There was much curiosity from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century as to the site of the lost colonies of Greenland which had so long flourished. In 1568 and 1579 the King of Denmark sent two expeditions, the latter in charge of an Englishman, but no traces were found. At the beginning of the eighteenth century some light was thrown upon the problem by a missionary called Egede, who first described the ruins and relics observable on the west coast. By the success of his preaching among the Greenlanders for fifteen years, assisted by other gospel missionaries, the Moravians were induced to found their settlements in the country, principally in the southwest.
It seems probable that in early times the climate of Iceland was milder than it now is. Columbus, some fifteen years before his great voyage across the Atlantic, sailed to this northern "Thule," and reports that there was no ice. If so, it is surely possible that Greenland also may have been greener and more attractive than during the recent centuries. Why should it not at one time have been fully deserving of the name by which we still know it? Some would explain the change in climatic conditions by the closing in of icepacks. At present Greenland is buried deep under a vast, solid ice-cap from which only a few of the highest peaks protrude to show the position of the submerged mountains, but at former periods, according to geologists, there were gardens and farms flourishing under a genial climate. Others suppose that, were the ice removed, we should see an archipelago of elevated islands.
2. Celtic Discovery of America.—We have already glanced at the fact that when the Norsemen first seized Iceland they found that island inhabited by Irish Celts. These Christianized Celts made way before the savage invaders, who did not accept the Catholic religion till about the close of the tenth century. Sailing south, those dispossessed Irish probably joined their brother Celts who had already long held a district on the eastern coast of North America, which some Norse skippers called "White Man's Land," and also Irland-it-Mikla (i. e., "Mickle Ireland"). Professor Rafn places this district on the coast of Carolina. A learned memoir, published 1851, attempts to prove that the mysterious "mound-builders" of the Ohio Valley were of the same race as the settlers on Mickle Ireland, and related to the "white-bearded men" who established an extinct civilization in Mexico. A French antiquary, 1875, identified Mickle Ireland with Ontario and Quebec. Beauvois, in his Elysée trans-atlantique, derives the name Labrador from the Innis Labrada, an island mentioned in an ancient Irish romance.[3] Another Irish discoverer was St. Brandan,[4] Abbot of Cluainfert, Ireland (died May 16, 577), who was told that far in the ocean lay an island which was the land promised to the saints. St. Brandan set sail in company with seventy-five monks, and spent seven years upon the ocean in two voyages, discovering this island and many others equally marvelous, including one which turned out to be the back of a huge fish, upon which they celebrated Easter.[5]
Among the Celtic claimants for discovery we must also include the Welsh, who lay stress upon certain resemblances between their language and the dialects of the native Americans. A better argument is the historical account taken from their annals about the expedition of Prince Madoc, son of a Welsh chieftain, who sailed due west in the year 1170, after the rumor of the Norse discoveries had reached Britain. He landed on a vast and fertile continent where he settled 120 colonists. On his return to Wales he fitted out a second fleet of ten ships, but the annals give no report of the result. Several writers state that the place of landing was near the Gulf of Mexico: Hakluyt connecting the discovery with Mexico (1589) and again with the West Indies (edition of 1600). In the seventeenth century some authors wished to substantiate the story of Prince Madoc, in order that the British claim to America should antedate the Spanish claim through Columbus. Prince Madoc is, to most readers, only known by Southey's poem.[6]
3. Basque Discovery of America.—Who are the Basque people? A curious race of Spanish mountaineers, who have been as great a puzzle to ethnologists and historians as their language has been to philologists and scholars. We know, however, that in former times they were nearly all seamen, making long voyages to the north for whale and Newfoundland cod fishing. They have produced excellent navigators; and possibly preceded Columbus in discovering America. Sebastian, the lieutenant of Magellan, was one of the Basque race. Magellan did not live to complete his famous voyage, therefore Sebastian was the first actual circumnavigator of our globe.
François Michel, in his work Le Pays Basque, says that the Basque sailors knew the coasts of Newfoundland a century before the time of Columbus; and that it was from one of these ocean mariners that he first learned the existence of a continent beyond the Atlantic. Other arguments are derived from comparing the peculiarities of the Basque tongue with those of the American dialects. Whitney, an American scholar, concludes that "No other dialect of the Old World so much resembles the American languages in structure as the Basque."
4. Jewish Discovery of America.—There is one claim for the discovery of America, which, though quite improbable, if not impossible, has been upheld and sanctioned by many scholarly works in several languages. It is argued that the red Indians represent the ten "Lost Tribes" of the Hebrew people who had been deported to Assyria and Media (v. Extinct Civilizations of the East, p. 109). The theory was first started by some Spanish priest-missionaries, and has since been defended by many learned divines both in England and America, one leading argument being certain similarities in the languages. Catlin (v. Smithsonian Report, 1885) enumerates many analogies which he found among the Western Indians. The most authoritative statement is that of Lord Kingsborough in the well-known Mexican Antiquities (1830-'48), chiefly in Vol. VII. Some writers actually quote a statement made in the Mormon Bible! Leading New England divines, like Mayhew and Cotton Mather, espoused the cause with similar faith, as well as Roger Williams and William Penn.
5. The Italian Discovery of America.—Not through Columbus the Genoese, or Amerigo Vespucci, the Florentine, although they were certainly Italians, but by two Venetians, Nicolo and Antonio Zeno. In A. D. 1380 or 1390 these brothers Zeni were shipwrecked in the North Atlantic, and, when staying in Frislanda, made the acquaintance of a sailor who, after twenty-six years' absence, had returned, giving them the following report:
"Being driven west in a gale, he found an island with civilized inhabitants, who had Latin books, but could not speak Norse, and whose country was called Estotiland, while a region on the mainland, farther south, to which he had also gone, was called Drogeo. Here he had met with cannibals. Still farther south was a great country with towns and temples."
The two brothers Zeni finally conveyed this account to another brother in Venice, together with a map of those distant regions, but these documents remained neglected till 1558, when a descendant compiled a book to embody the information, accompanied by a map, now famous as "the Zeno map."