ed two flag-poles, and hoisted the English flag on one and
the flag of Venice,[7] the city where John Cabot had lived in Italy,
on the other. Then they took possession of the land for Henry the
Seventh. It was in this way that the English came to consider that
the eastern coast of North America was their property, although they
did not begin to make settlements here until nearly a hundred years
later.

[Illustration: LANDING OF THE CABOTS.]

[Footnote 7: Venice (Ven'is).]

23. John Cabot and his son return to Bristol.--After sailing about
the Gulf of St. Lawrence without finding the passage through to Asia
for which they were looking, the voyagers returned to England.

The king was so pleased with what John Cabot had discovered that he
made him a handsome present; and when the captain, richly dressed
in silk, appeared in the street, the people of Bristol would "run
after him like mad" and hurrah for the "Great Admiral," as they called
him.

24. What the Cabots carried back to England from America.--The Cabots
carried back to England some Indian traps for catching game and
perhaps some wild turkeys--an American bird the English had then
never seen, but whose acquaintance they were not sorry to make. They
also carried over the rib of a whale which they had found on the beach
in Nova Scotia.

Near where the Cabots probably lived in Bristol there is a famous
old church.[8] It was built long before the discovery of America,
and Queen Elizabeth said that it was the most beautiful building of
its kind in all England. In that church hangs the rib of a whale.
It is believed to be the one the Cabots brought home with them. It
reminds all who see it of that voyage in 1497 by which England got
possession of a very large part of the continent of North America.

[Footnote 8: The church of St. Mary Redcliffe.]

25. The second voyage of the Cabots; how they sailed along the eastern
shores of North America.--About a year later the Cabots set out on
a second voyage to the west. They reached the gloomy cliffs of
Labrador[9] on the northeastern coast of America, and they passed
many immense icebergs. They saw numbers of Indians dressed in the
skins of wild beasts, and polar bears white as snow. These bears were
great swimmers, and would dive into the sea and come up with a large
fish in their claws. As it did not look to the Cabots as if the polar
bears and the icebergs would guide them to the warm countries of Asia
and th