luence Columbus was wafted to his destination, but the
boisterous reaches of the northern Atlantic--over that "still vexed sea"
which shares with one or two others the reputation of being the most
storm-tossed region in the world of ocean. That the land discovered was
supposed to be a part of Asia appears very clearly from the same letters.
It was in the territory of the Grand Cam. The land was good and the
climate temperate; and Cabot intended on his next voyage, after occupying
that place, to proceed farther westward until he should arrive at the
longitude of Japan, which island he evidently thought to be south of his
landfall and near the equator.

It should be carefully noted that, in all the circumstances on record
which are indisputably referable to this first voyage, nothing has been
said of ice or of any notable extension of daylight. These are the marks
of the second voyage; for if anything unusual had existed in the length
of the day it would have been at its maximum on Midsummer's Day, June
24th, the day he made land. Nothing is reported in these letters which
indicates a high latitude. Now Labrador is a cold, waste region of rocks,
swamps, and mountains. Even inside the Straits of Belle-Isle it is so
barren and forbidding as to call forth Cartier's oft-cited remark that
"it was like the land God gave to Cain." The coast of Labrador is not the
place to invite a second voyage, if it be once seen; but the climate of
Cape Breton is very pleasant in early summer and the country is well
wooded.

From the contemporary documents relating specially to the first voyage,
it is beyond question that Cabot saw no human being on the coast, though
he brought back evidences of their presence at some previous time. It is
beyond doubt, also, on the same authority, that the voyage lasted not
longer than three months, and that provisions gave out, so that he had
not time to land on the return voyage. It was, in fact, a reconnoitring
expedition to prepare the way for a greater effort, and establish
confidence in the existence of land across the ocean easily reached from
England. The distance sailed is given by Soncino at four hundred leagues;
but Pasqualigo, writing to Venice, gives it at seven hundred leagues,
equivalent to two thousand two hundred twenty-six miles, which is very
nearly the distance between Bristol and Cape Breton as now estimated.

All these circumstances concerning the first voyage are derived from John
Cabo