Kidnaps an Indian Boy

Verazzani coasted further northward, and it is evident, from his topographical description, that he entered the harbor of New York and discovered the mouth of the Hudson River. He made a very brief tarriance there. The land seemed full of people, who received the mariners kindly. They did not differ much in appearance from the inhabitants further south, and were dressed in cloaks made of the beautiful plumage of birds. Weighing anchor after a very brief intercourse with these people, he sailed eastward, as the coast lay, discovered Block Island, off the Connecticut shore, and came to a beautiful hilly country in latitude forty-one degrees and forty minutes. He was then, evidently, in Narragansett Bay, and beheld the shores of Rhode Island, where the Northmen had settled more than five hundred years before. There he found the "finest looking tribe and the handsomest in their costume" of any he had seen on the voyage; larger in persons than the average European. "Among them," Verazzani said, "were two kings more beautiful in form and stature than can possibly be described;" the oldest, about forty years of age, wearing "a deer's skin around his body, artificially wrought in damask figures; his head without covering; his hair tied back in various knots, and around his neck he wore a large chain ornamented with many stones of different colors. "Their women," he said, "are of the same form and beauty, very graceful, of fine countenances and pleasing appearance in manners and modesty; wearing no clothing except a deer-skin, ornamented like those worn by the men; some wear very rich lynx skins upon their arms, and various ornaments on their heads composed of braids of hair which also hang down upon their breasts on each side. Others wear different ornaments, such as the women of Egypt and Syria use."

The inhabitants were kind, but shy. The men could never be persuaded to take their wives on board the ship of the Florentine. "One of the two kings," he said, "often came with his queen and many attendants to see the vessel," but the women were kept at a distance. The country seemed to be very fertile, and abounded in their season with apples, plums, filberts and other kinds of fruit and nuts; and in the forests were great numbers of deers, lynxes and other wild animals. The dwellings of the people were generally circular in form, and built of split logs; and sometimes they were large enough to accommodate a family of twenty-five or thirty persons.

From Narragansett Bay, Verazzani sailed eastward early in May, passing among the numerous islands off the coast of Massachusetts, and touching somewhere, probably, on the coast of Maine. There he found the people coarser in appearance, less friendly, and more fierce and warlike. They were clad in the skins of the bear, the lynx, the deer and the seal. No signs of cultivation appeared, and the inhabitants seemed to live almost wholly on the products of the forest and the waters. The hills were covered with vast woods; and far in the interior he saw lofty mountains. The voyagers had very little intercourse with these savages, and sailing eastward and northward, came to Newfoundland. Thence they turned their prow toward Europe and sailed to France. Verazzani had traversed the borders of the North American continent, as his ship sailed, about two thousand miles, and he named the vast country New France.

Verazzani's object was to find Cathay, in the extreme eastern limit of Asia, hoping there to discover a passage into the Indian Ocean, for which Columbus and Cabot had sought. What became of him after this marvelous voyage is not certainly known. He appears to have left the service of the French king, who was then warring desperately with Charles the Fifth of Spain and Germany. Early in 1525, Francis was defeated before Pavia, wounded, made a prisoner and carried captive to Madrid, where he was detained almost a year. His projects for foreign discoveries were, of course, abandoned for a time, and it was several years before they were resumed. Meanwhile, Verazzani, it seems probable, made two other voyages to America, but not as a commander. He appears to have had some communication with Henry the Eighth of England, and possibly was in his service, for an old chronicler says that he presented to that monarch a map of America, after he had made three voyages to this continent. It is certain that Henry sent out two exploring ships in 1527--the Samson and the Mary of Guilford--and it is asserted that Verazzani sailed in the first mentioned vessel. We have a record of another expedition having been sent to America by Henry, in 1536, for discovery or settlement.

For several years voyages for discovery from Europe to America ceased. Meanwhile, the brave Admiral de Brien (Chabot, Compte de Charni), who was a favorite at the French court, had urged his king to attempt making a settlement somewhere in New France, and so secure its possession for his crown. But it was not until ten years after Verazzani's voyage, that Francis yielded to the importunities of Chabot. Then a plan for making settlements in America was arranged under the direction of Chabot, and two ships, of sixty tons each, were fitted out at St. Malo, a fortified seaport of France, for that purpose, and placed in charge of Jacques Cartier (James Carter), a native of that port and then in the service of the French monarch.