To leave this cloudland of tradition, and approach the confines of
recorded history. The Normans, offspring of an ancestry of conquerors,--
the Bretons, that stubborn, hardy, unchanging race, who, among Druid
monuments changeless as themselves, still cling with Celtic obstinacy to
the thoughts and habits of the past,--the Basques, that primeval
people, older than history,--all frequented from a very early date the
cod-banks of Newfoundland. There is some reason to believe that this
fishery existed before the voyage of Cabot, in 1497; there is strong
evidence that it began as early as the year 1504; and it is well
established that, in 1517, fifty Castilian, French, and Portuguese
vessels were engaged in it at once; while in 1527, on the third of
August, eleven sail of Norman, one of Breton, and two of Portuguese
fishermen were to be found in the Bay of St. John.
From this time forth, the Newfoundland fishery was never abandoned.
French, English, Spanish, and Portuguese made resort to the Banks,
always jealous, often quarrelling, but still drawing up treasure from
those exhaustless mines, and bearing home bountiful provision against
the season of Lent.
On this dim verge of the known world there were other perils than those
of the waves. The rocks and shores of those sequestered seas had, so
thought the voyagers, other tenants than the seal, the walrus, and the
screaming sea-fowl, the bears which stole away their fish before their
eyes, and the wild natives dressed in seal-skins.
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