It was this and other unrecorded but possible instances that I had in mind at the beginning of this chapter, in saying that occasional visits of Europeans to America in pre-Columbian times may have occurred oftener than we are wont to suppose. Observe that our scanty records--naturally somewhat perplexed and dim, as treating of remote and unknown places--refer us to that northern Atlantic region where the ocean is comparatively narrow, and to that northern people who, from the time of their first appearance in history, have been as much at home upon sea as upon land. For a thousand years past these hyperborean waters have been furrowed in many directions by stout Scandinavian keels, and if, in aiming at Greenland, the gallant mariners may now and then have hit upon Labrador or Newfoundland, and have made flying visits to coasts still farther southward, there is nothing in it all which need surprise us.[307] [Footnote 307: The latest pre-Columbian voyage mentioned as having occurred in the northern seas was that of the Polish pilot John Szkolny, who, in the service of King Christian I. of Denmark, is said to have sailed to Greenland in 1476, and to have touched upon the coast of Labrador. See Gomara, _Historia de las Indias_, Saragossa, 1553, cap. xxxvii.; Wytfliet, _Descriptionis Ptolemaicae Augmentum_, Douay, 1603, p. 102; Pontanus, _Rerum Danicarum Historia_, Amsterdam, 1631, p. 763. The wise Humboldt mentions the report without expressing an opinion, _Examen critique_, tom. ii. p. 153.] * * * * * [Sidenote: The pre-Columbian voyages made no real contributions to geographical knowledge;] [Sidenote: and were in no true sense a Discovery of America.]