nte memoratos tam prope attigit, ut nemo sine vitae
discrimine antiquum cursum tenere possit, quemadmodum infra
dicetur." _Descriptio Groenlandiae_, apud Major, _op. cit._ p.
40.]

[Footnote 295: _Op. cit._ p. lxxvi. See below, vol. ii. p. 115,
note B.]

[Footnote 296: Judd, _op. cit._ pp. 217-220.]

[Footnote 297: My friend, Professor Shaler, tells me that "a
volcano during eruption might shed its ice mantle and afterward
don it again in such a manner as to hide its true character
even on a near view;" and, on the other hand, "a voyager not
familiar with volcanoes might easily mistake the cloud-bonnet
of a peak for the smoke of a volcano." This, however, will not
account for Zeno's "hill that vomited fire," for he goes on to
describe the use which the monks made of the pumice and
calcareous tufa for building purposes.]

Thus far, in dealing with the places actually visited by Nicolo or
Antonio, or by both brothers, we have found the story consistent and
intelligible. But in what relates to countries beyond Greenland,
countries which were not visited by either of the brothers, but about
which Antonio heard reports, it is quite a different thing. We are
introduced to a jumble very unlike the clear, business-like account of
Vinland voyages in the Hauks-bok. Yet in this medley there are some
statements curiously suggestive of things in North America. It will be
remembered that Antonio's voyage with Sinclair (somewhere about 1400)
was undertaken in order to verify certain reports of the existence of
land more than a thousand miles west of the Faeroe islands.

[Sidenote: Estotiland.]

About six and twenty years ago, said Antonio in a letter to Carlo, four
small fishing craft, venturing very far out upon the Atlantic, had been
blown upon a strange coast, where their crews were well received by the
people. The land proved to be an island rather smaller than Iceland (or
Shetland?), with a high mountain whence flowed four rivers. The
inhabitants were intelligent people, possessed of all the arts, but did
not understand the language of these Norse fishermen.[298] There
happened, however, to be one European among them, who had himself been
cast ashore in that country and had learned its language; he could speak
Latin, and found some one among the shipwrecked men who could understand
him. The