Basques

A pre-Aryan race, occupying the border-land between France and Spain. A ertions have repeatedly been made that they made voyages to America, and discovered the Gulf of St. Lawrence, before Cartier, and even before Cabot, but these have never been substantiated. All the evidence goes to show that they frequented the Newfoundland fisheries in the sixteenth century, but not earlier. Index : Ch Contraband traders, 140; threaten French on St. Pierre Island, 174. Bib. : Dawson, The St. Lawrence Basin ; Reade, The Basques in North America (R.S.C., 1888); Howley, Old Basque Tombstones at Placentia .