Before we came to Newfoundland, about 50 leagues on this side, we pass
the bank, which are high grounds rising within the sea and under water,
yet deep enough and without danger, being commonly not less than 25 and
30 fathom water upon them; the same, as it were some vein of mountains
within the sea, do run along and form the Newfoundland, beginning
northward about 52 or 53 degrees of latitude, and do extend into the
south infinitely. The breadth of this bank is somewhere more, and
somewhere less; but we found the same about ten leagues over, having
sounded both on this side thereof, and the other toward Newfoundland,
but found no ground with almost 200 fathom of line, both before and
after we had passed the bank. The Portugals, and French chiefly, have a
notable trade of fishing upon this bank, where are sometimes an hundred
or more sails of ships, who commonly begin the fishing in April, and
have ended by July. That fish is large, always wet, having no land near
to dry, and is called cod fish. During the time of fishing, a man
shall know without sounding when he is upon the bank, by the incredible
multitude of sea-fowl hovering over the same, to prey upon the offals
and garbage of fish thrown out by fishermen, and floating upon the sea.

Upon Tuesday, the 11 of June we forsook the coast of England. So again
on Tuesday, the 30 of July, seven weeks after, we got sight of land,
being immediately embayed in the Grand Bay, or some other great bay;
the certainty whereof we could not judge, so great haze and fog did hang
upon the coast, as neither we might discern the land well, nor take the
sun's height. But by our best computation we were then in the 51
degrees of latitude. Forsaking this bay and uncomfortable coast (nothing
appearing unto us but hideous rocks and mountains, bare of trees, and
void of any green herb) we followed the coast to the south, with weather
fair and clear. We had sight of an island named Penguin, of a fowl there
breeding in abundance almost incredible, which cannot fly, their wings