called him, Sir Humphrey, was sitting abaft with a book in his hand, and
cried out more than once to those in the other vessel, "We are as near to
heaven by sea as by land." And that same night about twelve o'clock, the
frigate being ahead of the _Golden Hind_, the lights of the smaller
vessel suddenly disappeared, and they knew that she had sunk in the sea.
The event is well described in a ballad by Longfellow.

The name of Norumbega and the tradition of its glories survived Sir
Humphrey Gilbert. In a French map of 1543, the town appears with castle
and towers. Jean Allfonsce, who visited New England in that year,
describes it as the capital of a great fur country. Students of Indian
tongues defined the word as meaning "the place of a fine city"; while the
learned Grotius seized upon it as being the same as Norberga and so
affording a relic of the visits of the Northmen. As to the locality, it
appeared first on the maps as a large island, then as a smaller one, and
after 1569 no longer as an island, but a part of the mainland, bordering
apparently on the Penobscot River. Whittier in his poem of "Norumbega"
describes a Norman knight as seeking it in vain.

"He turned him back, 'O master dear,
We are but men misled;
And thou hast sought a city here
To find a grave instead.

* * * * *

"'No builded wonder of these lands
My weary eyes shall see;
A city never made with hands
Alone awaiteth me.'"