USA > Maine > A history of the discovery of Maine > Part 8
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Those who adopt the above interpretation of the name "Skrellings" have thought, that, in the time of the North- men, our New England and vicinity had been inhabited by Esquimaux, and that after the time of the Northmen and before the time of Columbus and the Cabots they had been dispossessed, conquered, and driven to the north by the Algonkin or Abenaki Indians, coming from the west and south. If this had been the case, the historical traditions of the aborigines seen by the Northmen, and the impressions and impulses which they received from them, would have also disappeared.
In contradiction to this theory, Rafn shows, in his often quoted work,* that the word "Skrelling" does not exclu-
* Rafn, 1. c. p. 45, note a.
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sively mean "people small of body" (homunculi), as is usually supposed, but that it should be differently interpre- ted. Some Scandinavian authors have said, that the name was given to the aborigines from their meagre and poorly fed bodies, some from their little strength and mean armature. Others have said that the name should be derived from the Norse "Skraekja" (to cry), and that it meant " noisy criers." Others, again, have believed that it meant " vagabonds" or " vagrants." All these interpretations agree in this, that "Skrelling", was a name of contempt. And such a name, by the proud iron-clad Northmen, may have been given to our tall, but poorly living Indians, as well as to the small-bodied Esquimaux. The name, therefore, may have been a general denomination for all the barbarous tribes of America with- out reference to race. If this is the case, we may suppose that the Algonkin Indians, Micmacs, Tarratines, Pequots, and others, occupied the country at the time of the visits of the Northmen. And, indeed, this appears to me to be probable.
The Indians of New England, though in very ancient times they may have come from the west, had, so far as I know, no tradition whatever of their being new-comers in the countries where our modern discoverers found them, or of having recently conquered these countries. The idea that the East was their old home is, on the contrary, very deeply rooted. A conquest and a complete destruction of another old indigenous race (the Esquimaux) would not have been an easy affair for the Indians. The very first aborigines of our east coast, carried off at the end of the fifteenth and at the beginning of the sixteenth centuries by the Cortereals and others, are described as a tall, well-built people. So that the Indians must have swept away the " Esquimaux " of New England, Nova Scotia, Canada, and Newfoundland, in that
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not very long space between the times of the Northmen and of the Cabots and Cortereals. These same Indians are not even now rooted out by the much more powerful conquest of the French and English since Cabot, a period of about four hundred years. We have in Maine to-day a remnant of Indians in the midst of our civilization, which that has not swept away. I therefore believe, that the so-called Skrel- lings, which the Northmen found in New England, were not Esquimaux, but Indians of the Abenaki or Algonkin race, the same as found there in modern times.
This view is supported by the observations made by Rafn on some geographical names, which we have found in use among the Indians of the southern part of New England (Massachusetts, Rhode Island), and appear to be of Scandi- navian origin. He quotes the Indian name for a locality in Narraganset Bay, which they call " Haup," and suggests that it might be the Scandinavian place " Hop," so often mentioned in the history of the Vinland expeditions of the Northman, Thorfinn Karlsefne. He quotes, also, the Indian name "Nauset" for the peninsula of Cape Cod, and thinks that it might be the somewhat changed Scandinavian name, "Naeset" (the nose,-the principal cape of the country), given by the Northmen, by way of distinction, to Cape Cod .* Such names would scarcely have been preserved in the country, if the inhabitants, in the time of the Northmen, had been Esquimaux, and our Indians recent immigrants.
Also, among the Wawenoc Indians of Maine, near Pema- quid, certain numerals have been handed down by tradition, bearing a resemblance to the Icelandic, which may have been derived by them in their barter with the northern strangers.
* Rafn, 1. c. pp. 456, 457.
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11. THE VOYAGES OF THE VENETIANS, ZENI, IN THE NORTH- ERN PARTS OF THE ATLANTIC OCEAN AT THE END OF
. THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.
It is an extraordinary and nearly an inexplicable fact, that the Northmen, after having once found the countries included in the present United States so well fitted for colonization, did not continue their undertaking. They were planters, emigrants from their own country, and were seeking a new home. They populated under great difficulties the barren tracts of Iceland and Greenland, and founded there, in the neighborhood of the North Pole, flourishing colonies and states. They observed the attractive countries of New England, full of harbors and beautiful rivers, with a mild cli- mate, where the vine and corn grew spontaneously, and where planting would have been easy. They recognized, enjoyed, and praised in their writings all these advantages. Whilst the Spaniards, at a later time, on their maps of the United States, as I shall show hereafter, wrote the inscription, "Here nothing good is to be found ;" the Northmen, on the contrary, called those same tracts " Vinland the Good."
Nay, more ; whilst those navigators, who came after the Northmen, the Spaniards, Portuguese, French, and English, made a discovery of America quite against their intention and wish, seeking only China and the East Indies, to which America was a barrier and obstacle ; the Northmen, on the contrary, explored America for its own sake. It was itself the object of their Vinland expeditions. They did not think it to be a new world. They considered it as a continuation of Europe, as a part of their own Scandinavian home. Yet notwithstanding all this, they abandoned that country, and relinquished the advantages of their discovery, to retire to their icy northern home. Their attempt had no lasting and important consequences for civilization.
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Nevertheless, this attempt was not perfectly isolated. It has had some influence on the progress of discovery and the history of geography. Though their undertaking did not become universally known, still the memory of it was kept up by some, who, from different sources, received a knowl- edge of it, and who followed in their track.
The first of these were certain navigators and travelers from Venice. The Venetians and the Genoese, though planted within their harbors in hidden corners of the Medi- terranean during a great part of the middle ages, were the most active navigators and merchants of the time ; and their vessels, at an early date, went far out into the Atlantic Ocean. Already in the thirteenth century some Genoese, the brothers Vadino and Guido de Vivaldi in the year 1281, and, again, Theodosio Doria and Ugolino Vivaldi in the year 1292, are said to have sailed far to the west and south, and, as some believe, " with the intention to explore the Atlantic and to find like Columbus a way to the ori- ental regions," though the reports on the intentions and results of these Italian expeditions are very uncertain .*
Great Britain was reached by the Venetians at a very early time. They had their entrepôts in London in the thirteenth century. Nay, some authors pretend that the intercourse of the Venetians with the north of Europe is lost in the dark- ness of the most ancient times .¡
By northern historians the Italians are stated to have traded with their ships in the fifteenth century, before the time of Columbus and Cabot, in the southern parts of Ice-
* See about this, Humboldt, Kritische Untersuchungen, vol. 1, pp. 46, 303. Berlin, 1852. .
t See upon this, L. Estancelin, Recherches sur les voyages et de- couvertes des Normands, pp. 114, 116. Paris, 1832.
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land, where German vessels from the Hanseatic towns, and English vessels from Bristol, then appeared .*
If Italians are proved to have come to Iceland in the fifteenth century, they may have been there also in former times.
Iceland, in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, was a powerful and aristocratic republic, and Greenland a flourishing colony. In both countries were several Roman Catholic bishops, who, being installed there by the pope, were in continuous intercourse with Italy. In Greenland, as late as the end of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth century, the so-called Peter-pence was collected, and sent from thence to Rome. The pope and his priests may be said, during all this time, to have had their eyes upon these quarters, so near to our region. Might there not also have come a pope's envoy in an Italian vessel to Greenland ?
At all events, we need not be astonished to hear, at the end of the fourteenth century, of Italian navigators (Venetians) sailing to these northern countries, which had such a manifold interest for Italy, exploring them, describing them, and trying even to put down their outlines on a chart.
Nicolo Zeno, the descendant of an old well-known noble Venetian family, a wealthy and enterprising man, fitted out, at his own cost, a ship, soon after the famous battle of Chioggia, and navigated with her in the year 1380 toward England. He was driven by a storm further to the north, and arrived at a group of islands by him named "Friesland," which have been proved to be our present " Farve." These islands had been in the possession of the Northmen, and peopled by them since the year 861. Here the Venetian
* See upon this point, Eggert Olafsen, Reise durch Island, vol. 2, p. 231; and Finn Magnusen, Nordisk Tidsskrift for Oldkyndighed, vol. 2. Kopen- hagen und Leipzig, 1774.
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traveler, Zeno, was kindly received by the Norman governor, or lord, "Zichmni," who ruled in this archipelago, having revolted against his chief, the king of Norway. The Vene- tian, with his vessel and able crew, assisted his friend in his war against the king, and was amply rewarded for it. He became Zichmni's prime minister and chief admiral, and, resolving to remain longer in this hospitable country, he sent to his brother, Antonio Zeno, in Venice, an invitation to join him in " Friesland." Antonio arrived in the year 1391, and had likewise a kind reception by the Lord of the Isles. The two brothers, having made this Zichmni inde- pendent and powerful, then thought of making expeditions, conquests, and explorations toward more distant countries. During their long stay of many years in " Friesland," they gained an extensive knowledge of all the islands and coun- tries in the northern Atlantic, which they visited themselves, or of which they heard reports from their Northman friends. Thus they gained knowledge of the Shetland Islands, of the shores of Iceland and of Greenland, and heard also of some countries to the south of Greenland, named " Estotiland " and " Drogeo," to which the men of Friesland had once made an expedition, and of which they had gathered exten- sive information.
Nicolo Zeno died in the course of these occupations and undertakings, in the year 1395; and his brother, Antonio, who lived longer, described his own and his brother's ad- ventures and discoveries in a book, in which he depicted on a chart, all the surrounding countries and islands, of which he and his brother had gained some knowledge. This he sent to his third brother, Carlo Zeno, who had remained in Venice. After this, he also died in the north, in the year 1404.
Carlo Zeno appears to have kept these writings as a memo-
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rial of his brothers, and put them into the archives of his noble family, where the manuscript became damaged and partly decayed. After the invention of printing, and after the modern discovery of America, it fell into the hands of a descendant and member of the Zeno family, "Nicolo Zeno the younger," who, in the year 1558, published all that remained of the wonderful reports on the voyages and adven- tures of his ancestors ; and the book, now for the first time became known to the learned, and created a great sensation in the world.
Some believed that it was altogether a fiction, invented by the Venetians to damage the fame of their Genoese rivals and the Spaniards, and to prove that America had been discovered and described by one of their own people long before Columbus. Others, on the contrary, accepted the book as a true and faithful report of voyages and discoveries really made by the authors, and considered their chart as the best and most authentic source of information on the North Atlantic regions.
The discussions on this point were carried on through several centuries, until, in modern times, after a critical and careful examination of the contents of the work of the said Venetians, the greater part of the learned have acknowledged the reality of their voyages and the faithfulness of their reports, although it is admitted that they contained many misconceptions, and were embellished with fanciful fables .*
The most important part of the work of the Zeni is,
* See upon this, Ramusio, Navigationi i Viaggi, tom. 2, fol. 330; G. Tira- boschi, Storia della Litteratura Italiana, tom. 5, parte 1, p. 128 seq. Fi- renze, 1807; Foscarini, Della Litteratura Veneziana, p. 431. Venezia, 1814; C. C. Zahotmann, Om Zeniernes Reiser in Nordisk Tidsskrift for Oldkyn- dighed, vol. 2, p. 9. Kjøbenhavn, 1833; Humboldt, Kritische Untersuch- ungen, vol. 1, pp. 47, 82, 361, 370, 372 ff., 388; and, above all, T. Lelewel, Géographie du Moyen Age, tom. 3, p. 79 seq.
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SEA-CHART OF THE ZENI.
decidedly, the chart annexed to it ; because, without it, it is impossible to understand clearly the contents of their report. I will annex a copy of the map ; and, in examining it, will also treat of the contents of the report, so far as they may touch the subject of our research.
THE SEA-CHART OF NICOLO AND ANTONIO ZENO, MADE ABOUT THE YEAR 1400.
The sea-chart of the brothers Zeni, drawn at the end of the fourteenth century, and published in the year 1558, is, in many respects, a most extraordinary and important pro- duction. One great country, Greenland, was drawn on it with more accuracy than had been done on any known map before the year 1400, or even before 1558. The chart was . copied by many distinguished geographers, adopted by them as true, and introduced into their general works. Its errors or misrepresentations were also continued; and several coun- tries which existed only on the Zeni's chart, were introduced into geography, and sought after by explorers, until at last, after two hundred years, the errors were exposed. Several navigators and discoverers, amongst others Frobisher, had the map of the Zeni as a guide on board their vessels, and sailed by it .* Upon the whole, we can point out scarcely any. map which has given so much light, and has, at the same time, caused so much confusion.
The copy which we give is made after the first edition of it published in the year 1558, by Nicolo Zeno. I have copied the outlines and configurations of the countries exactly as they were given there, and also the degrees of latitude and longitude contained on it. For though this graduation was not on the original manuscript, but added by the editor,
* See upon this, G. M. Asher, Henry Hudson, p. 167. London, 1806.
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" Nicolo Zeno the younger," and though it occasioned much misunderstanding and confusion, still it was adopted as true by subsequent geographers, was copied by them, and gained, in this manner, an historical importance. Without this gradua- tion, although not originally placed there, we could not under- stand the ideas and works of subsequent map-makers, who" believed in its truth.
The original is covered with numerous names ; some of 1 them evidently correct, existing Scandinavian names, which can easily be identified, or which contain, at least, a Scandi- navian element ; for instance, all those ending with "fiord." These names, which I have put down on my copy, have great interest for us ; for they prove that they were derived from the true source, and that the authors of the map, who could not find them on other maps existing in Europe at that time, must have taken them on the spot.
There are, however, many other names on the original, which appear strange and fanciful, and cannot be identified with modern names; they evidently never existed in north- ern countries in the form in which they are here set down. Originally they may have been real and true geographical names, but written on the first draught by Antonio Zeno in an unintelligible manner. The Italian copyists, pub- lishers, and printers of 1558, may have read them according to their own style and view. As the original manuscript of the map had been much damaged, the publishers may have restored some defaced names according to their fancy. These fanciful and strange names, therefore, are no proof whatever against the authenticity of the original map. But I have omitted them, because I cannot decipher and explain them, and because they would only embarrass the reader. For our purpose it is quite sufficient to have the intelligible names, or only some of them, to assure us, that the map is perfectly
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worthy of our attention. The chart and all its contents have been examined and explained so thoroughly by several authors, particularly by Lelewel, that I have here but little to do but to make, from his results, a choice of those points which appear to me important for my subject .*
The chart gives in the south-east, at. first, the northern point of "Scocia" (Scotland), and then the peninsula of Jutland, which, for the time, 1400, is remarkably well drawn. The same may be said of the waters and gulfs between Jutland and the south coast of "Suecia". (Sweden), and " Norvegia " (Norway), the so-called "Skager Rak," and "Cattegat."
Along the coast of Norway we meet several well-known points and places : "pergen" (the town of Bergen) ; "stat" (the famous Cape Statlant) ; "tronde " (the town of D'rontheim) ; and far in the north-east, " Gwardus en- sula " (Vardoehuus). The long Archipelago of the numer- ous Loffoden Islands is depicted, though not named.
The configuration given to the middle and northern parts of the coast of Norway is not correct. But it is better drawn than on any other map before the year 1400, on which no other country of Europe was so much disfigured as Scan- dinavia. Nay, on many maps of the first half of the six- teenth century, Scandinavia is made to look like a terra incognita.
The northern parts of Russia are not indicated ; and the author of the map, in putting here dotted or uncertain lines, with the inscription, "mare et terre incognite" (seas and countries unknown), gives us to understand, that he will not decide the question, whether the navigable sea ends here, and
* See Lelewel's Essay on the "Tavola di Zeni" in his "Geographie du Moyen Age," tom. 3, p. 79 seq.
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whether the northern parts of Europe are connected by terra firma with arctic countries round the pole, or not.
Going from "Norvegia" to the west, the next group of islands is called " Estland" (our present Shetland), which, as on our map, is situated between the north of Scotland and the middle coast of Norway. The ancient Scandina- vian name for those islands was "Hialtland," and more commonly, "Hitland." Our map has this name (spelled "itland"). Several names, ending with the Scandinavian "fort," "incafort," " onlefort," "olofort," prove at least that we have before us Northman names, which, in ancient times, may have existed, or which were somewhat changed, under the orthography of the Italians.
To the west of the Shetlands occurs the great island " Frisland," surrounded by several smaller ones. The name, " Frisland," conducts us to the group, which, at present, is named the " Faeroer " (Faroe), and which, in ancient times, were called " Faereyjar" or " Fareysland," or " Ferrisland," shortened to "Freesland," or "Frisland." Some of the names given by our author to " Frisland" correspond to names still found among the Faeroer (Faroe). So the fol- lowing in the south : "monaco" (the monk), the most southern point of the Faroe group, a rock, is still called the Monk (Munk) ;* and so " sorand," the southern section of " Frisland," is very probably "Suderoe," the most southern island of the Faroe group.
"Sudero colfo " (Gulf of Sudero) is our present "Sudero sund," a channel separating the said southern island from the rest of the group, " colfo nordero" (the Gulf of Nordero). Nordero or Norderoe (the northern island) is still the name of one of the northern Faroe ; " streme "-" stromoc," is the
* See Baggesen, Den Danske Stat, p. 451. Kjøbenhavn, 1840.
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HARPER'S WELL
Piper hail sometimes inquireil. "He'd do much [ ty families as easily as she hal 1 + 1 italia' hutter than these girls of yours, who never quite know their husiness."
" Piper," his wife hail answered, solemnly, "I mn not going to bring yon to ruin. The girls are bad enough, what with their extravaguuee anul their followers, but a man would cat us out of honse and home heforo wo knew where we were."
"' I'lease yourself, my dear," returned Mr. l'i. per, " and you'll please me."
Thus it was that the Piper establishment lanul been conducted upon a strictly middle-class foot- ing.
Now every thing was on an aristocratic level. Tho present Mrs. Piper had a smart Frenchwom- an for her own maid. She had a smart groom in top-boots, to sit behind her pony-carringe. When she drove in her barouche, the groom sat beside the coachman, and the two pairs of tup- boots had a dazzling effect. Mr. Piper was rath- er astonished at the boot- maker's bill.
"My pet, here's no end of money to pay for top-boots," he remarked. "I enn't say I see the use of 'em. Poor Moggie got on very well with- ont top-boots."
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