The Island Seen Opposite, They Named The Island Of St John, Because Discovered On The Day Of St John The Baptist.

The inhabitants of this island wore the skins of beasts, which they held in as much estimation as we do our finest garments.

In their wars they used bows, arrows, spears, darts, wooden clubs, and slings. The land is barren and unfruitful, but has white bears, and stags of unusual size. It abounds in fish of great size, as seawolves, or seals, salmon, and soles above a yard long; but chiefly in immense quantities of that kind which is vulgarly called bacalaos. The hawks of this island are as black as crows, and the eagles and partridges are likewise black[11].

The foregoing account is given by Hakluyt on the authority of a map, engraved by Clement Adams after the design of Sebastian Cabot, which map was then to be seen in the private gallery of Queen Elizabeth at Westminster, and in the houses of many of the merchants of London. From Ramusio, however, Hakluyt gives rather a different account of this matter. By this account, it would appear that the father John Cabot had died previous to the voyage, and that Sebastian went as commander of two vessels furnished by King Henry. He sailed to the north-west, not expecting to find any other land than Cathay, or northern China, and from, thence to proceed for India. But falling in with land, he sailed northwards along the coast, to see if he could find any gulf that permitted him to proceed westwards in his intended voyage to India, and still found firm land to lat 56 deg. N. Finding the coast here turning to the east, he despaired of finding a passage in that direction: he sailed again down the coast to the southwards, still looking everywhere for an inlet that would admit a passage by sea to India, and came to that part of the continent now called Florida; where, his victuals failing, he took his departure for England[12]. In the preface to the third volume of his navigations, Ramusio, as quoted by Hakluyt, says that Sebastian Cabot sailed as far north in this voyage as 67 deg. 30', where on the 11th June the sea was still quite open, and he was in full hope of getting in that way to Cathay, but a mutiny of his people forced him to return to England[13]. Peter Martyr of Angleria, as likewise quoted by Hakluyt, says that Sebastian was forced to return to the southwards by the immense quantities of ice which he encountered in the northern part of his voyage[14].

Sebastian Cabot, on his return to England, found matters in a state which did not promise him any farther advantages as a mariner, on which he went into Spain, where he was employed by Ferdinand and Isabella, in whose service he explored the eastern coast of South America, and discovered the Rio Plata, up which he sailed above 360 miles, finding it to flow through a fine country, everywhere inhabited by great numbers of people, who flocked from all parts to admire his ships.

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