ttle regard to the
fate of those whom they loaded with their discarded wealth.

It was an era of ignorance and superstition. Christendom
went insane over an idea. When the year ended, and the world
rolled on, none the worse for conflagration or deluge, green
with the spring leafage and ripe with the works of man,
dismay gave way to hope, mirth took the place of prayer,
man regained their flown wits, and those who had so
recklessly given away their wealth bethought themselves of
taking legal measures for its recovery.

Such was one of the events that made that year memorable.
There was another of a highly different character. Instead
of a world being lost, a world was found. The Old World not
only remained unharmed, but a New World was added to it, a
world beyond the seas, for this was the year in which the
foot of the European was first set upon the shores of the
trans-Atlantic continent. It is the story of this first
discovery of America that we have now to tell.

In the autumn of the year 1000, in a region far away from
fear-haunted Europe, a scene was being enacted of a very
different character from that just described. Over the
waters of unknown seas a small, strange craft boldly made
its way, manned by a crew of the hardiest and most vigorous
men, driven by a single square sail, whose coarse woollen
texture bellied deeply before the fierce ocean winds, which
seemed at times as if they would drive that deckless vessel
bodily beneath the waves.

This crew was of men to whom fear was almost unknown, the
stalwart Vikings of the North, whose oar-and sail-driven
barks now set out from the coasts of Norway and Denmark to
ravage the shores of southern Europe, now turned their prows
boldly to the west in search of unknown lands afar.

Shall we describe this craft? It was a tiny one in which to
venture upon an untravelled ocean in search of an unknown
continent,--a vessel shaped somewhat like a strung bow,
scarcely fifty feet in length, low amidships and curving
upwards to high peaks at stem and stern, both of which
converged to sharp edges. It resembled an enormous canoe
rather than aught else to which we can compare it. On the
stem was a carved and gilt dragon, the figurehead of the
ship, which glittered in the bright rays of the sun. Along
the bulwarks of the ship, fore and aft, hung rows of large
painted wooden shields, which gave an Argus-eyed aspect to
the craft. Between them was a double row of thole-pins f