th admiring at a
distance the grandeur and beauty of the scenery, and enjoying the
delightful mildness of the climate. From this place he followed the
coast for about fifty leagues to the south, without discovering any
harbor or inlet where he might shelter his vessel; he then retraced his
course and steered to the north. After some time Verazzano ventured to
send a small boat on shore to examine the country more closely: numbers
of savages came to the water's edge to meet the strangers, and gazed on
them with mingled feelings of surprise, admiration, joy, and fear. He
again resumed his northward course, till, driven by want of water, he
armed the small boat and sent it once more toward the land to seek a
supply; the waves and surf, however, were so great that it could not
reach the shore. The natives assembled on the beach, by their signs and
gestures, eagerly invited the French to approach: one young sailor, a
bold swimmer, threw himself into the water, bearing some presents for
the savages, but his heart failed him on a nearer approach, and he
turned to regain the boat; his strength was exhausted, however, and a
heavy sea washed him, almost insensible, up upon the beach. The Indians
treated him with great kindness, and, when he had sufficiently
recovered, sent him back in safety to the ship.[65]

Verazzano pursued his examination of the coast with untiring zeal, narrowly
searching every inlet for a passage through to the westward, until he
reached the great island known to the Breton fishermen--Newfoundland. In
this important voyage he surveyed more than two thousand miles of coast,
nearly all that of the present United States, and a great portion of
British North America.

A short time after Verazzano's return to Europe, he fitted out another
expedition, with the sanction of Francis I., for the establishment of a
colony in the newly-discovered countries. Nothing certain is known of
the fate of this enterprise, but the bold navigator returned to France
no more; the dread inspired by his supposed fate[66] deterred the French
king and people from any further adventure across the Atlantic during
many succeeding years. In later times it has come to light that
Verazzano was alive thirteen years after this period:[67] those best
informed on the subject are of opinion that the enterprise fell to the
ground in consequence of Francis I. having been captured by the Emperor
Charles V., and that the adventurer withdrew himself