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Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, 1823-1911

"Tales of the Enchanted Islands of the Atlantic"

I., and the passage has been transcribed for me through the kindness ofA. E. Winship, Esq., librarian, who has also sent me a photograph of awoodcut representing the lonely woman shooting at a bear. A brieferabstract of the story is in Winsor's "Narrative and Critical History" (IV.p. 66, note), but it states, perhaps erroneously, that Thevet knewMarguerite only through the Princess of Navarre, whereas that authorclaims--though his claim is never worth much--that he had the story fromthe poor woman herself, "_La pauvre femme estant arriuvee en France ...et venue en la ville de Nautron, pays de Perigort lors que i'y estois, mefeit le discours de toutes ses fortunes passees_."The Island of Demons appears on many old maps which may be found engravedin Winsor, IV. pp. 91, 92, 93, 100, 373, etc.; also as "Isla de demonios"in Sebastian Cabot's map (1544) reprinted in Dr. S. E. Dawson's valuable"Voyages of the Cabots," in the Transactions of the Royal Society ofCanada for 1897. He also gives Ruysch's map (1508), in which a cluster ofislands appears in the same place, marked "Insulae daemonum." Harrisse,in his "Notes sur la Nouvelle France" (p. 278), describes the threesufferers as having been abandoned by Roberval _a trente six lieues descotes de Canada, dans une isle deserte qui fut depuis designee sous le nomde l'Isle de la Demoiselle, pres de l'embouchure de la Riviere St.


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