The landfall of John Cabot has been the subject of prolonged discussion. Labrador, Newfoundland, and Cape Breton are the principal places advocated. Of late years, owing to the vigorous and learned arguments of Dr. S. E. Dawson there has been an increasing disposition to accept Cape Breton on Cape Breton Island as the most probable location. See Winship, Cabot Bibliography, for the literature.
[423-3] The words “to starboard” have been inserted at this point in all English translations. Biggar has pointed out that the words al dreto so translated are Venetian dialect for addietro, which is an alternate form for the more common indietro, back. The earlier translators thought al dreto equivalent to al dritto, on the right. Al tornar al dreto means simply “in going back.”
[424-1] “August 10, 1497: To hym that founde the New Isle, 10£.” British Museum, Add. MSS. No. 7099, 12 Henry VII., fol. 41. From Weare, Cabot’s Discovery of North America, 124.
[424-2] So in Sanuto’s text. This form indicates perhaps that Pasqualigo had only heard the name and not seen it written.
[424-3] This letter was found in the archives of the Sforza family in Milan. The manuscript is apparently no longer extant. There are two somewhat divergent texts. The one translated here is the one sent by Rawdon Brown to the Public Record Office in London. Both are printed in Weare, Cabot’s Discovery, pp. 142-143. The translation given here is by Rawdon Brown as printed in the Calendar of State Papers, Venetian Series, I. 259-260.
[425-1] The Seven Cities was a legendary island in the Atlantic. They are all placed and named on the legendary island of Antilia on the map of Grazioso Benincasa in 1482. See E. G. Bourne, Spain in America, pp. 6 and 7, and Kretschmer, Die Entdeckung Amerikas, Atlas, plate 4. Columbus reported in Portugal that he had discovered Antilia (see [p. 225, note 1]); hence the deduction either of John Cabot or of Raimondo that the region explored by Cabot, being far to the west in the ocean, was the same as that visited by Columbus. Cf. also art. “Brazil, Island of,” Encyclopaedia Britannica.
[425-2] This letter is preserved in the Archivio di Stato in Milan. It was first published in the Annuario Scientifico del 1865 (Milan, 1866). It was first printed in English in Winsor, Narrative and Critical History of America, III. 54-55 (Boston, 1884), in the chapter by Charles Deane, entitled “The Voyages of the Cabots.” This translation was revised by Professor B. H. Nash of Harvard University and is given here with only one or two slight changes.
[425-3] In this passage Cabot’s immediate impulse is attributed to the voyages of Columbus and their results.
[426-1] No satisfactory explanation of this can be given. Bellemo, in the Raccolta Colombiana, pt. III., vol. I., p. 197, interprets this sentence to mean that Cabot showed on the globe the place he had reached on the voyage and then to that statement the remark is added, referring to earlier journeys, “and going toward the east he has passed considerably beyond the land of the Tanais.” Tanais is the Latin name for the Don, and at the mouth of the Don was the important Venetian trading station of La Tana. Cf. Biggar, Voyages of the Cabots and Corte-Reals, pp. 33-34, note. Biggar dissents from this interpretation. I would offer the conjecture that “the land of the Tanais” stands for the land of Tana. In Marco Polo the kingdom of Tana, on the western side of India, is described as powerful and having an extensive commerce. See Marco Polo, pt. III., ch. XXX. Raimondo, if unfamiliar with Marco Polo, would understand La Tana by Tana and then naturally assume that “the country of Tana” was a slip for “country of the Tanais.” Cabot on the other hand might have heard of Tana when in Mecca without getting any very definite idea of its location except that it was far to the East in India. The phrase “toward the East,” like the one earlier in the letter “toward the Oriental regions,” is used of the ultimate destination, not the direction, and of the destination as a known spot always thought of in Europe as “the East.”
[426-2] El brasilio for el legno brasilio. Brazil wood was an East Indian red wood imported into Europe. It is the Caesalpina sappan. Its bright color led to its being compared to glowing coals, brazia, brascia, etc., Eng. brazier, and then to its being called, as it were, “glowing coals wood,” lignum brasile, lignum brasilium, etc., and in Italian most commonly brasile and verzino, a popular corruption. Heyd, Histoire du Commerce du Levant au Moyen-Age, II. 587. On the transference of the name of this wood to a mythical island in the Atlantic and then, after the discoveries, to the present country of Brazil which produced dye-woods similar to Brasilio, see Yule’s art. “Brazil, Island of,” Encyclopaedia Britannica, and Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, I. 49-51.