The Beginners American History | Page 7

people of Norway and Denmark discovered the continent of North America about five hundred years before Cabot did. Nothing came of this discovery, and when Cabot sailed, no one seems to have known anything about what the Northmen had done so long before.]
22. John Cabot takes possession of the country for the king of England.--Cabot went on shore with his son and some of his crew. In the vast, silent wilderness they set up a large cross. Near to it they planted two flag-poles, and hoisted the English flag on one and the flag of Venice,[7] the city where John Cabot had lived in Italy, on the other. Then they took possession of the land for Henry the Seventh. It was in this way that the English came to consider that the eastern coast of North America was their property, although they did not begin to make settlements here until nearly a hundred years later.
[Illustration: LANDING OF THE CABOTS.]
[Footnote 7: Venice (Ven'is).]
23. John Cabot and his son return to Bristol.--After sailing about the Gulf of St. Lawrence without finding the passage through to Asia for which they were looking, the voyagers returned to England.
The king was so pleased with what John Cabot had discovered that he made him a handsome present; and when the captain, richly dressed in silk, appeared in the street, the people of Bristol would "run after him like mad" and hurrah for the "Great Admiral," as they called him.
24. What the Cabots carried back to England from America.--The Cabots carried back to England some Indian traps for catching game and perhaps some wild turkeys--an American bird the English had then never seen, but whose acquaintance they were not sorry to make. They also carried over the rib of a whale which they had found on the beach in Nova Scotia.
Near where the Cabots probably lived in Bristol there is a famous old church.[8] It was built long before the discovery of America, and Queen Elizabeth said that it was the most beautiful building of its kind in all England. In that church hangs the rib of a whale. It is believed to be the one the Cabots brought home with them. It reminds all who see it of that voyage in 1497 by which England got possession of a very large part of the continent of North America.
[Footnote 8: The church of St. Mary Redcliffe.]
25. The second voyage of the Cabots; how they sailed along the eastern shores of North America.--About a year later the Cabots set out on a second voyage to the west. They reached the gloomy cliffs of Labrador[9] on the northeastern coast of America, and they passed many immense icebergs. They saw numbers of Indians dressed in the skins of wild beasts, and polar bears white as snow. These bears were great swimmers, and would dive into the sea and come up with a large fish in their claws. As it did not look to the Cabots as if the polar bears and the icebergs would guide them to the warm countries of Asia and the Spice Islands, they turned about and went south. They sailed along what is now the eastern coast of the United States for a very long distance; but not finding any passage through to the countries they were seeking, they returned to England.
[Illustration: Map showing how much of the continent of North America was discovered by the Cabots.]
The English now began to see what an immense extent of land they had found beyond the Atlantic. They could not tell, however, whether it was a continent by itself or a part of Asia. Like everybody in Europe, they called it the New World, but all that name really meant then was simply the New Lands across the sea.
[Footnote 9: Labrador (Lab'ra-dor).]
26. How the New World came to be called America.--But not many years after this the New World received the name by which we now call it. An Italian navigator whose first name was Amerigo[10] made a voyage to it after it had been discovered by Columbus and the Cabots. He wrote an account of what he saw, and as this was the first printed description of the continent, it was named from him, AMERICA.
[Footnote 10: Amerigo (A-ma-ree'go): his full name was Amerigo Vespucci (A-ma-ree'go Ves-poot'chee), or, as he wrote it in Latin, Americus Vespucius.]
27. Summary.--In 1497 John Cabot and his son, from Bristol, England, discovered the mainland or continent of North America, and took possession of it for England. The next year they came over and sailed along the eastern coast of what is now the United States.
An Italian whose first name was Amerigo visited the New World afterward and wrote the first account of the mainland which was printed. For this reason the whole continent was