originated. Only a scanty stock of provisions, they
declared, prevented them from sailing along the coast as
far as Cathay and Cipango. As it was they planted on the
land a great cross with the flag of England and also the
banner of St Mark, the patron saint of Cabot's city of
Venice.

The older histories used always to speak as if John Cabot
had landed somewhere on the coast of Labrador, and had
at best gone no farther south than Newfoundland. Even if
this were the whole truth about the voyage, to Cabot and
his men would belong the signal honour of having been
the first Europeans, since the Norsemen, to set foot on
the mainland of North America. Without doubt they were
the first to unfurl the flag of England, and to erect
the cross upon soil which afterwards became part of
British North America. But this is not all. It is likely
that Cabot reached a point far south of Labrador. His
supposed sailing westward carried him in reality south
of the latitude of Ireland. He makes no mention of the
icebergs which any voyager must meet on the Labrador
coast from June to August. His account of a temperate
climate suitable for growing dye-wood, of forest trees,
and of a country so fair that it seemed the gateway of
the enchanted lands of the East, is quite unsuited to
the bare and forbidding aspect of Labrador. Cape Breton
island was probably the place of Cabot's landing. Its
balmy summer climate, the abundant fish of its waters,
fit in with Cabot's experiences. The evidence from maps,
one of which was made by Cabot's son Sebastian, points