prince as
worthy of immortal memory as any that ever lived for his great bravery
and remarkable goodness," Antonio closes his letter abruptly: "But of
this I will say no more in this letter, and hope to be with you very
shortly, and to satisfy your curiosity on other subjects by word of
mouth."[280]

[Footnote 278: "Or M. Nicolo il Caualiere ... entro in
grandissimo desiderio di ueder il mondo, e peregrinare, e farsi
capace di varij costumi e di lingue de gli huomini, accio che
con le occasioni poi potesse meglio far seruigio alla sua
patria ed a se acquistar fama e onore." The narrative gives
1380 as the date of the voyage, but Mr. Major has shown that it
must have been a mistake for 1390 (_op. cit._ xlii.-xlviii.).]

[Footnote 279: It appears on the Zeno map as "Trin
p[-p]montor," about the site of Cape Farewell; but how could
six days' sail W. from Kerry, followed by four days' sail N.
E., reach any such point? and how does this short outward sail
consist with the return voyage, twenty days E. and eight days
S. E., to the Faeroes? The place is also said to have had "a
fertile soil" and "good rivers," a description in nowise
answering to Greenland.]

[Footnote 280: "Pero non ni diro altro in questa lettera,
sperando tosto di essere con uoi, e di sodisfarui di molte
altre cose con la uiua uoce." Major, p. 34.]

[Sidenote: Publication of the remains of the documents by the younger
Nicolo Zeno.]

The person thus addressed by Antonio was his brother, the illustrious
Carlo Zeno. Soon after reaching home, after this long and eventful
absence, Antonio died. Besides his letters he had written a more
detailed account of the affairs in the northern seas. These papers
remained for more than a century in the palace of the family at Venice,
until one of the children, in his mischievous play, got hold of them and
tore them up. This child was Antonio's great-great-great-grandson,
Nicolo, born in 1515. When this young Nicolo had come to middle age, and
was a member of the Council of Ten, he happened to come across some
remnants of these documents, and then all at once he remembered with
grief how he had, in his boyhood, pulled them to pieces.[281] In the
light of the rapid progress in geographical discovery since 1492, this
story of distant voyages had now for Nicolo