The Breadth Of This Bank Is Somewhere More,
And Somewhere Less; But We Found The Same About Ten Leagues Over,
Having Sounded Both On This Side Thereof, And The Other Toward
Newfoundland, But Found No Ground With Almost 200 Fathom Of Line, Both
Before And After We Had Passed The Bank.
The Portugals, and French
chiefly, have a notable trade of fishing upon this bank, where are
sometimes an hundred or more sails of ships, who commonly begin the
fishing in April, and have ended by July.
That fish is large, always
wet, having no land near to dry, and is called cod fish. During the
time of fishing, a man shall know without sounding when he is upon the
bank, by the incredible multitude of sea-fowl hovering over the same,
to prey upon the offals and garbage of fish thrown out by fishermen,
and floating upon the sea.
Upon Tuesday, the 11 of June we forsook the coast of England. So again
on Tuesday, the 30 of July, seven weeks after, we got sight of land,
being immediately embayed in the Grand Bay, or some other great bay;
the certainty whereof we could not judge, so great haze and fog did
hang upon the coast, as neither we might discern the land well, nor
take the sun's height. But by our best computation we were then in the
51 degrees of latitude. Forsaking this bay and uncomfortable coast
(nothing appearing unto us but hideous rocks and mountains, bare of
trees, and void of any green herb) we followed the coast to the
south, with weather fair and clear.
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