ursued her way alone, and her crew had
adventures strange even for those days. Her course, set well to the
north, brought her into the drift ice and the giant icebergs which are
carried down the coast of America at this season (for the month was
July) from the polar seas. In fear of the moving ice, she turned to the
south, the sailors watching eagerly for the land, and sounding as they
went. Four days brought them to the coast of Labrador. They followed it
southward for some days. Presently they entered an inlet where they
found a good harbour, many small islands, and the mouth of a great
river of fresh water. The region was a wilderness, its mountains and
woods apparently untenanted by man. Near the shore they saw the
footmarks of divers great beasts, but, though they explored the country
for about thirty miles, they saw neither men nor animals. At the end of
July, they set sail again, and passed down the coast of Newfoundland to
the harbour of St John's, already a well-known rendezvous. Here they
found fourteen ships of the fishing fleet, mostly vessels from
Normandy. From Newfoundland the Mary of Guildford pursued her way
southward, and passed along the Atlantic coast of America. If she had
had any one on board capable of accurate observation, even after the
fashion of the time, or of making maps, the record of her voyage would
have added much to the general knowledge of the continent.
Unfortunately, the Italian pilot who directed the voyage was killed in
a skirmish with Indians during a temporary landing. Some have thought
that this pilot who perished on the Mary of Guildford may have been the
great navigator Verrazano, of whom we shall presently speak.

The little vessel sailed down the coast to the islands of the West
Indies. She reached Porto Rico in the middle of November, and from that
island she made sail for the new Spanish settlements of San Domingo.
Here, as she lay at her anchorage, the Mary of Guildford was fired upon
by the Spanish fort which commanded the river mouth. At once she put
out into the open sea, and, heading eastward across the Atlantic, she
arrived safely at her port of London.

CHAPTER VI

FORERUNNERS OF JACQUES CARTIER

We have seen that after the return of the second expedition of the
Cabots no voyages to the coasts of Canada of first-rate importance were
made by the English. This does not mean, however, that nothing was done
by other peoples to discover and explore the northern c