Jogular Morotario Sectory 08
Page 07
Important, too, is the story of supposed Norse sea-rovers hither, derived from certain Icelandic manuscripts of the fourteenth century. It is a pleasing narrative, that of Lief Ericson's sail in 1000-1001 to Helluland, Markland, and at last to Vineland, and of the subsequent tours by Thorwald Ericson in 1002, Thorfinn Karlsefne, 1007-1009, and of Helge and Finnborge in 1011, to points still farther away. Such voyages probably occurred. As is well known, Helluland has been interpreted to be Newfoundland; Markland, Nova Scotia; and Vineland, the country bordering Mount Hope Bay in Bristol, R. I. These identifications are possibly correct, and even if they are mistaken, Vineland may still have been somewhere upon the coast of what is now the United States.
We saw large families of _ciancias_--beautiful birds with velvety black bodies speckled with white, and fan tails of rich brown colour, feathers of the same colour being also on the outer half of the wings. They possessed slender, most elegant necks, small brown-crested heads, and light yellow chests. Seen at a distance they were not, in shape, unlike pheasants. Twenty or thirty together at a time could be seen playing among the lower branches of the trees along the edge of the river. Then there were small birds of a beautiful metallic blue-black, with very long tails; these latter were innumerable near the water.
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