Newfoundland in 1897 - Rumbolt

ENGLAND'S OLDEST COLONY.
date, 18th of December, 1497, to the Duke of Milan,
says, among other things, " This Messer Zoanne Caboto
has the description of the world in a chart, and also in
a solid globe which he has made, and he shows where
he landed." The Spanish envoys, Puebla and Ayala,
writing between August 24th, 1497, and July 25th,
1498, mention having seen such a chart and globe, but
unfortunately they are lost. It can hardly
that Sebastian Cabot afterwards would write an account
21
be doubted
of his father's voyage and delineate his course on a
chart. Writing in 1582, some twenty-five years after
his death, Hakluyt tells
papers
us that Sebastian Cabot's
were then " in the custody of William Worthington,
and were shortly to be printed." In some
mysterious way they disappeared, and not a fragment
of them is known to be in existence, and not a solitary
line written by John or Sebastian Cabot has escaped
the wrecks of time. It is not wonderful, therefore, that,
with such meagre and fragmentary records of con-
temporaries as are left us, there should be such a
diversity of opinion in regard to Cabot's landfall.
Even in the case of Columbus's landfall, though all
the records have been carefully preserved, there is still
a difference of opinion, though it seems now to be
generally allowed that Watling Island, and not San
Salvador, as was once believed, was the spot on which
he landed. Captain Fox, however, of the United States
navy, still argues for Samana ; Navarelte for Grand
Turk's Island; and Irving and Humboldt for Cat
Island.
Among historians and geographers there are at present