NO'RUMBE'GA, A name given by early ex plorers and map-makers to various portions of the eastern coast of North America, and also to a river and a mythical city. Upon the map of Verrazano's voyages, published 1529, Aranbega appears as a place on the New England coast. The narrative of the anonymous "Dieppe Cap in 1539, makes Norumbega stretch from Cape Breton to Florida. Merentor's map of 1541 apparently locates Anorumbega around the Hud son River. and that of 1569 represents Norombega as a city with high towers. Jean Allefonsee. the pilot of the Cartier-Roberval expedition (1511 44), speaks of a great river, brackish forty leagues from its mouth, rocky. and filled with islands. This has been variously identified] as the Hudson, Long Island Sound, and the Penob scot. Gastaldi's map. in 1556. makes Nnrumbega the region near Cape Breton, while Thevet, in the same year, apparently makes the Norumbega the Hudson. David Ingram. a sailor, claimed that in 1568 he was pot ashore on the I :111f of Mexico by Sir John Hawkins and made his way by Indian trails to the Saint John's River in Can ada in 1569. Mine passing through Nirinnbega on his route he visited a city three-fourths of a mile through, the houses of which had pillars of crystal and silver. Ile saw a peek of pearls and rubies six inches long, while all the inhabitants had heavy ornaments of gold. and the richest furs \very plentiful. This story was printed by llak Inyt in his Prinrirall Nariyalions (1589) but ;sir Humphrey I:ilbert secured a copy before. and, in 1553, set out to explore the country. With him he earried the poet Parmenius to sing the praises of the eountry. Michael Lok's map, in 15s2.represents the Penobscot as a strait reach to the Saint Lawrenee. and makes Norombega the eonntry' included between the two. Otlu-r maps of the sixteenth century locate the country in New England and indicate a city about the 43d degree. Champlain, in his explorations of
the Maine coast (1604-06), searched for the city, and ascended the Penobscot to the site of the present city of .Bangor, but found no trace. The name begins to disappear in the seventeenth cen tury; but John Smith, in 1620, applies it to New England and the coast down to Virginia, while Lucini, an Italian engraver, represents it as alter native with Nova Anglia in 1647. Heylin. in 1669. still dreams of a wonderful city.
The etymology of the word `Norumbega' is vague and uncertain. Grotius first identified the term with Norbergia, and suggested a Norse ori gin. Prof. E. N. Horsford derives it from Nor regr, Norway, and identifies the river with the Charles. Ile claims to have discovered ruins of a Norse city, subsequently occupied by Breton French, near Watertown, Mass., and in 1889 he erected a memorial tower at the junction of Stony Brook and the Charles. An Indian origin meaning 'still water.' or 'place of a great city,' has been suggested, while others call attention to the Spanish 'ragas! or 'haps,' fields. Weise. in his Discoveries of America to 1525 (New York, 18S4), derives the name from the Old French L'Anonm'e Berge, the Grand Scarp, i.e. the Pali sades. Fiske also identifies the Hudson as the Norumbega River and locates an old French city on Manhattan Island.
Consult: Winsor, Narrative Critical His tory of America. roll. iii.-iv. (Boston and New York, 1884) Beauvois, La Xorambegue (Brus sels, 188(1) ; Fiske, Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America, vol. vi. (Boston and New York, 1899) ; Horsford, Defenses of .Yorumbega (Boston, 1891). and Discovery of Ancient City of Yoram bega (privately printed, 1890).