[1364.] By Villault de Bellefond, _Relation des costes d'Afrique_, Paris, 1669, it is stated that the Dieppese in 1364 made a voyage round Cape Verde, and far beyond, establishing trading-posts, which were repeatedly visited in the following years. On this account, repeated by many writers—_Estancelin_, _Recherches_, p. 72; _Humboldt_, _Exam. Crit._, tom. i. p. 285—is founded the French claim of having preceded the Portuguese in passing Cape Bojador and occupying the gold coast. Major, _Prince Henry_, pp. 117-33, maintains by strong proofs that this voyage rests on no good authority, and that the French occupation of that coast is of much later date. [Sidenote: THE ZENI.] [1380.] Nicolo Zeno, a Venetian, sailing northward for England, was driven in a storm still farther north, and landed on some islands in possession of the Northmen, which he named Friesland, but which are supposed to have been the Faroe group. Kindly received by the people, he sent to Venice for his brother, and both spent there the rest of their lives, making frequent excursions to neighboring islands, and gaining a knowledge of other more distant lands known to the Northmen, including two countries called Drogeo and Estotiland, lying to the southward of Greenland, which countries the Frieslanders claimed once to have visited. Nicolo died in 1395, and Antonio in 1404, after writing an account of their adventures, which, with a chart, he sent to a third brother, Carlo. The manuscript was preserved by the family and first published under the title _Dei Commentarii del viaggio in Persia, etc._, Venezia, 1558. After passing the ordeal of criticism the work is generally accepted as a faithful report of actual occurrences, though embellished, like all writings of the time, with fable. _Dello Scoprimento dell' Isola Frislanda Eslanda, en Grovelanda, et Icaria_, in _Ramusio_, tom. ii. fol. 230-4; _Hakluyt's Voy._, vol. iii. pp. 121-8; _Bos_, _Leben der See-Helden_, pp. 523-7; _Cancellieri_, _Notizie di Colombo_, pp. 48-9; _Lelewel_, _Géog. du moyen âge_, tom. iii. pp. 74 et seq. Irving, however, _Columbus_, vol. iii. pp. 435-40, sees in this voyage only another of "the fables circulated shortly after the discovery of Columbus, to arrogate to other nations and individuals the credit of the achievement," while Zahrtmann, _Remarks on the Voy. to the Northern Hemisphere, ascribed to the Zeni of Venice_, in _Journal of the Geog. Soc._, vol. v. pp. 102-28, London, 1835, claims that the whole account is a fable. The chart by the brothers Zeni, published with the manuscript, is of great importance as the first known map which shows any part of America. It contains internal evidences of its own authenticity, one of which is that Greenland is much better drawn than could have been done from other or extraneous sources even in 1558. I give from Kohl's fac-simile a copy of the map, omitting a few of the names. [Illustration: ZENO'S CHART, DRAWN ABOUT 1390.]