Thomas Wentworth Higginson, A book of American explorers, chapter 3, page 55

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19th-Century American

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I.—First news of John and Sebastian Cabot.

[from a letter written by Lorenzo Pasqualigo, from London, to his. Brothers in Venice, and dated Aug. 23, 1497.]

This Venetian of ours, who went with a ship from Bristol in quest of new islands, is returned, and says that seven hundred leagues hence he discovered ‘terra firma,’¹ which is the territory of the Grand Cham.² He coasted for three hundred leagues, and landed. He saw no human being whatsoever; but he has brought hither to the king certain snares which had been set to catch game, and a needle for making nets; he also found some felled trees: wherefore he supposed there were inhabitants, and returned to his ship in alarm.

He was three months on the voyage, it is quite

1 Firm land, or continent.

2 The name then given to the sovereign of Tartary, now called ‘Khan.’ Shakspeare, in ‘Much Ado about Nothing,’ written about 1600, says, ‘Fetch you a hair off the great Cham's beard.’

Boston, 1877. Lee and Shephard.

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Thomas Wentworth Higginson, A book of American explorers

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I.—First news of John and Sebastian Cabot.