For months there will be sad hearts in many a humble Bristol home, and white-faced women will haunt the quay, eagerly questioning incoming sailors for news of their husbands and sons who have sailed with the Cabots. Then one glad day the blazoned sails, torn and worn with tempestuous winds and the rough usage of the sea, appear again in the Avon, and all England rings with the story of the marvellous voyage. The Bristol bells ring out merry peals; the city fathers feast the returning adventurers in the Council chamber; and every lad in the good old city holds his head high because of the new fame that Bristowe men have won. What visits are paid to the _Matthew_ and her consort! The Church of St. Mary Redcliffe is thronged with eager citizens gaping at the whale’s rib which Sebastian Cabot has deposited there in memory of his voyage. Here is one of the heroes of the expedition. Let us buttonhole him and bid him spin his yarn. Like the true sailor that he is, he readily consents. “Marry, sirs, ’twas a long and dull voyage outward; but the winds were fair, and in two moons we reached a sea with monstrous great lumps of ice floating about like fairy castles. And mark ye, the sun set not, and there was daylight all the clock round. On the twenty-fourth day of June we sighted land. _Prima Vista_ the captain called it, that being the Latin lingo, so I’m told, for ‘first seen.’ ’Twas an island, thick covered with woods, lying out from the mainland. We went ashore right speedily, and now there’s a bit of England seven hundred leagues to the west’ard across the great ocean. “The men of that land are savages dressed in skins of beasts. They carry bows and arrows, wooden clubs and slings; and fine hunters they be, every man of them. Their land is barren, and no fruits grow, but there are big white bears in plenty and stags that would make two of ours. Off the island the sea swarms with fish, some as much as an ell long, and sea-wolves, such as ye may see now and then in Bristol Channel. “The birds are black-hawks and partridges and eagles. When we left the isle we coasted a dreary shore for three hundred leagues, and ’tis my belief, comrades, that we have discovered a rich, new continent, with mines of copper and wonders untold. We sail again next year, and when we come back—if God wills—I’ll tell ye more about it. And now come along with me and see the three savages that the captain has brought home with him to show the king.”