Less than a quarter of a century after their first landing the Norse
Greenlanders became aware of a more temperate coast line to the
southwest, the better part of which they called Vinland, or Wineland,
but all of which we now name America. Perhaps Leif Ericsson brought the
first report of it as the result of an accidental landfall close to
the year 1000 A. D. Not long afterward, Thorfinn Karlsefni with three
ships and 160 people attempted to colonize a part of the region. The
venture failed, owing chiefly to the hostility of the Indians at the
most favorable point. The visitors, however, made the acquaintance of
the typical American Atlantic shore line of beach and sand dune which
stretches from Cape Cod to the tip of Florida with one or two slight
interruptions and one or two fragmentary minor northward extensions.
The Norsemen or some predecessor had observed and named the three great
zones of territory which must always have existed. Among investigators
there has been general concurrence as to their discovery of Labrador
and Newfoundland, to which most would add Cape Breton Island and more
or less of the coast beyond. It has appeared to me that they made
their chief abode in the New World on the shore of Passamaquoddy Bay
behind Grand Manan Island and Grand Manan Channel, with the racing
ocean streams of the mouth of the Bay of Fundy; and that they found
this site inclement in winter and tried to remove to a land-locked
bay of southern New England but were baffled and withdrew. My reasons
have been pretty fully set forth in “Early Norse Visits to North
America.”[7] For the present it is enough to say that the discovered
regions seem sometimes to have been thought of as a continuous coast
line, sometimes as separate islands more or less at sea. But they did
not get upon the maps in any shape until several centuries later.
MOORISH VOYAGES
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account