Note Back to Main Text — Chapter II · PRE-COLUMBIAN VOYAGES.

When once the Northmen had found their way to Cape Farewell, it would have been marvellous if such active sailors could long have avoided stumbling upon the continent of North America. Without compass or astrolabe these daring men were accustomed to traverse long stretches of open sea, trusting to the stars; With the Northmen once in Greenland, the discovery of the American continent was almost inevitable. and it needed only a stiff northeasterly breeze, with persistent clouds and fog, to land a westward bound "dragon" anywhere from Cape Race to Cape Cod. This is what appears to have happened to Bjarni Herjulfsson in 986, and something quite like it happened to Henry Hudson in 1609.[200] Curiosity is a motive quite sufficient to explain Leif's making the easy summer voyage to find out what sort of country Bjarni had seen. He found it thickly wooded, and as there was a dearth of good timber both in Greenland and in Iceland, it would naturally occur to Leif's friends that voyages for timber, to be used at home and also to be exported to Iceland, Voyages for timber. might turn out to be profitable.[201] As Laing says, "to go in quest of the wooded countries to the southwest, from whence driftwood came to their shores, was a reasonable, intelligible motive for making a voyage in search of the lands from whence it came, and where this valuable material could be got for nothing."[202]