5. During the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries occasional voyages were made; and as late as A. D. 1347, a Norwegian ship visited Labrador and the northeastern parts of the United States. In 1350 Greenland and Vinland were depopulated by a great plague which had spread thither from Norway. From that time forth communication with the New World ceased, and the history of the Northmen in America was at an end. The Norse remains, which have been found at Newport, at Fall River, and several other places, point clearly to the events here narrated; and the Icelandic historians give a consistent account of these early exploits of their countrymen. When the word America is mentioned in the hearing of the schoolboys of Iceland, they will at once answer, with enthusiasm, "Oh, yes; Leif Ericsson discovered that country in the year 1001."
6. An event is to be weighed by its consequences. From the discovery of America by the Norsemen, nothing whatever resulted. The world was neither wiser nor better. Among the Icelanders themselves the place and the very name of Vinland were forgotten. Europe never heard of such a country or such a discovery. Historians have until late years been incredulous on the subject, and the fact is as though it had never been. The curtain which had been lifted for a moment was stretched again from sky to sea, and the New World still lay hidden in the shadows.
The New World, with Routes of Discoveries
CHAPTER III.
Spanish Discoveries in America.
Christopher Columbus.
IT was reserved for the people of a sunnier clime than Iceland first to make known to the European nations the existence of a Western continent. Spain was the happy country under whose patronage a new world was to be added to the old; but the man who was destined to make the revelation was not himself a Spaniard: he was to come from Italy, the land of valor and the home of greatness. Christopher Columbus was the name of that man whom after ages have rewarded with imperishable fame.