CABOT'S SECOND VOYAGE TO THE

NEW WORLD

1498

EARLY in May, 1498, the Cabots were at length able to set sail. They had two ships provisioned for one year and some three hundred men. As it was well known that they were going to take the route viâ Iceland, in their company "sayled also out of Bristowe three or foure small ships fraught with sleight and grosse merchandizes, as coarse cloth, Caps, Laces, points and other trifles " which "dyvers merchauntes as well of Londone as Bristowe aventurede."

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On leaving the Irish Sea they set their course northwest for Iceland, not expecting," adds Sebastian Cabot, "to find any other land than that of Cathay, and from thence to turn toward India." Soon they encountered bad weather, which so disabled one of the merchant ships that she had to seek refuge in Ireland. The rest of the fleet proceeded on its way. On reaching the parallel of 58° they headed west and continued to follow it for some time in that direction. This is still the route taken by vessels bound for Greenland.

Frobisher, who made Greenland from the Orkneys in 1577, describes his voyage thus: "Keeping our course West North-west by the space of two dayes, the winde shifted upon us so that we lay in traverse on the seas, with contrary windes, making good (as neere as we could) our

1 Points: hooks or catches for hose.

course to the westward, and sometime to the northward, as the winde shifted. And hereabout we met with 3 saile of English fishermen from Iseland, bound homeward, by whom we wrote our letters unto our friends in England. We traversed these seas by the space of 26 days without sight of any land, and met with much drift wood, and whole bodies of trees. We sawe many monsterous fishes and strange foules, which seemed to live onely by the sea, being there so farre distant from any land. At length God favoured us with more prosperous windes, and, after wee had sayled foure dayes with good winde in the poop, the fourth of July, the Michaell being formost a head, shot off a peece of Ordnance and stroke all her sayles, supposing that they descryed land, which by reason of the thicke mistes they could not make perfit; howbeit, as well our account as also the great alteration of the water, which became more blacke and smooth, did plainely declare we were not farre off the coast. Our Generall sent his Master aboord the Michaell to beare in with the place to make proofe thereof, who descryed not the land perfect, but sawe sundry huge Illands of yce, which we deemed to be not past twelve leagues from the shore, for about tenne of the clocke at night . . . the weather being more cleare, we made the land perfect. And the heigth being taken here, we found our selves to be in the latitude of 60 degrees and a halfe, and were fallen with the southermost part of this land. This (Greenland) sheweth a ragged and high lande, having the mountaines almost covered over with snow alongst the coast full of drift yce, and seemeth almost inaccessible. . . . It extendeth . . . to the northward very farre as seemed to us."

The experience of the Cabots in 1498 must have been very similar. Although they had headed along the fiftyeighth parallel, they were carried day by day by the Gulf

Stream farther north. Finally they came upon the east coast of Greenland a little above Cape Farewell. Since the man who had first told them of this land was João Fernandes, named the "Labrador," they called the land the "Labrador's Land." Finding the coast to run north and south, they were at first greatly displeased but decided to follow it northward in the hope of finding a passage to the East. As they made their way north the cold greatly increased on account of the numerous large icebergs met with. 'These, as is well known, are brought down the east coast of Greenland by a current from the polar seas. Frobisher thought it "a marvellous thing to behold of what bignesse and depth some Islands of yce be here, some seventie, some eightie fadome under water, besides that which is above, seeming Ilands more than halfe a mile in circuit. All these yce are in tast fresh, and seeme to be bredde in the sounds thereabouts, or in some lande neere the pole, and with the winde and tides are driven alongst the coastes.'

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Cabot and his men were struck by the length of the day in these high latitudes as well as by the clearness of the nights," so that," says Peter Martyr, " they had in a manner continual daylight." Now and then they noticed spots along the coast which were free from ice and snow. Greenland, in fact, is almost completely covered with a great sheet of ice and snow called the "Inland ice." Only the highest peaks and here and there a spot along the shore are free from this all-invading ice-blanket.

Throughout the early part of the month of June they continued to make their way northward along this desolate coast. Gradually, however, the cold became more intense and the icebergs so numerous and so large that further progress seemed impossible. They were indeed in the very track of the largest ice-floes from the Arctic seas. They noticed that they had also a strong current

against them. As a result of these obstacles, on June II, in latitude 67° 30', the crews became mutinous and refused to proceed. The cold was so intense, the icebergs so thick, the navigation so difficult, and the region so wild and desolate that further progress in that direction seemed madness. Instead of coming upon a passage or a strait, they found the land to be bending more and more toward the east. Thus, notwithstanding that the sea still lay open before them, they turned and headed back along the same coast.

Although this desolate Labrador's Land was clearly not Cathay, yet by following the coast steadily to the south, they were bound in time to come to the region explored in the previous summer. Farther south still they would probably reach Cipango and the spice region.

They at length reached a point where the coast they had been following again began to run north. How far they followed the west coast of Greenland it is difficult to say. It is possible that they now made their way as far as the modern Lichtenfels in 63°. On meeting here with the icebergs brought down to that point from the Polar seas, they once more came about and headed toward the

west.

During their progress across Davis Strait, the crashing of the ice-floes in a storm led them to believe they were passing near two islands full of demons. For many a year an island of this name figured on the maps in the very middle of the mouth of Davis Strait.

They at length caught sight of the coast of our present Labrador in about 57° 30', which is the latitude of Ñanuktut, a remarkable headland that can be distinguished from a very great distance. Sailing on down this coast, which they took to be the mainland of Asia, they seem to have done some bartering with the Indians about here; for those brought from this region to Portugal by

the Corte-Reals three years later were found in possession of a broken gilded sword and a pair of earrings, which to all appearance had been made in Venice. Our strait of Belle Isle, as was most natural, was merely taken for an inlet along the coast of this mainland, and it is so given on Ruysch's map.

Sailing down this coast, they were struck again, as they had been on their first voyage, by the immense shoals of codfish met with. According to Sebastian Cabot, they were in such numbers that they "sumtymes stayed his shippes." To this region they therefore gave the name of Baccallaos, or the Codfish land, by which it continued to be known throughout the sixteenth century.

Bears, as is well known, were formerly very numerous on the east coast of Newfoundland. The Cabots also noticed the " greate plentie of beares in those regions, which use to eate fysshe. For plungeinge theym selves into the water where they perceve a multitude of these fysshes to lye, they fasten theyr clawes in theyr scales, and so drawe them to lande and eate them." This was the reason, according to Sebastian Cabot, why these bears were not "noysom " or harmful to men.

Proceeding on down that coast they at length reached Cape Race, which when on their way home on their previous voyage they had named "England's Cape." They had thus completed the whole circuit of the northern regions, with Bristol and Cape Race as the base points of the semicircle. That those regions contained nothing of utility, they were now quite certain. Since the spice country lay near the equator, they had merely to follow this Asiatic coast-line steadily towards the south, and in time they were bound to come to Cipango and the islands discovered by Columbus.

Sailing along the south coast of Newfoundland, which they had been unable to explore in detail on their former