The voyage of Verrazzano : $b a chapter in the early history of maritime discovery in AmericaMurphy, Henry Cruse
History
The voyage of Verrazzano : $b a chapter in the early history of maritime discovery in America
Murphy, Henry Cruse
America -- Discovery and exploration -- French; Verrazzano, Giovanni da, 1485-1528
for our guidance. In fact, as given by Ramusio, its recognition of
the Verrazzano discovery is only by way of parenthesis, and in such
antagonism to the context, as to render it quite certain that this
portion of it is by another hand.
The writer, after explaining the nature of latitude and longitude,
and taking the meridian of no variation running through the eastern
extremity of the Cape de Verde islands as the basis of his
observations of longitude, proceeds to a description of Terra Nova;
so much of which as is pertinent is here abstracted.
"The Terra Nova, the nearest cape of which is called the Cape de
Ras, is situated west of our diametrical or meridional line whereon
is fixed the first point of longitude according to the true meridian
of the compass; and the said Cape de Ras is in west longitude 40
Degrees and 47 of North latitude. The Terra Nova extends towards the
Arctic pole from 40 Degrees to 60, and from Cape de Ras going
towards the pole, the coast almost always runs from south to north,
and contains in all 350 leagues, and from said Cape de Ras to the
cape of the Brettons, the coast runs east and west, for an hundred
leagues, and the cape of the Brettons is in 47 Degrees west
longitude and 46 north latitude. To go from Dieppe to the Terra
Nova, the course is almost all east and west, and there are from
Dieppe to said Cape de Ras 760 leagues.
"Between Cape de Ras and cape of the Brettons dwell an austere and
cruel people with whom you cannot treat or converse. They are large
of person, clad in skins of seals and other wild animals tied
together, and are marked with certain lines, made with fire, on the
face and as it were striped with color between black and red, (tra
il nero & berrettino) and in many respects as to face and neck, are
like those of our Barbary, the hair long like women, which they
gather up on top of the head as we do with a horse's tail. Their
arrows are bows with which they shoot very dexterously, and their
arrows are pointed with black stones and fish bones. * * *
"This land was discovered 35 years ago, that is, the part that runs
east and west, by the Brettons and Normands, for which reason the
land is called the Cape of the Brettons. The other part that runs
north and south was discovered by the Portuguese from Cape de Ras to
Cape Buona-vista, which contains about 70 leagues, and the rest was
discovered as far as the gulf of the Castles, and further on by said
Brettons and Normands, and it is about 33 years since a ship from
Honfleur of which Jean Denys (Giovanni Dionisio) was captain and
Camart (Camarto) of Rouen, was pilot, first went there, and in the
year 1508, a Dieppe vessel, called the Pensee, which was owned by
Jean Ango, father of Monsignor, the captain and Viscount of Dieppe
went thither, the master or the captain of said ship being Thomas
Aubert, and he was the first who brought hither people of the said
country.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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