The Unknown Isle 7 
     
    
   
   
    
     early in the next century. It is not difficult to explain 
     
     the apparent neglect of the little island: the north 
     
     coast was not easy of access owing to the fact that 
     
     the mouths of the harbors were obstructed by sand 
     
     dunes; the early explorers were westward bound 
     
     seeking the Western Sea or a passage to Cathay; fish 
     
     and fur were so abun@ant in Newfoundland and the 
     
     Strait of Belle Isle as to make it unnecessary for 
     
     fishermen or traders to seek new fields of effort, espe- 
     
     cially in a region where the ice lingered in the lap of 
     
     May. Hence it is not until much later that the islands 
     
     of the Gulf again interest Frenchmen although the 
     
     Basques may have hunted the whale and the walrus 
     
     there in the sixteenth century. 
     
    

    
     While it is probable that the island had been 
     
     charted by traders from St. Malo in 1595, it was first 
     
     shown on a map of the period by Champlain who 
     
     never visited it himself but seems to have got his 
     
     information from fishermen. His map of 1604 finds 
     
     no place for Isle Saint Jean although his reference 
     
     to it in Des Sauvages shows that he was aware of its 
     
     existence as early as 1603; that of 1612 reveals it as 
     
     a mere speck off the coast of Acadia; but in that of 
     
     1632 it is correctly placed, carefully outlined, and 
     
     definitely named.* The name Saint Jean was doubt- 
     
     less derived from the supposititious St. John’s Island 
     
     shown inside and outside Cape Breton at intervals on 
     
     all maps subsequent to Reinal’s map of 1505. This 
     
     name St. John clung to the island in either the 
     
     French or the English form until 1798. 
     
    
   
   
    
     ® Publications of Champlain Society, No. 14, p- 183.