the 24th June 1497, about five in the morning,
to which they gave the name of _Prima Vista_, because that part was first
seen from sea. The island seen opposite, they named the Island of St John,
because discovered on the day of St John the Baptist. The inhabitants of
this island wore the skins of beasts, which they held in as much
estimation as we do our finest garments. In their wars they used bows,
arrows, spears, darts, wooden clubs, and slings. The land is barren and
unfruitful, but has white bears, and stags of unusual size. It abounds in
fish of great size, as seawolves, or seals, salmon, and soles above a yard
long; but chiefly in immense quantities of that kind which is vulgarly
called bacalaos. The hawks of this island are as black as crows, and the
eagles and partridges are likewise black[11].

The foregoing account is given by Hakluyt on the authority of a map,
engraved by Clement Adams after the design of Sebastian Cabot, which map
was then to be seen in the private gallery of Queen Elizabeth at
Westminster, and in the houses of many of the merchants of London. From
Ramusio, however, Hakluyt gives rather a different account of this matter.
By this account, it would appear that the father John Cabot had died
previous to the voyage, and that Sebastian went as commander of two
vessels furnished by King Henry. He sailed to the north-west, not
expecting to find any other land than Cathay, or northern China, and from,
thence to proceed for India. But falling in with land, he sailed
northwards along the coast, to see if he could find any gulf that
permitted him to proceed westwards in his intended voyage to India, and
still found firm land to lat 56 deg. N. Finding the coast here turning to the
east, he despaired of finding a passage in that direction: he sailed again
down the coast to the southwards, still looking everywhere for an inlet
that would admit a passage by sea to India, and came to that part of the
continent now called Florida; where, his victuals failing, he took his
departure for England[12]. In the preface to the third volume of his
navigations, Ramusio, as quoted by Hakluyt, says that Sebastian Cabot
sailed as far north in this voyage as 67 deg. 30', where on the 11th June the
sea was still quite open, and he was in full hope of getting in that way
to Cathay, but a mutiny of his people forced him to return to England[13].
Peter Martyr of Angleria, as likewise quoted by Hakluyt, says that
Sebastian w