An inscription, "_tera que soy descuberta per pertonnes_," on an Old Portuguese map of 1520, declares it to be a country discovered by the Bretons. It is undoubtedly the oldest French name on any part of North America. On Gastaldo's map in Mattiolo's Italian translation of Ptolemy, 1548, the name of Breton is applied both to Nova Scotia and to the Island of Cape Breton. 19. Winthrop says that Mr. John Rose, who was cast away on Sable Island about 1633, "saw about eight hundred cattle, small and great, all red, and the largest he ever saw: and many foxes, wherof some perfect black."--_Whinthrop's Hist. New Eng._, Boston, 1853, Vol. I. p. 193. Champlain doubtless obtained his information in regard to the cattle left upon Sable Island by the Portuguese from the from the report of Edward Haies on the voyage of Sir Humphrey Gilbert in 1583: "Sablon lieth to the seaward of Cape Briton about twenty-five leagues, whither we were determined to goe vpon intelligence we had of a Portugal (during our abode in S. Johns) who was himselfe present, when the Portugals (aboue thirty yeeres past) did put in the same Island both Neat and Swine to breede, which were since exceedingly multiplied. This seemed vnto vs very happy tidings, to haue in an Island lying so neere vnto the maine, which we intended to plant vpon. Such store of cattell, whereby we might at all times conueniently be relieued of victuall, and serued of store for breed."--_Edward Haies in Hakluyt's Voyages_, London, ed. 1810. Vol. III. p. 197. 20. "Loups marins," seals. 21. "The forty poor wretches whom he left on Sable Island found on the seashore some wrecks of vessels, out of which they built barracks to shield themselves from the severity of the weather. They were the remains of Spanish vessels, which had sailed to settle Cape Breton. From these same ships had come some sheep and cattle, which had multiplied on Sable Island; and this was for some time a resource for these poor exiles. Fish was their next food; and, when their clothes were worn out, they made new ones of seal-skin. At last, after a lapse of seven years, the king, having heard of their adventure, obliged Chedotel, the pilot, to go for them; but he found only twelve, the rest having died of their hardships. His majesty desired to see those, who returned in the same guise as found by Chedotel, covered with seal-skin, with their hair and beard of a length and disorder that made them resemble the pretended river-gods, and so disfigured as to inspire horror. The king gave them fifty crowns apiece, and sent them home released from all process of law."--_Shea's Charlevoix_, New York, 1866, Vol. I. p. 244. See also _Sir William Alexander and American Colonization_, Prince Society, 1873, p. 174; _Murdoch's Nova Scotia_, Vol. I. p. 11; _Hakluyt_, Vol. II. pp. 679. 697.