De Soto's First View of the Mississippi.
In the middle of the night, therefore, they took their dead leader up out of his grave, and wrapped him in a cloak weighted with sand. Then, rowing out into the Mississippi, they noiselessly lowered his body into the middle of the great stream which he had been the first European to visit since the Spaniards were shipwrecked at its mouth in 1519.
His little army, after making a desperate attempt to retrace its way overland, came back to the Mississippi. Here the Spaniards built huge rafts, and, floating down the stream, reached its mouth at the end of nineteen days. Then, coasting along the Gulf, they made their way to a Mexican settlement, where they told the story of all their adventures during this long search for gold.
XVIII. THE FRENCH IN CANADA.
Columbus had been dead for nearly fifty years, and yet people were only just beginning to explore that part of the New World which is occupied by our country. But the coast of South America was quite well known by this time, and already clearly outlined on maps, while North America was still a mystery.
Most people still fancied that North America was only a narrow strip of land, like Central America. They also thought that somewhere north of the Gulf of Mexico there must be a strait, by means of which it would be easy to pass into the Pacific Ocean, and thereby reach India without taking the long journey all around South America.
The navigators who visited the coast of North America in search of this strait, spoke, on their return, of the great quantities of fish they had seen. Even the Cabots had found many fish there. Now, all the Christian people in western Europe were Roman Catholics in those days, and so ate fish instead of meat on fast days, which were so many that they took up about one third of the time. Fish was therefore in great demand.
As the rivers did not supply enough, fishing soon became a paying trade for those who lived by the sea; and because many fish were found on the coasts of Brit´ta-ny, in France, the Bret´on fishermen did a good business. Still, when they heard of great schools of codfish on the Banks of Newfoundland, which could be caught and salted very easily, these bold fishermen were anxious to secure them. They therefore began to make fishing trips across the Atlantic, and before long gave their name to Cape Breton.