Chapter XI: (Addenda.) (1)

1526-1614.

After the death of Verrazzano, the French, for a time, made no attempt to search along the coast of the new continent for a short and direct way to Cathay. The losses sustained by the projectors of the expedition of 1526, Ribaut says, gave “small courage to sende thither agayne, and was the cause that this laudable enterprise was left of, vntill the yeere 1534, at which time his Maiestie [Francis I.] (desiring alwayes to enlarge his kingdome, countreys, and dominions, and the aduauncing the ease of his subiectes), sent thither a Pilote of S. Mallowes, a Briton, named James Cartier, well seene in the art and knowledge of Nauigation, and especially of the North parts, commonly called the new land, led by some hope to find passage that waies to the south seas.”[430]

The two ships commanded by Cartier sailed from the port of St. Malo, on the twentieth of April, 1534. Reaching Newfoundland on the tenth of May, Cartier began to search for a navigable channel to India. Three months were passed in exploring the coast of Labrador and the Strait of Belle Isle and a part of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. On the fifteenth of August, Cartier set sail for France, and arrived in the port of St. Malo, on the fifth of September. In the following year, Cartier sailed again to New France and explored the St. Lawrence River to the island of Hochelaga, the site of the city of Montreal. It is said that he was told by the natives that from there it was only “a month’s sailing to go to a land where cinnamon and cloves are gathered.”[431] Returning from this voyage, Cartier reached St. Malo on the sixth of July, 1536.[432]

The first explorers of the new continent called its inhabitants by different names. Columbus and his Spanish companions, imagining the field of their discoveries to be in Eastern Asia, named the aborigines Indians (_Indios_), believing them to be natives of India. Seven of the people of Canada, carried to France, in 1509, were described by a contemporaneous Latin writer as wood or wild men (_homines sylvestres_).[433] The French, it appears, called the natives of New France _manants_ or _manans_, and _paysans_, peasants, the former name being used in the middle ages as a designation for unintelligent people or those of low condition. The name _manants_ was likewise a designation for persons of this class living in villages and on farms. _Manants_ properly speaking were the natives of a place, and the _habitans_ were those who came to it to reside.[434] The French appellation _manants_ or _manans_ not only fitly expressed the low condition of the natives of New France, but it also gave prominence to the fact that they dwelt in villages and were indigenous people. The French, as late as the year 1677, called the old Indians, or rather the descendants of the Senecas, _paisans_, peasants.[435] The Italians also called the natives of North America peasants, _paesani_.[436]

The Manants living on the island on which the city of New York is built, were very friendly to the French who came to the Grande River, in the sixteenth century, to traffic for furs. The Hollanders, however, found them to be quite hostile in the following century. De Laet, the Dutch historian, describing the natives of the Groote River in 1625, remarks: “On the east side, upon the main-land, dwell the Manhattans, a bad race of savages, who have always been very obstinate and unfriendly toward our countrymen.”[437] He also says that Hudson, in 1609, called the Great River “Manhattes from the name of the people who dwelt at its mouth.”[438]

The wrong spelling of the French term _manant_ began with a misconception of its proper pronunciation. The Dutch thinking that the _t_ was sounded, pronounced the name _man-ant_, whence “_man-hat_,” “_man-ath_,” “_man-ad_,” and other strange forms of the name. Wassenaer, the Dutch historian, in 1624, speaking of the Indian tribes of New Netherland, says: “The Manhates are situated at the mouth” of the Mauritius River.[439] De Laet writes the name Manhattes, Manatthans, Manatthanes, and Manhattans.[440] De Vries, the Dutch navigator, who could speak French, spells the appellation Menates and Minates.[441] In the deposition of Catelyn Trico, a French woman, who emigrated from Holland, in 1624, to New Netherland, the term is written Mannantans.[442] Besides these peculiar changes the name has many other anomalous forms.[443]

When the first French explorers sailed along that massive bulwark of trap-rock, now called The Palisades, rising on the west side of the Grande River to varying altitudes from two to five hundred feet above the level of the stream, and ranging northward and southward a distance of more than ten miles, they were peculiarly impressed with its grandeur, and figuratively called it L’Anormée Berge, (The Grand Scarp.)

The adjective _anormée_ and the noun _berge_ definitely describe the steep and extensive wall of stone which borders the noble river, now bearing the name of a later explorer. _Anormé_, an obsolete form of the adjective _énorme_, signifies that which is grand, vast, majestic.[444] The noun _berge_, besides meaning an elevated border of a river, a scarp of a fortification, a steep side of a moat or of a road, is a designation for certain rocks elevated perpendicularly above the water.[445] In an old French lexicon it is said: “They likewise call in marine phraseology _bèrges_ or _barges_ those great rocks, rugged and perpendicularly elevated, that is to say, uprightly and plumb, as the _bèrges_ or _barges_ of Olone: such rocks as are Scylla and Charybdis, toward Messina.”[446]

A more appropriate name could not have been selected to designate geographically this part of New France than that of The Land of the Grand Scarp (_La Terre d’Anormée Berge_), or, in more familiar phraseology, The Land of the Palisades. The words, scarp and palisade, are terms of fortification. The first designates the steep slope below the parapet of a fortification, next to the ditch; the second an upright row of strong stakes set firmly in the ground in front of the counter-scarp, on the opposite side of the moat from the scarp.

The mispronunciation of the peculiar geographical name was evidently the cause of its orthography being obscured so soon after it was used as the designation for the elevated border of the Grande River. The more frequent use thereafter of _énorme_ for _anormé_ made the term more unfamiliar. It would seem also that when the name should have been written _La Terre d’Énorme Berge_, that it was inscribed, _La Terre de Normeberge_. The change of the qualifying term to a word of two syllables, as _norom_, _norum_, _nurum_, and _norim_, rendered the name more ambiguous. In like manner the noun _berge_ was corrupted, being spelled _bergue_, _bega_, _berg_, and _bagra_. In this way the territorial designation became _La Terre de Norumbega_, _La Terre de Norembegue_, _La Terre de Noromberge_, and _La Terre de Norembergue_, and its meaning and derivation incomprehensible to the descendants of its originators.

Gerard Mercator, on a terrestrial globe, (_globus terrae_), made in 1541, represents the Grande River as if its channel were filled with _anormée bèrges_, which he designates with the misspelled name “Anorumbega.”[447] On a map of the world, made about the year 1548, for King Henry II. of France, the appellation “Anorobagra” designates the river of the Grand Scarp.[448]

In the sixteenth century proper names less peculiar in construction than the appellation L’Anormée Berge, were written very irregularly. It is said by Disraeli that Leicester subscribed his name eight different ways, and that Villers is spelled fourteen times differently in the deeds of the family. Lower mentions that the name of Mainwaring, has the remarkable number of one hundred and thirty-one variations in different documents. Even in this age of dictionaries the spelling of uncommon geographical names does not always conform to their orthography. A record has been kept for a number of years of the different ways in which the name of the city of Cohoes, in the state of New York, has been spelled on letters addressed to that post-office, and the extraordinary number of one hundred and ninety-seven changes in the form of the appellation has been registered.

There seems to be but a single statement that might be used to support an assertion that the natives of the country of New France originated the name “Norumbega.” It is in Ramusio’s Italian translation of the French sea-captain’s description of Francesca, in which it is said: “This region is called by the peasants Norumbega.” René Goulaine de Laudonnière, a well-informed French naval officer, who had command of a French fort in Florida, in 1564, contradicts the assertion that the name was transferred from an early map of the eastern coast of Asia, saying: “It is called by the moderns Terre de Norumberge.” André Thevet, the French geographer, who sailed along its coast in 1556, declares that his countrymen called the Grande River “Norombègue,” and the Indians, “Aggoncy.”

One of the earliest accounts of the Land of the Grand Scarp extant is in the discourse of the unnamed sea-captain of Dieppe, written in 1539. Describing the country of Francesca, he says: “Beyond Cape Breton there is a region contiguous to this cape, the coast of which extends west and a quarter southwest as far as the region of Florida, and it stretches full five hundred leagues, which coast was discovered fifteen years ago, by Monsieur Giovanni da Verrazzano, in the name of King Francis and of Madame, the regent, and this region is called by many the land of the French (_la Francese_), and likewise by the Portuguese, and its termination toward Florida is in 78° west longitude and 30° north latitude.[449]

“The inhabitants of this domain are a tractable people, amiable and agreeable. The country abounds with all kinds of fruit. Oranges and almonds grow in wild forests, with many different varieties of odoriferous trees. This region is called by the peasants (_paesani_) Norumbega, and between it and Brazil there is a large gulf, extending west as far as the ninety-second meridian.”[450]

In 1540 Jacques Cartier again sailed to New France and ascended the St. Lawrence River. Jean François de la Roque, Sieur de Roberval, was placed in command of this expedition, and, by letters-patent, dated January 15, 1540, was commissioned viceroy and lieutenant-general of the new lands belonging to France in the western hemisphere. Jean Alphonse, an experienced navigator, a native of Saintonge, near the town of Cognac, France, accompanied Sieur de Roberval as chief pilot.[451]

In the manuscript of the cosmography of Raulin Secalart, written about the year 1545, preserved in the National library, in Paris, is a short description of the coast and people of La Terre d’Anormée Berge.[452] The writer, evidently Jean Alphonse, very faithfully describes Long Island Sound, the eastern entrance to the Grande River, when he says: “This river is wider than forty leagues of latitude at its mouth, and within, the width is as much as thirty or forty leagues, and it is full of islands, which extend ten or twelve leagues in the sea, and it is very dangerous on account of rocks and swashings.” These observations are remarkably consonant with those of a later writer: “Long Island Sound, a Mediterranean Sea, separating the island from the main-land of Connecticut, is connected with the ocean at each end of the island and affords a sheltered line of navigation of about one hundred and twenty miles in extent.... Opposite Harlem River is the noted pass or strait called Hell-Gate, which is crooked, and from the numerous rocks, islands, eddies, and currents, is somewhat difficult and dangerous.”[453]

The identity of the river called by the French writer “Norombègue,” now the Hudson, is satisfactorily established by the statement that the water of the river is salty to the height of forty leagues or eighty-eight miles. This fact is incontrovertible. The Hudson is salty or brackish beyond the city of Poughkeepsie, which is about ninety-three miles north of Sand Hook.[454] The assertion could not be verified were it assumed that the description applies to the Penobscot, or the Kennebec, or the Merrimack, or the Connecticut River. It would seem that the writer speaks of the Palisades bordering the west side of the river, opposite the Indian village of “Norombègue,” when he says: “On the side toward the west of the said town there are many rocks which extend to the sea, about fifteen miles.”

“I say that the Cape of St. John, called Cape Breton, and the Cape of the Franciscan, are northeast and southwest, and range a point from an east and west course, and there are one hundred and forty leagues on the course, and which makes one cape, called the Cape of Norombègue. The said cape is in forty-one degrees of the height of the arctic pole. The said coast [_i. e._ of Connecticut] is all sandy, ...[455] flat, without any mountain. And along this coast there are many isles of sand and the coast very dangerous on account of banks and rocks.

“The people of this coast and of Cape Breton are an ill-disposed race, powerful, great arrow-makers, and live on fish and on flesh, and are not talkative, and speak almost the same language as those of Canada, and are a great people. And those of Cape Breton go to make war upon those of the New Land when they are fishing, and not for any thing do they spare the life of any one when they take him, unless it is a young boy or a young girl; and they are so cruel that if they take a man having a beard, they cut off his legs and arms and carry them to their wives and children, in order to be avenged in that way. And there are among them many peltries of all animals.

“Beyond the Cape of Norombègue, the river of the said Norombègue descends about twenty-five leagues from the cape. The said river is wider than forty leagues of latitude at its mouth [entrance of Long Island Sound], and within, this width is as much as thirty or forty leagues, and it is full of isles which stretch out ten or twelve leagues in the sea [or Sound], and it is very dangerous on account of rocks and swashings. The said river is in forty-two degrees of the height of the arctic pole.

“Up the said river, fifteen leagues, there is a town which is called Norombègue, and there is in it a good people, and they have many peltries of all kinds of animals. The inhabitants of the town are dressed in skins, wearing mantles of martens. I think that the said river runs into the river Hochelaga [the St. Lawrence], for it is salt for more than forty leagues up, according to the statement of the people of the town. The people use many words which resemble the Latin, and they worship the sun, and are a handsome people, and large framed. The land of Norombègue is high and good.

“Before and on this side of the said river, one hundred and fifty leagues, there is an island called Vermonde [Bermuda?] which is in about thirty-three degrees of the height of the arctic pole.[456] And on the west side of the said town there are many rocks which extend to the sea, about fifteen leagues, and north of it there is a bay, in which there is a small island, which is often subject to tempests and cannot be inhabited.”

While Jean Alphonse was exploring the coast of La Terre d’Anormée Berge (which at this time geographically included all the country between the Grande River and the Gulf of St. Lawrence), he ascended the Grande River to the height of its navigation, from which point he inferred that the stream extended to the St. Lawrence, as it is represented on the map made by Giacomo de Gastaldi, a Piedmontese cartographer, about the year 1553.[457] “I have been at a bay as far as forty-two degrees, between Norumbega and Florida, and I have not searched the end thereof, and I know not whether it [the river] pass through.... I doubt not but [the river] Norumbega entereth into the river of Canada, and unto the sea of Saguenay.”[458]

This opinion, that the Hudson was an outlet of the St. Lawrence, was held by the Dutch as late as the year 1625, for De Laet observes: “Judging from appearances this river extends to the great river of St. Lawrence, or Canada, since our skippers assure us that the natives come to the fort [on the site of Albany] from that river.”[459]

René Goulaine de Laudonnière, a French officer, commanding Fort Caroline, on the river May, in 1564, gives, in his notable history of Florida, a short account of Verrazanno’s discoveries in 1524.[460] He says that the French planted in the New Land “the ensigns and arms of the king of France, so that the Spaniards themselves, who were there afterward, have called this country French land (_nõmé ce païs terre Francesque_).... The east part of it is named by the moderns Terre de Norumberge, which ends at the Gulf of Gamas, which separates it from the island of Canada.”[461]

Not long after the discovery of Francesca by Verrazzano, French barques were making voyages to its coast, some to obtain cod-fish and others furs. As related by Jean Alphonse, the people of the village of L’Anormée Berge had “many peltries of all kinds of animals.” The large quantities of beaver, otter, and other skins obtained from the Manants, dwelling at the mouth of the Grande River, induced the speculative Frenchmen engaged in the traffic to erect at this point a small fort, where their factors might reside and more advantageously enlarge their purchases of furs. The Indian village, on the island on which the city of New York is built, was picturesquely situated on the border of the deep, limpid lake, then covering the sites of the plots of ground included between the lines of Elm, Baxter, Worth, and Franklin streets. Near the south end of the lake (which extended as far as the intersection of Centre and Duane streets and emptied into the Hudson at Canal Street) was a small island. Eligible, and opposite the tongue of land on which the Manants dwelt, the French fur factors selected it as the site of the fortified trading house which they erected and called Le Fort d’Anormée Berge (The Fort of the Grand Scarp).[462]

The French geographer, André Thevet, who sailed along the coast of La Terre d’Anormée Berge, in 1556, besides corroborating some of the preceding statements respecting the discovery of New France, and mentioning the fact that the Grande River was called by his countrymen the river of “Norombègue,” and by the Indians “Aggoncy,” says[463]: “Having left Florida on the left hand with a great number of islands, islets, gulfs, and capes, a river presents itself, one of the beautiful rivers that are in the world, which we named Norombègue, and the Indians Aggoncy, and which is marked on some marine charts Grande river.[464] Several other beautiful rivers enter this one, on which formerly the French had built a small fort about ten or twelve leagues up it, which fort was surrounded by fresh water that empties into the river, and this place was called the fort of Norombègue.”[465]

The site of the fort of L’Anormée Berge is indicated by Gerard Mercator on his celebrated map of the world, made at Duisburg, Germany, in 1569. The famous cartographer not only designates the situation of the French fort on the east side of the Grande River with a conventional sign used by map-makers, but also inscribes the name “Norombega” immediately over it. As is seen, he outlines the Grande River to the height of its navigation, at the confluence of the Mohawk, as far as the French had explored it.[466]

It seems that the French fur merchants undertook to build, about the year 1540, a _château_ or castle, at the height of the navigation of the Grande River. As it appears, they selected a site for the building on the long, low island lying in the bay, on the west side of the river, near the present southern limits of the city of Albany. The walls of the castle and its protecting earthworks were almost completed when a great freshet inundated the island and damaged the structure so much that the French abandoned the occupation of the island. Jean Alphonse evidently refers to the abortive undertaking, when describing the situation of the Indian village at the mouth of the Grande River, he says: “North of it there is a bay, in which is a small island that is often subject to storms, [those causing freshets,] and cannot be inhabited.” The island bore the name of Castle Island for more than a century thereafter, but it is now known as Van Rensselaer’s Island.

The fact that the French had ascended the Grande River to the height of its navigation to trade with the Indians long before Henry Hudson explored it, is corroborated by still stronger testimony than that already presented. One of the earliest maps representing the territory of Nieu Nederlandt (New Netherland), or that part of New France which the French had called La Terre d’Anormée Berge, is the figurative chart presented to their high mightinesses, the Lords States General of the United Netherlands, on the eleventh of October, 1614, by a number of Dutch merchants, praying for a special license to navigate and traffic within the limits of this part of North America.[467] Upon this map, made in 1614, are inscribed “curious notes and _memoranda_ concerning the natives of the country,” which the well-informed discoverer of the chart intimates were written by one of the Dutch companions of Henry Hudson, who accompanied the English navigator, on the voyage of 1609.[468] One of these explanatory notes contains the undeniable testimony that the French were the discoverers of the Grande River, and that they had been trading with the Mohawks long before the Half Moon sailed up the river. The plain language of the inscription makes all explanation of its meaning unnecessary: “But as far as one can understand by what the Maquaas [Mohawks] _say and show_, the French come with sloops as high up as their country to trade with them.”[469]

Among the things which were shown to the Dutch explorers by the friendly Mohawks to confirm what they had said concerning the French, were the conspicuous ruins of the unfinished castle. The sagacious Hollanders, not unlikely thinking that the dilapidated building might be repaired with little expense, and made useful to them as a trading house, should they be licensed by the government of the Netherlands to return there to trade for furs with the Indians, took measurements of its walls and outworks. These _memoranda_ they also inscribed on the map of New Netherland. The castle, as described on the chart, was fifty-eight feet wide between the walls, and built in the form of a square, surrounded by a moat eighteen feet wide. The interior building was thirty-six feet long and twenty-six wide.[470]

Although the Dutch explorers never left any definite information that they were personally the builders of the fortification on Castle Island, yet by naming it Fort Nassau, in honor of the stadtholder, Maurice, prince of Orange and of Nassau, they permitted historians to infer that they had constructed it, even before they had been privileged by the government of the Netherlands to occupy the country.

As late as the year 1680, the Dutch residents of Albany were unenlightened respecting the nationality of the builders of the fort, some supposing that the Spaniards had erected it. This assumption was not generally credited, as there were no facts known that would verify the presence of the Spaniards in this part of the country. The two Labadist missionaries, Jasper Dankers and Peter Sluyter, who visited Albany in 1680, thus speak of the fort on Castle Island, and of the conjecture concerning the people who had built it: “In the afternoon [Sunday, April 28th] we took a walk to an island upon the end of which there is a fort built, they say, by the Spaniards. That a fort had been there is evident enough from the earth thrown up, but it is not to be supposed that the Spaniards came so far inland to build forts when there are no monuments of them to be seen on the sea-coasts, where, however, they have been according to the tradition of the Indians.”[471]

FOOTNOTES

[1] The Hebrew for man is derived from the verb (אדם), _to be red_.

[2] Solon, one of the seven sages of Greece, was born about the year B. C. 639, and died about the year B. C. 558.

Herodotus, the Greek historian, writing in the fifth century before the Christian era, says: “When these were subdued, and Crœsus had joined them to the Lydians, all the learned men at that time, especially those of Greece, resorted to Sardis, which had then reached a high degree of eminence. Among them was Solon, an Athenian, who, having made a code of laws for the Athenians at their request, absented himself for ten years, having sailed away under pretense of seeing the world, that he might not be compelled to abrogate any of the laws he had established: for the Athenians could not do it themselves, as they were bound by the most solemn oaths to preserve inviolate, for ten years, the institutions of Solon. Therefore, having gone abroad for these reasons, as well as to see the world, Solon had visited Amasis, in Egypt, and went from there to Crœsus, at Sardis.”—Herodotus: Clio xxix, xxx.

[3] Plutarch, the Greek biographer, says that Psenophis, the Heliopolitan, and Senchis, the Saite, the most learned of the Egyptian priests, were the persons who gave Solon this information.—Parallel Lives: Solon.

[4] “If Solon ... had not considered the writing of poetry a recreation, but had made it, as others do, an actual employment, and had completed the history which he had brought from Egypt; and had not been forced to relinquish it by seditions and many other troubles in which he found his country involved, I do not think that either Hesiod, Homer, or any other poet would have acquired more extensive fame.”—Plato: Timæus, or Concerning Nature.

[5] Plato was born about the year B. C. 430 and died about the year B. C. 348. He traced his descent from Solon through his mother.

[6] “These very writings, indeed, were in the possession of my grandfather, and are now in mine, having been made the subject of much study during my boyhood.”—Plato: Critias, or the Atlantic.

[7] Plato: Critias, or the Atlantic.

[8] The so-called Pillars of Hercules were the two mountains, Calpe and Abyla, on the opposite sides of the Strait of Gibraltar.

“I wonder, therefore, at those,” says Herodotus, “who have described the limits of and divided Libya, Asia, and Europe, for the difference between them is trifling: for in length Europe extends along both of them, but respecting width, it is evidently not to be compared. Libya shows itself to be surrounded by water, except so much of it as borders Asia.”—Herodotus: Melpomene xlii.

[9] Tyrrhenia or Umbria, in Italy, now Tuscany.

[10] Plato: Timæus, or Concerning Nature.

[11] Plato: Critias, or the Atlantic.

[12] Genesis xvi. 7; xviii. 1-8, 16-33; xix. 1-22; xxxii. 1, 2.

[13] Herodotus: Euterpe cxlii, cxliv.

[14] Genesis vi. 1, 2, 4.

“SOC. Do you know that heroes are half-gods?

“HERM. What then?

“SOC. All of them were doubtless begotten either from a god falling in love with a mortal woman, or from a mortal man [falling in love] with a goddess.”

—Plato: Cratylus, or Concerning the Correct Use of Words.

[15] A stadium is equal to 600 Greek or 625 Roman feet, or to 606 feet 9 inches English measure.

[16] Respecting the names of the persons appearing in the narrative Plato observes: “We must briefly warn you not to be surprised at hearing Hellenic names given to the barbarians; the cause of this you shall now hear. Solon, intending to make use of this narrative in his poetry, made an investigation into the signification of the names, and found that the early Egyptians who recorded these facts transferred these names into their own language; and he again receiving the meaning of each name transcribed it into our tongue.”

[17] “Πᾶσα ἡ νῆσος τότε πέλαγος ἐσχεν ἑπωνυμίαν, Ἀτλαντικὸν λεχθέν.”

[18] Gadeira, an ancient city built, it is said, by the Phœnicians, fifteen centuries before the Christian era, on the site of Cadiz, Spain.

[19] Ὀρείχαλκος, ore of copper. From ὄρειος, mountain, and χαλκός, brass.

[20] The remains of mammoths or elephants, _elephas primigenus_, have been exhumed in different parts of the continent of America.

[21] A plethron is equal to a hundred feet.

[22] A trireme, a large-sized boat with three rows or benches of oars on its sides.

[23] “This agreement of the traditions of the most diverse peoples manifests itself in a striking manner when compared with the number assigned by the Bible to the antediluvian patriarchs. There are ten in the account in Genesis, and a singular persistence reproduces this number of ten in the legends of a very great number of nations, whose primitive ancestors are still enveloped in the mist of fables.... The preserved fragments of the celebrated historical papyrus of Turin, containing a list of Egyptian dynasties traced in hieratic writing, seem clearly to indicate that the editor of this canon gives ten gods, who in the beginning ruled men.”—Les Origines de l’Histoire d’après la Bible et les Traditions des Peuples Orientaux, par François Lenormant, professeur d’archéologie près la Bibliothèque nationale. Deuxième édition, Paris, 1880. pp. 214, 215, 227.

[24] Plato: Critias, or the Atlantic.

[25] “These figures of the mythic Egyptian chronology are still very imperfectly known to us—too little indeed to affirm any thing satisfactorily concerning the principle of their construction.... We must, therefore, wait for some new discovery, like that of a royal canon similar to the one of Turin, in good condition, before we can make a thorough examination of the principle of the cyclic periods with which Egypt began her annals.”—Les Origines de l’Histoire. Lenormant. p. 287.

[26] Plato: Critias, or the Atlantic.

[27] Plato: Timæus, or Concerning Nature.

[28] The ships of the ancients, in the time of Herodotus, were vessels propelled by oars and sails. Describing those used by the Egyptians on the Nile, he says: “Their ships in which they convey merchandise are made of the acacia, which in shape is similar to the Cyrenæan lotus, and its exudation is gum. From this acacia they cut planks about two cubits in length, and join them together as they do bricks, building their ships in the following manner: They fasten the planks of two cubits length to stout and long ties; when they have thus built the hulls, they lay rowing benches across them. They make no use of ribs, but caulk the seams inside with byblus. They make only one rudder, and that is driven through the keel. They use a mast of acacia, and sails of byblus. These vessels cannot sail against the current of the stream unless a fair wind prevails, but are towed from the shore. They are thus carried down the stream: There is a hurdle made of tamarisk, wattled with a band of reeds, and a stone bored through the middle, of about two talents in weight; of these two, the hurdle is fastened to a cable, and let down at the prow of the vessel to be carried on by the stream; and the stone by another cable at the stern; and by this means the hurdle, by the stream bearing hard upon it, moves quickly and draws along the ‘baris’, (for this is the name given to these vessels,) but the stone, being dragged at the stern, and sunk to the bottom, keeps the vessel in its course. They have a great number of these vessels, and some of them carry many thousand talents.”—Euterpe xcvi.

The vessels of the Phœnicians were of a better build, but they also were fitted out with oars and sails.—Ezekiel xxvii. 3-9.

[29] Genesis vi. 5, 6, 7.

[30] Plato: Critias, or the Atlantic.

_Vide_ The Works of Plato. Bohn’s ed. London, 1849. vol. ii. Translated by Henry Davis, pp. 413-429.

[31] The date of the accession of Seti I. or Sethos I. is variously given. M. Champollion Figeac places it in 1473 B.C. Mure thinks it cannot be earlier than 1410 nor later than 1400 B.C.

[32] Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology. t. iv. pp. 1-19.

[33] Les Origines de l’Histoire. Lenormant. pp. 448, 449.

[34] _Vide_ Historia Verdadera de la Conqvista de la Nueva-España. Escrita por el Capitan Bernal Diaz del Castillo, vno de sus Conquistadores. En Madrid, 1632.

Antiquities of Mexico: comprising fac-similes of ancient Mexican paintings and hieroglyphics, preserved in the Royal libraries of Paris, Berlin, and Dresden; in the Imperial library at Vienna; in the Vatican library; in the Borgian museum at Rome; in the library of the Institute at Bologna; and in the Bodleian library at Oxford. Together with the monuments of New Spain, by M. Dupaix; with their respective scales of measurements and accompanying descriptions. The whole illustrated by many valuable inedited manuscripts, by Lord Kingsborough. In nine volumes. London, 1831-1848.

[35] Now called the Shetland islands, but the name is printed on the early maps Hetland; from Swedish _het_, hot, and _land_, land. The group lies about 180 miles from Norway, between 59° 50´ and 60° 50´ north latitude.

[36] The Fer öe or Far islands lie about 170 miles northwest of the Shetland group, and are between 61° 20´ and 62° 25´ north latitude. The name is derived from _fer_, far, (Swedish,) and _öe_, islands.

[37] Iceland lies between latitude 63° 24´ and 66° 33´ N. and longitude 13° 31´ and 24° 17´ W. It is one hundred and sixty miles east of Greenland, six hundred west of Norway, and two hundred and fifty northwest of the Fer öe, or Far islands.

[38] History of the Northmen, by Henry Wheaton. London, 1831. pp. 17, 18.

Iceland, or the journal of a residence in that island, during the years 1814 and 1815, by Ebenezer Henderson, vol. i. Intro. pp. xv. and 308.

[39] “Men of experience say, who have been born in Greenland, and have recently come from Greenland, that from Stadt, in the north part of Norway, to Horns, on the east coast of Iceland, is seven days’ sailing directly westward.”—Antiqvitates Americanæ, sive scriptores septentrionales rerum Ante-Columbianarum in America. Edidit Societas Regia Antiqvariorum Septentrionalium. Hafniæ, 1837. Ivar Bardsen’s treatise. p. 302.

[40] “He who sails from Iceland [to Greenland] must steer his course from Snefelsnes, which is twelve nautical miles (_tholldt soes_) farther to the west than the mentioned Reychenes, and for a day and a night he will sail due west, but then he must steer to the southwest to avoid the ice that adheres to Gunnbjörn’s rocks. Then he must hold his course one day and one night to the northwest, which will bring him straight to that high land of Greenland called Hvarf, under which lie the mentioned Herjulfsnes and Sand-haffn.”

“They who wish to sail direct from Bergen [in Norway] to Greenland without touching Iceland, must sail due west until they find themselves twelve nautical miles (_xii uger soes_) south of Reychenes, a promontory on the south coast of Iceland, and by holding this course toward the west they will come to the high land of Greenland called Hvarf.”—Antiq. Amer. Ivar Bardsen’s treatise. pp. 304, 305; 303, 304.

[41] _Bygd_, inhabited land, a place of residence, an abode.

[42] _Ubygd_, an unpeopled tract, desert.

[43] “A day before you descry the said Hvarf you ought to see another high mountain called Hvidserk. Under these two mountains—Hvard and Hvidserk—is a promontory (_nes_) called Herjulfsnes, near which is a harbor called Sand-haffn.... The inhabited part of Greenland lying eastwardly, next to Herjulfsnes, is called Skagefjörd.”—Antiq. Amer. Ivar Bardsen’s treatise. pp. 304, 305.

[44] Christianity, it is said, was introduced in Iceland in the year 1000.—Antiq. Amer. pp. 10, 11, 14, and note _b_. The discovery of America by the Northmen. By North Ludlow Beamish. London, 1841. pp. 47, 48.

[45] The traditions of the voyages of Bjarni, the son of Herjulf, and of Leif, the son of Eric the Red, are contained in a large folio of manuscripts found in the seventeenth century, in a monastery on the island called Flatö, north of Breidafjörd, in Iceland. This book of Flatö was purchased, about the year 1660, by Bishop Brynjulf Sveinson of Skalholt, in Iceland, and was sent by him as a gift to King Frederic III. of Denmark, and is now in the Royal Library of Copenhagen. A part of the inscription on the first page of the volume bears this translation: “This book, Jónn, the son of Hakon, owns.... The priest, Jónn, the son of Thord, wrote out the narrative concerning Eric, the traveller, and the histories of each of the Olafs; and the priest, Magnus, the son of Thorhall, wrote out that which follows, also that which precedes, and illuminated the whole. God Almighty and the Holy Virgin Mary bless those who wrote and him who dictated.”

It is supposed that these traditions, which are finely engrossed in Icelandic on vellum, contained in the Codex Flateyensis, were compiled between the years 1387 and 1395.—Antiq. Amer. pp. 1-4.

[46] _Thaettir af Eireki Rauda ok Graenlendingum._

[47] _Bjarni leitadi Graenlands._—Antiq. Amer. pp. 17-25. Discovery of America. Beamish, pp. 47, 48.

[48] From _hella_, a flat stone.

Certain writers believe that Newfoundland was called Helluland by the Northmen. The island lies about six hundred miles south of Greenland.

[49] Nova Scotia is supposed by some writers to be the region named Markland by the Northmen. It is about four hundred miles southwest of Newfoundland.

[50] _Hèr Hefr Graenlendinga Thátt._ Antiq. Amer. pp. 26-40. Discovery of America. Beamish, pp. 59-70.

[51] Narrative of an expedition to the east coast of Greenland, sent by order of the king of Denmark, in search of the lost colonies, under the command of Captain W. A. Graah, of the Danish royal navy. Translated from the Danish by the late G. Gordon Macdougall, F.R.S.N.A., for the Royal Geographical Society of London. London, 1837. pp. 106, 107.

[52] “_Meira var thar jafndaegri enn á Graenlandi edr Íslandi, sól hafdi thar eyktarstad ok dagmálastad um skamdegi._”

“Dag-mál, n. (_vide_ dagr), prop. ‘_day-meal_,’ one of the divisions of the day, usually about eight or nine o’clock, A.M.; the Latin _hora tertia_ is rendered by ‘er vér köllum dagmál,’ _which we call d._, Hom. [Homiliu-bók], 142; enn er ekki lidit af dagmálum, Hom. (St.) 10. Acts 11, 15; in Glúm. [Viga-Glúms Saga], 342, we are told that the young Glúm was very lazy, and lay in bed till day-meal every morning, cp. also 343; Hrafn. [Hrafnkéls Saga] 28 and O. H. L. [Olafs Saga Helga Legendaria] 18—áeinum morni milli rismála ok dagmála—where distinction is made between rismal (_rising time_) and dagmál, so as to make a separate dagsmark (q. v.) of each of them; and again, a distinction is made between ‘midday’ and dagmal, Ísl. [Islenzkar], 11, 334. The dagmal is thus midway between ‘rising’ and ‘midday,’ which accords well with the present use. The word is synonymous with dagver darmál, _breakfast-time_, and denotes the hour when the ancient Icelanders used to take their chief meal, opposed to náttmál, _night-meal_ or _supper-time_, Fms. [Fornmanna Sögur], viii, 330; even the MSS. use dagmál and dagverdarmál indiscriminately; cp. also Sturl. [Sturlunga Saga] 111, 4 C; Rb. [Rimbegla], 452 says that at full moon the ebb takes place ‘at dagmá-lum.’ To put the dagmál at 7:30 A.M., as Pál Vidalin does, seems neither to accord with the present use nor the passage in Glúm or the eccl. _hora tertia_, which was the nearest hour answering to the Icel. calculation of the day. In Fb. [Flateyjar bók] 1,539, it is said that the sun set at ‘eykd’ (_i. e._ half-past three o’clock), but rose at ‘dagmál,’ which puts the dagmal at 8:30 A.M. Compds. dagmála-stadr, m. _the place of d. in the horizon_, Fb. [Flateyjar bók].”

“Eykt, eykd, f. _three or half-past three o’clock_, P.M.; many commentaries have been written upon this word, as by Pál Vidalin Skyr, Finn Johnson in H. E. [Historia Ecclesiastica Islandiæ] 1. 153 sqq. note 6, and in Horologium, etc. The time of eykd is clearly defined in K. Th. K. [Kristinnrettr Thorláks ok Ketils], 92 as the time _when the sun has past two parts of the_ ‘utsudr’ (q. v.) _and has one part left_, that is to say, _half-past three o’clock_, P.M.: it thus nearly coincides with the eccl. Lat. _nona_ (three o’clock, P.M.); and both eykt and nona are therefore used indiscriminately in some passages. Sunset at the time of ‘eykd’ is opposed to sunrise at the time of ‘dagmal,’ q. v. In Norway ‘ykt’ means a luncheon taken about half-past three o’clock. But the passage in Edda—that autumn ends and winter begins at sunset at the time of eykt—confounded the commentators who believed it to refer to the conventional Icel. winter, which (in the old style) begins with the middle of October, and lasts six months. In the latitude of Reykholt—the residence of Snorri—the sun at this time sets about half-past four. Upon this statement the commentators have based their reasoning both in regard to dagmál and eykt, placing the eykt at half-past four, P.M., and dagmal at half-past seven, A.M., although this contradicts the definition of these terms in the law. The passage in Edda probably came from a foreign source, and refers not to the Icel. winter but to the astronomical winter, viz., the winter solstice or the shortest day; for sunset at half-past three is suited not to Icel., but to the latitude of Scotland and the southern parts of Scandinavia. The word is also curious from its bearing upon the discovery of America by the ancients, _vide_ Fb. [Flateyjar-bók] l. c. This sense (_half-past three_) is now obsolete in Icel., but eykt is in freq. use in the sense of _trihorium_, _a time of three hours_; whereas in the oldest sagas no passage has been found bearing this sense,—the Bs. [Biskupa Sögur] 1, 385, 446, and Hem. [Hemings-thattr] l. c., are of the 13th and 14th centuries. In Norway ykt is freq. used metaph. of all the four meal times in the day, morning-ykt, midday-ykt, afternoon-ykt (or ykt proper), and even-ykt. In old MSS., Grág., K. Th. K. Hem. Heid. S. [Grágás, Kristinnrettr, Thorláks ok Ketils, Hemings-thattr, Heidarviga Saga], this word is always spelt eykd or eykth, shewing the root to be ‘auk’ with the fem. inflex. added; it probably first meant the _eke_-meal, answering to Engl. _lunch_, and thence came to mean the time of day at which this meal was taken. The eccl. law dilates upon the word, as the Sabbath was to begin at ‘_hora nona_’; hence the phrase, eykt helgr dagr....

“Eyktar-stadr. m. _the place of the sun at half-past three_, P.M.; meira var, thar jafndaegri enn á Graenlandi edr Íslandi, sól hafdi thar eyktar-stad ok dagmála-stad um skamdegi, Fb. [Flateyjar bók] 1, 539,—this passage refers to the discovery of America; but in A. A. [Antiquitates Americanæ], l. c., it is wrongly explained as denoting the shortest day nine hours long, instead of seven; it follows that the latitude fixed by the editors of A. A. [Antiquitates Americanæ] is too far to the south.”

“Dagr, m. ... a day, ... 5. the day is in Icel. divided according to the position of the sun above the horizon; these fixed traditional marks are called dags-mörk, _day-marks_, and are substitutes for the hours of modern times, viz. ris-mál or midr-morgun, dag-mál, há-degi, mid-degi or mid-mundi, nón, midr-aptan, nátt-mál.”

“Stadr, m., gen. stadar, dat. stad, and older stadi, pl. stadir: ... a ‘stead,’ place, abode.”—An Icelandic-English dictionary based on the MS. collections of the late Richard Cleasby, enlarged and completed by Gudbrand Vigfusson, M. A. Oxford, 1874.

[53] Thormod Torfason, or Torfæus, as his name is Latinized, in the addenda of his History of Ancient Vinland (Historia Vinlandiæ Antiquæ), printed at Copenhagen, in 1705, explains the meaning of the words, saying that the sun in Vinland, on the shortest day, was six hours above the horizon, which would imply that this land lay between the fifty-eighth and sixty-first parallels of north latitude. “Torfæus confirms his interpretation by the authority of Arngrim Jonas, a learned Icelander who flourished at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century, and who was deemed a profound astronomer. In his ‘History of Greenland,’ he thus renders the passage we are considering: ‘There is in Vinland no winter, no cold, no frost as in Iceland or Greenland; inasmuch as the sun, on the very day of the winter solstice (they had no dials there), passes about six hours above the horizon.’ Having cited this passage from Arngrim Jonas, Torfæus proceeds: ‘This meaning I had long ago given this passage, first on the authority (if I rightly understood him) of Bryniulf Sveinson, the most learned of all the bishops of Skalkholt, to whom I was sent, while yet a youth, in the year 1662, with royal letters from my gracious master, King Frederick the Third, for the purpose of learning the genuine signification of the more difficult ancient words and phrases; and, then, from the necessary correspondence of the time of sunset with that of sunrise.’”—(The Discovery of America by the Northmen. By E. Everett. North American Review. January, 1838. vol. xlvi. pp. 179-188. _Vide_ Historia Vinlandiæ Antiquæ, seu partis Americæ Septentrionalis. Per Thormodum Torfæum. Havniæ, 1705. Addenda.)

Professor Charles C. Rafn, secretary of the Royal Society of Northern Antiquaries, gives this rendition of the passage: “When the day is shortest the sun there has a place (is above the horizon) from half-past seven before noon till half-past four in the afternoon.”—Antiq. Amer. p. 436. _Vide_ Discovery of America. Beamish. pp. 64, 65. According to Prof. Rafn, the Northmen built their winter-quarters on the shore of Mount Hope bay, Rhode Island; the day, nine hours long, indicating the latitude of 41° 24´ 10´´.

[54] The saga of Thorfinn Karlsefne and Snorro Thorbrandson (_Saga Thorfinns Karlsefnis ok Snorra Thorbrandssonar_). This legend is written on vellum, and is one of the valuable Icelandic manuscripts called the Arna-Magnœan collection, which is preserved in the library of the university of Copenhagen. The manuscripts were bequeathed to the university by Arne Magnussen, or, as his name is Latinized, Arnus Magnœus, an Icelandic scholar. The saga of Thorfinn is supposed to have been compiled in the fourteenth century.

[55] In the treatise of Ivar Bardsen, it is said that in Greenland “is found the best of wheat, (_beste Hvede_).”—Antiq. Amer. pp. 302-318.

The wild wheat (_elymus arenarius_) growing on the sand flats of Iceland is thus described: “This plant, the _melur_ of the natives, is a kind of grass, with a spike or ear four or five inches long, and generally appears in a sandy soil. The sea-shore and tracts of volcanic ashes in the interior are equally favorable to its growth, though it is principally from the latter that the seeds used for bread are obtained; and the natives regard it as a great gift wherewith the wise Creator has blessed those mournful wastes. The harvest is in August, when it becomes white in the ear, but as it is seldom fully ripe, it requires to be dried before grinding. It is cut with a sickle, made up in bundles, and carried home on the backs of horses. It is then separated from the straw, and ground in hand-mills cut out of a block of lava, into fine meal of a grayish color.”—Historical and descriptive account of Iceland, Greenland, and the Faroe islands. pp. 385, 386.

[56] From _hópa_ to recede. _Hóp_, a recess, haven, bay, inlet.

Certain writers assume this place Hóp to be the country around Mount Hope bay, in Rhode Island.

[57] This statement does not agree with the one preceding it,—that “they remained at this place a half-month.”

[58] Skraelingar, m. pl. Esquimaux.

[59] Antiq. Amer. pp. 136-163. Discovery of America. Beamish. pp. 87-103.

[60] “_Præterea unam adhuc insulam recitavit a multis in eo repertam oceano, quæ dicitur Winland, eo quod ibi vites sponte nascantur, vinum optimum ferentes. Nam et fruges ibi non seminatas habundare, non fabulosa opinione, sed certa comperimus relatione Danosum._”—M. Adamigesta Hammenburgensis ecclesiæ pontificum. Edente M. Lappenburg. I. U. D. Reipublicæ Hamburgensis tabulario. Monumenta Germaniæ historica. By George Henry Pertz. Hannoveræ, 1846.

[61] This fragment of a geographical or historical work is supposed to have been written before the time of Columbus.—Gripla C. Antiq. Amer. pp. 280, 281, 293, 296. Discovery of America. Beamish. pp. 114, 115.

[62] The map marked Tab. ii. is contained in the historical work entitled: Gronlandia Antiqva, seu veteris Gronlandiæ Descriptio.... Authore Thormodo Torfaeo. Havniæ, 1715. p. 21.

[63] If they were grapes, it does not follow that they were found on the eastern coast of the present territory of the United States. The French navigator, Jacques Cartier, in September, 1535, found “vines laden as full of grapes as could be all along the riuer [St. Lawrence], which rather seemed to haue bin planted by mans hand than otherwise.”—The third and last volume of the voyages, navigations, traffiques, and discoueries of the English nation. By Richard Hakluyt. London, 1600. p. 218.

[64] The rock writing, as interpreted by an Indian, is an account of a battle fought by the people of two tribes, and was engraved by some or one of the members of the victorious party.—Archives of aboriginal knowledge. By Henry R. Schoolcraft. 1860. vol. i. pp. 112-124; vol. iv. pp. 119. Antiq. Amer. pp. 373-403.

[65] Benedict Arnold, the first governor of Rhode Island, living at Newport, in his will, dated December 20, 1677, directed that his body should be buried at a certain spot, “being and lying in my land, in or near the line or path from my dwelling-house leading to my stone-built windmill, in the town of Newport.” Another mill of similar construction is near Leamington, in the parish of Chesterton, in Warwickshire, England, where Benedict Arnold lived when a boy. This mill was built according to a plan first introduced into England by Inigo Jones.—History of New England, by John Gorham Palfrey. Boston, 1859. vol. i. Note. pp. 57-59.

[66] History of Wales, written by Caradoc of Llancarvan, Glamorganshire, in the British Language, translated into English by Humphry Llwyd, and published by Dr. David Powel in the year 1584.

[67] “The most ancient Discouery of the West Indies by Madoc, the sonne of Owen Guyneth Prince of North-wales, in the yeere 1170: taken out of the history of Wales, lately published by M. Dauid Powel Doctor of Diuinity.... Madoc another of Owen Guyneth his sonnes left the land in contention betwixt his brethren, & prepared certaine ships with men and munition, and sought aduentures by Seas, sailing West, and leauing the coast of Ireland so farre North, that he came vnto a land vnknowen, where he saw many strange things....

“Of the voyage and returne of this Madoc there are many fables fained, as the common people doe vse in distance of place and length of time rather to augment then to diminish: but sure it is there he was. And after he had returned home, and declared the pleasant and fruitfull countreys that he had seene without inhabitants, and vpon the contrary part, for what barren & wild ground his brethren and nephewes did murther one another, he prepared a number of ships, and got with him such men and women as were desirous to liue in quietnesse: and taking leaue of his friends, tooke his journey thitherward againe.... This Madoc arriving in that Western country, vnto his people there, and returning back for more of his owne nation, acquaintance, & friends to inhabit that faire & large countrey, went thither again with ten sailes, as I find noted by Gutyn Owen.”—Hakluyt. vol. iii. p. 1.

[68] Hakluyt. vol. iii. p. 1.

[69] Kosmos: Entwurf einer physischen Weltbeschreibung. Alexander von Humboldt. 1845-1858. Trans. by E. C. Otté. Bohn’s ed. vol. ii. pp. 608, 609.

[70] The history of the voyages of the Zeni brothers was first published with another work entitled: Dei Commentarij del Viaggio in Persia. Venezia, 1558.

[71] The name is evidently a designation for Iceland. _Frislanda_, the cold or frozen land; Anglo-Saxon, _frysan_; Icelandic, _friosa_; Swedish, _frysa_; Danish, _fryse_; and _land_, land.

[72] Estotiland seems to be an anomalous form of the name Scotland, from Anglo-Saxon, _scot_; Spanish and Portuguese, _escote_; Italian, _scotto_.

[73] Dello Scoprimento dell’ Isole Frislanda, Eslanda, Engronelanda, Estotilanda, & Icaria, fatto per due fratelli Zeni, M. Nicolò il Caualiere, & M. Antonio. Libro Vno, col disegno di dette Isole.

The Voyages of the Venetian Brothers, Nicolò and Antonio Zeno to the Northern Seas. By Richard Henry Major. London, 1873. Hakluyt Soc. pub. pp. 1-24.