And So The Cause Efficient
Remaining, It Would Have Continually Followed Along Our Coasts
Through The Narrow Seas, Which It Doeth Not, But Is Digested About
The North Of Labrador By Some Through Passage There Through This
Frith.
The like course of the water, in some respect, happeneth in the
Mediterranean Sea (as affirmeth Contorenus), where, as
The current
which cometh from Tanais and the Euxine, running along all the
coasts of Greece, Italy, France, and Spain, and not finding
sufficient way out through Gibraltar by means of the straitness of
the frith, it runneth back again along the coasts of Barbary by
Alexandria, Natolia, etc.
It may, peradventure, be thought that this course of the sea doth
sometime surcease and thereby impugn this principle, because it is
not discerned all along the coast of America in such sort as Jacques
Cartier found it, whereunto I answer this: That albeit in every
part of the coast of America or elsewhere this current is not
sensibly perceived, yet it hath evermore such like motion, either
the uppermost or nethermost part of the sea; as it may be proved
true, if you sink a sail by a couple of ropes near the ground,
fastening to the nethermost corners two gun chambers or other
weights, by the driving whereof you shall plainly perceive the
course of the water and current running with such like course in the
bottom. By the like experiment you may find the ordinary motion of
the sea in the ocean, how far soever you be off the land.
9. Also, there cometh another current from out the north-east from
the Scythian Sea (as Master Jenkinson, a man of rare virtue, great
travel, and experience, told me), which runneth westward towards
Labrador, as the other did which cometh from the south; so that both
these currents must have way through this our strait, or else
encounter together and run contrary courses in one line, but no such
conflicts of streams or contrary courses are found about any part of
Labrador or Newfoundland, as witness our yearly fishers and other
sailors that way, but is there separated as aforesaid, and found by
the experience of Barnarde de la Torre to fall into Mare del Sur.
10. Furthermore, the current in the great ocean could not have been
maintained to run continually one way from the beginning of the
world unto this day, had there not been some through passage by the
strait aforesaid, and so by circular motion be brought again to
maintain itself, for the tides and courses of the sea are maintained
by their interchangeable motions, as fresh rivers are by springs, by
ebbing and flowing, by rarefaction and condensation.
So that it resteth not possible (so far as my simple reason can
comprehend) that this perpetual current can by any means be
maintained, but only by a continual reaccess of the same water,
which passeth through the strait, and is brought about thither again
by such circular motion as aforesaid, and the certain falling
thereof by this strait into Mare del Sur is proved by the testimony
and experience of Barnarde de la Torre, who was sent from P. de la
Natividad to the Moluccas, 1542, by commandment of Anthony Mendoza,
then Viceroy of Nova Hispania, which Barnarde sailed 750 leagues on
the north side of the Equator, and there met with a current which
came from the north-east, the which drove him back again to Tidore.
Wherefore this current being proved to come from the Cape of Good
Hope to the strait of Magellan, and wanting sufficient entrance
there, is by the necessity of Nature's force brought to Terra de
Labrador, where Jacques Cartier met the same, and thence certainly
known not to strike over upon Iceland, Lapland, etc., and found by
Barnarde de la Torre, in Mare del Sur, on the backside of America,
therefore this current, having none other passage, must of necessity
fall out through this strait into Mare del Sur, and so trending by
the Moluccas, China, and the Cape of Good Hope, maintaineth itself
by circular motion, which is all one in Nature with motus ab oriente
in occidentem.
So that it seemeth we have now more occasion to doubt of our return
than whether there be a passage that way, yea or no: which doubt
hereafter shall be sufficiently removed; wherefore, in my opinion
reason itself grounded upon experience assureth us of this passage
if there were nothing else to put us in hope thereof. But lest
these might not suffice, I have added in this chapter following some
further proof thereof, by the experience of such as have passed some
part of this discovery, and in the next adjoining to that the
authority of those which have sailed wholly through every part
thereof.
CHAPTER III. TO PROVE BY EXPERIENCE OF SUNDRY MEN'S TRAVELS THE
OPENING OF SOME PART OF THIS NORTH-WEST PASSAGE, WHEREBY GOOD HOPE
REMAINETH OF THE REST.
1. Paulus Venetus, who dwelt many years in Cathay, affirmed that he
had sailed 1,500 miles upon the coast of Mangia and Anian, towards
the north-east, always finding the seas open before him, not only as
far as he went, but also as far as he could discern.
2. Also Franciscus Vasquez de Coronado, passing from Mexico by
Cevola, through the country of Quiver to Sierra Nevada, found there
a great sea, where were certain ships laden with merchandise, the
mariners wearing on their heads the pictures of certain birds called
Alcatrarzi, part whereof were made of gold and part of silver; who
signified by signs that they were thirty days coming thither, which
likewise proveth America by experience to be disjoined from Cathay,
on that part, by a great sea, because they could not come from any
part of America as natives thereof; for that, so far as is
discovered, there hath not been found there any one ship of that
country.
3. In like manner, Johann Baros testifieth that the cosmographers
of China (where he himself had been) affirm that the sea coast
trendeth from thence north-east to fifty degrees of septentrional
latitude, being the farthest part that way, which the Portuguese had
then knowledge of; and that the said cosmographers knew no cause to
the contrary, but that it might continue farther.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 10 of 49
Words from 9259 to 10318
of 50368
