on the part of the writer to give consistency to the pretension that the voyage originated with Francis. This island is the only one of which particular mention is made in the whole exploration. Yet it was not visited or seen except, in sailing by it, at a distance. Its pretended hills and trees disclosed nothing of its character; and, under such circ.u.mstances, its alleged dimensions were all that could have ent.i.tled it to such particular notice and made it worthy of so exalted a designation; and to those no island on this coast has any claim.

There is little room to doubt from the description itself, and the fact will be confirmed by other evidence hereafter, that the bay intended to be described was the great bay of Ma.s.sachusetts and Maine terminating in the bay of Fundy. It is represented as making an offset in the coast of twelve leagues towards the north, and then swelling into an enclosed bay beyond, of twenty leagues in circ.u.mference, indicating those bays, in their form. The distances, it is true, do not conform to those belonging to that part of the coast; but it is to be borne in mind that they may have been taken, according to the only view which can reconcile the contradictions of the letter, from an imperfect delineation of the coast by another hand. The ident.i.ty of the two is, however, proven, without recourse to this explanation, by the description of the coast beyond, which is given as follows:

"Having supplied ourselves with every thing necessary, we departed, on the sixth [Footnote: According to the Archivio Storico Italiano, and not the FIFTH, as given in N. Y. Hist. Coll.] of May, from this port [where they had remained fifteen days] and SAILED ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY LEAGUES, KEEPING SO NEAR TO THE COAST AS NEVER TO LOSE IT FROM OUR SIGHT; the nature of the country appeared much the same as before, but the MOUNTAINS were a little higher and all in appearance RICH IN MINERALS. WE DID NOT STOP TO LAND, as the weather was very favorable for pursuing our voyage, and the country presented no variety. THE Sh.o.r.e STRETCHED TO THE EAST, and fifty leagues beyond more to the north, where we found a more elevated country full of very thick woods of fir trees, cypresses and the like, indicative of a cold climate. The people were entirely different from the others we had seen, whom we had found kind and gentle, but these were so rude and barbarous that we were unable by any signs we could make to hold communication with them."

This is all that is mentioned in regard to the entire coast of New England and Nova Scotia, embracing a distance of eight hundred miles according to this computation, but in fact much more. It is here stated, however, distinctly, that from the time of leaving the harbor, near the island of Louise, they kept close to the land, which ran in an EASTERLY direction, and CONSTANTLY IN SIGHT OF IT, for one hundred and fifty leagues. This they could not have done if that harbor were on any part of the coast, west of Ma.s.sachusetts bay. If they sailed from Narraganset bay, or Buzzard's bay, or from any harbor on that coast, east of Long Island, they would in the course of twenty leagues at the furthest, in an easterly direction, have reached the easterly extremity of the peninsula of Cape Cod, and keeping close to the sh.o.r.e would have been forced for one hundred and fifty miles, in a northerly and west of north direction, and thence along the coast of Maine northeasterly a further distance of one hundred and fifty miles, and been finally locked in the bay of Fundy. It is only by running from Cape Sable along the sh.o.r.es of Nova Scotia that this course and distance, in sight of the land, can be reconciled with the actual direction of the coast; and this makes the opening between Cape Cod and Cape Sable the large bay intended in the letter. But this opening of eighty leagues in width, could never have been seen by the writer of it; and nothing could more conclusively prove his ignorance of the coast, than his statements that from the river among the hills, for the distance of ninety-five leagues easterly to the harbor in 41 Degrees 40' N. and from thence for a further distance of one hundred and fifty leagues, also EASTERLY, the land was always in sight.

[Ill.u.s.tration with caption: ] CAPE HENRY AND ENTRANCE INTO THE CHESAPEAKE. Lighthouse, with lantern 129 feet above the sea, bearing W. N. W. 1/2 W., three leagues distant.

V.

III. CAPE BRETON AHD THE SOUTHERLY COAST OF NEWFOUNDLAND, HERE CLAIMED TO HAVE BEEN DISCOVERED, WERE KNOWN PREVIOUSLY. PERVERSION OF THE TEXT OF THE LETTER BY RAMUSIO.

By the two courses and distances just mentioned, the explorers are brought first to the island of Cape Breton, and then to the cape of that name, where the coast first takes a decided turn, from its easterly direction, to the north, and forms the westerly side of the strait leading into the gulf of St. Lawrence. This cape, according to the letter, is distant easterly one hundred and fifty, and fifty, leagues from the harbor in the great bay, distances which, for reasons already mentioned, are to be regarded as estimates only, but which taken exactly would have carried them beyond Cape Race in Newfoundland. They are to be considered, however, as properly limited to the turn of the coast before mentioned, as that is a governing circ.u.mstance in the description. Beyond this point, north, and east, the letter presents the claim to the discovery in another aspect. Thus far it relates to portions of the coast confessedly unknown before its date. But from Cape Breton, in lat.i.tude 46 Degrees N. to lat.i.tude 50 Degrees N. on the east side of Newfoundland, it pretends to the discovery of parts, which were in fact already known; and it makes this claim circ.u.mstances which prove it was so known by the writer, if the letter were written as pretended. Having described their attempts at intercourse with the natives at Cape Breton, the narrative concludes the description of the coast with the following paragraph.

"Departing from thence, we kept along the coast, steering northeast, and found the country more pleasant and open, free from woods, and distant in the interior, we saw lofty mountains but none which extended to the sh.o.r.e. Within fifty leagues we discovered thirty-two islands, all near the main land, small and of pleasant appearance, but high and so disposed as to afford excellent harbors and channels, as we see in the Adriatic gulf, near Illyria and Dalmatia.

We had no intercourse with the people, but we judge that they were similar in nature and usages to those we were last among. After sailing between east and north one hundred and fifty leagues MORE, and finding our provisions and naval stores nearly exhausted, we took in wood and water, and determined to return to France, having discovered (avendo discoperto) VII, [Footnote: "The MS. has erroneously and uselessly the repet.i.tion VII, that is, 700 leagues."

Note, by M. Arcangeli. It is evident that VII is mistakenly rendered 502 in the transcription used by Dr. Cogswell.] that is, 700 leagues of unknown lands."

The exact point at which they left the coast, and to which their discovery is thus stated to have extended, is given in the cosmography which follows the narrative, in these words:

"In the voyage which we have made by order of your majesty, in addition to the 92 degrees we ran towards the west from our point of departure (the Desertas) before we reached land in the lat.i.tude of 34, we have to count 300 leagues which we ran northeastwardly, and 400 nearly east along the coast before we reached the 50TH PARALLEL OF NORTH LAt.i.tUDE, the point where we turned our course from the sh.o.r.e towards home. BEYOND THIS POINT THE PORTUGUESE HAD ALREADY SAILED AS FAR AS THE ARCTIC CIRCLE, WITHOUT COMING TO THE TERMINATION OF THE LAND."

That this lat.i.tude must be taken as correctly determined follows from the representation of the letter, that they took daily observations of the sun and made a record of them, so that no material error could have occurred and remained unrectified for over twenty-four hours; and from the presumption that they were as capable of calculating the lat.i.tude as other navigators of that period, sent on such purposes by royal authority, like Jacques Cartier, whose observations, as the accounts of his voyage to this region show, never varied half a degree from the true lat.i.tude. The fiftieth parallel strikes the easterly coast of Newfoundland three degrees north of Cape Race, and to that point the exploration of Verrazzano is therefore to be regarded as claimed to have been made.

[Footnote: Damiam de Goes, Chronica do felicissimo rei Dom Emanuel parte I. C. 66. (Fol., Lisboa, 1566)]

This intention is made positively certain by the remark which follows the statement of the lat.i.tude, that "beyond this point the Portuguese had already sailed as far north as the Arctic circle without coming to the termination of the land." The exploration of the Portuguese here referred to, and as far as which that of Verrazzano is carried, was made by Gaspar Cortereal in his second voyage, when according to the letter of Pasqualigo the Venetian emba.s.sador, he sailed from Lisbon on a course between west and northwest, and struck a coast along which he ran from six to seven hundred miles, "without finding the end." [Footnote: Paesi novamente ritrovati. Lib. s.e.xto. cap. Cx.x.xL. Venice, 1521. A translation into English of Pasqualigo's letter, which is dated the 19th of October, 1501, is given in the memoir of Sebastian Cabot, p. 235-6.] No other exploration along this coast by the Portuguese, tending to the Arctic circle is known to have taken place before the publication of the Verrazzano letter. The first voyage of Cortereal, was, according to the description of the people given by Damiam de Goes, among the Esquimaux, whether on the one side or the other of Davis straits it is unnecessary here to inquire, as the Esquimaux are not found south of 50 Degrees N. lat.i.tude. The land along which he ran in his second voyage, was, according to the same historian, distinctly named after him and his brother, who shared his fate in a subsequent voyage. It is so called on several early printed maps on which it is represented as identical with Newfoundland. It appears first on a map of the world in the Ptolemy of 1511 edited by Bernardus Sylva.n.u.s of Eboli, and is there laid down as extending from lat.i.tude 50 Degrees N. to 60 Degrees N. with the name of Corte Real or Court Royal, latinized into Regalis Domus. [Footnote: Claudii Ptholemaei Alexandrini liber geographiae, c.u.m tabulis et universali figura et c.u.m additione locorum quae a recentioribus reporta sunt diligenti cura emendatus et impressus. (Fol., Venetiis, 1511.)] The length of the coast, corresponds with the description of Pasqualigo, and its position with the lat.i.tude a.s.signed by the Verrazzano letter for their exploration. Its direction is north and south. There can be no question therefore as to the pretension of the Verrazzano letter to the discovery of the coast by him, actually as far north as the fiftieth parallel.

That it is utterly unfounded, so far as regards that portion of the coast lying east and north of Cape Breton, that is, from 46 Degrees N. lat.i.tude to 50 Degrees N., embracing a distance of five hundred miles according to actual measurement, or eight hundred miles according to the letter, is proven by the fact, that it had all been known and frequented by Portuguese and French fishermen, for a period of twenty years preceding the Verrazano voyage. The Portuguese fisheries in Newfoundland must have commenced shortly after the voyages of the brothers Cortereaes in 1501-2, as they appear to have been carried on in 1506, from a decree of the king of Portugal published at Leiria on the 14th of October in that year, directing his officers to collect t.i.thes of fish which should be brought into his kingdom from Terra Nova; [Footnote: Memorias Economicas da academia Real das Sciencias da Lisboa, tom. III, 393.]

and Portuguese charts belonging to that period, still extant, show both the Portuguese and French discoveries of this coast. On a map (No. 1, of the Munich atlas,) of Pedro Reinel, a Portuguese pilot, who entered the service of the king of Spain at the time of fitting out Magellan's famous expedition, Terra Nova, and the land of Cape Breton are correctly laid down, as regards lat.i.tude, though not by name. On Terra Nova the name of C. Raso, (preserved in the modern Cape Race) is applied to its southeasterly point, and other Portuguese names, several of which also still remain, designating different points along the easterly coast of Newfoundland, and a Portuguese banner, as an emblem of its discovery by that nation, are found. Another Portuguese chart, belonging to the period when the country between Florida and Terra Nova was unknown (No. 4 of the same atlas) delineates the land of Cape Breton, not then yet known to be an island, in correct relation with the Bacalaos, accompanied by a legend that it was discovered by the Bretons. [Footnote: Atlas zur entdeckingsgeschichte Amerikas. Herausgegeben von Friedrick Kunstmann, Karl von Sprusser, Georg M. Thomas. Zu den Monumenta Saecularia der K.B. Akademie der Wissenschaften, 28 Maers, 1859.

Munchen.] The French authorities are more explicit. The particular parts of this coast discovered by the Normands and Bretons with the time of their discovery, and by the Portuguese, are described in the discourse of the French captain of Dieppe, which is found in the collection of Ramusio. This writer states that this land from Cape Breton to Cape Race was discovered by the Bretons and Normandy in 1504, and from Cape Race to Cape Bonavista, seventy leagues north, by the Portuguese, and from thence to the straits of Belle Isle by the Bretons and Normands; and that the country was visited in 1508 by a vessel from Dieppe, commanded by Thomas Aubert, who brought back to France some of the natives. This statement in regard to the Indians is confirmed by an account of them, which is given in a work, printed in Paris at the time, establis.h.i.+ng the fact of the actual presence of the Normands in Newfoundland in that year, by contemporaneous testimony of undoubted authority. [Footnote: Eusebii Chronicon, continued by Joannes Multivallis of Louvain, (Paris 1512) fol. 172.

We give here, a translation of the interesting pa.s.sage referred to in the text, from this volume, which came from the celebrated press of Henri Estienne.

"An Salutis, 1509. Seven savages were brought to Rouen with their garments and weapons from the island they call Terra Nova. They are of a dark complexion, have thick lips and wear marks on their faces extending along their jaws from the ear to the middle of the chin LIKE SMALL LIVID VEINS. Their hair is black and coa.r.s.e like a horse's mane. They have no beard, during their lives, or hairs of p.u.b.erty. Nor have they hair on any part of their persons, except the head and eye-brows. They wear a girdle on which is a small skin to cover their nakedness. They form their speech with their lips. No religion. THEIR BOAT IS OF BARK and a man may carry it with one hand on his shoulders. Their weapons are bows drawn with a string made of the intestines or sinews of animals, and arrows pointed with stone or fish-bone. Their food consists of roasted flesh, their drink is water. Bread, wine and the use of money they have none. They go about naked or dressed in the skins of bears, deer, seals and similar animals. Their country is in the parallel of the seventh climate, more under the west than France is above the west." PLUS SUB OCCIDENTE QUAM GALLICA REGIO SUPRA OCCIDENTEM. By "west" here is meant the meridional line, from which longitude was calculated at that time, through the Island of Ferro, the most westerly of the Canary islands, and the idea here intended to be conveyed is that the country of these Indians was further on this side than France was on the other side, of that line.

This description, as well as the name, Terra Nova, indicates the region of Newfoundland as the place from whence these Indians were taken. According to the tables of Pierre d'Ailly, the seventh climate commences at 47 Degrees 15' N. and extends to 50 Degrees 30'

N. beginning where the longest day of the year is 15 hours and 45 minutes long. (IMAGO MUNDI, tables prefixed to the first chapter.) This embraces the greater part of the southerly and easterly coasts of Newfoundland. The practice of tattooing their faces in lines across the jaw, as here described, was common to all the tribes of this northern coast, the Nasquapecs of Labrador, the red Indians of Newfoundland and the Micmacs of Cape Breton and Nova Scotia. It was from the use of red ochre for this purpose that the natives of Newfoundland obtained their designation of red Indians. The Micmacs used blue and other colors; hence it would appear from the circ.u.mstance of the marks upon these Indians being livid (LIVIDAE) or blue, like veins, that they belonged to the tribes of Cape Breton. (Hind's Labrador II, 97-110. Purchas, III. 1880-1. Denys.

(HIST. NAT. DE L'AMERIQUE SEPT. II, 887.))]

That the French and especially the Normands had soon afterwards resorted to Newfoundland for the purpose of taking fish, and were actually so engaged there at the time of the Verrazzano voyage, is evident from the letter of John Rut, who commanded one of the s.h.i.+ps sent out on a voyage of discovery by Henry VIII of England in 1527.

That voyager states that, driven from the north by the ice, he arrived at St. Johns in Newfoundland on the third of August in that year, and found there eleven Normand, one Breton and two Portuguese vessels, "all a fis.h.i.+ng." [Footnote: Purchas, III, 809. Memoir of Sebastian Cabot, pp. 108, 268, and the authorities there cited.]

This was at a single point on the coast, and in lat.i.tude 47 Degrees 30' N.; and so large a number of vessels there denotes a growth of many years, at that time, of those fisheries.

These facts not only prove that Newfoundland and Cape Breton were well known in France and Portugal before the Verrazzano voyage and therefore that he did not discover them, but that he must have known of them before, and that the letter is intentionally false in that respect. It might perhaps be insisted with some plausibility under other circ.u.mstances, that he ran along the coast, believing that it was a new land, and therefore made the representation of having discovered it in good faith. But admitting that it was even possible for him to have sailed along those sh.o.r.es without encountering a single fis.h.i.+ng craft which would have a.s.sured him that he was not in unknown waters, it is impossible that he could have sailed from Dieppe and returned to that port where, of all the places in France or Europe, the knowledge of these facts most existed, and where they were as familiar as household words, and where they must have entered into the thoughts and hopes of many of its inhabitants, without their being known to him; and that he could have written the letter from that same port, claiming the discovery of the country for himself, without intending a fraud. It was the port to which Aubert belonged and where he landed the Indians he brought from Newfoundland. It was the princ.i.p.al port of Normandy from which the fis.h.i.+ng vessels made their annual voyages to that country. It was the port from whence he manned and equipped his own fleet of four s.h.i.+ps, with crews which must have been largely composed of Normand sailors who were familiar with the navigation and the coast. And there was not a citizen of Dieppe, probably, who had not an interest of some nature in one or more of the fis.h.i.+ng vessels, and could have told him what country it was that he had explored.

It bears unequivocal testimony to the fict.i.tious character of this claim, that Ramusio thought it necessary to interpolate in his version a pa.s.sage representing the discovery of Verrazzano as terminating where the discoveries of the Bretons began, and to omit the cosmography which states it was at the point where those of the Portuguese towards the Arctic circle commenced. By this alteration the letter is made to acknowledge the prior discoveries by the Bretons, which are entirely excluded in the original version, and to adopt the lat.i.tude of 50 Degrees N. for the Verrazzano limit thus making the false statement, as to the extent of the discovery, a mistake as it were of nautical observation. The following parallel pa.s.sages in two versions will best explain the character and effect of the alteration.

VERSION OF CARLI, Narrative.

Navicando infra 'l subsolano ed aquilone in spatio di leghe CL et de gia avendo consumato tutte le nostre substantie navale et vettovaglie, avendo discopruto leghe DII cive leghe 700, piu do nuova terra fornendoci di acque et legne deliberammo di tornare in Francia.

Cosmography.

In questa nostra navigatione fatta per ordine du V. S. M., oltre i gradi 92 che dal detto meridiano verso lo occidente della prima terra trovamo gradi 34 navigando leghe 300 infra oriente e settentrione leghe 400, quasi allo oriente continuo el lito della terra siamo pervenuti per infino a gradi 50, lasciando la terra che piu tempe fa trovorno li Lusitani, quali seguirno piu al septentrione, pervenendo sino al circulo artico e'l fine lasciendo incognito.

Translation Narrative.

After sailing between east and north the distance of one hundred and fifty leagues more and finding our provisions and naval stores nearly exhausted, we took in wood and water, and determined to return to France having discovered VII that is 700 leagues of unknown lands.

Cosmography.