The experience of divers as Sebastian Cabot, Corterialis, the
three brethren above named, the Indians, and Urdaneta, the friar of
Mexico, etc.
And yet, notwithstanding all which, there be some that have a better
hope of this passage to Cathay by the north-east than by the west,
whose reasons, with my several answers, ensue in the chapter
following.
CHAPTER VIII. - CERTAIN REASONS ALLEGED FOR THE PROVING OF A PASSAGE
BY THE NORTH-EAST BEFORE THE QUEEN'S MAJESTY, AND CERTAIN LORDS OF
THE COUNCIL, BY MASTER ANTHONY JENKINSON, WITH MY SEVERAL ANSWERS
THEN USED TO THE SAME.
Because you may understand as well those things alleged against me
as what doth serve for my purpose, I have here added the reasons of
Master Anthony Jenkinson, a worthy gentleman, and a great traveller,
who conceived a better hope of the passage to Cathay from us to be
by the north-east than by the north-west.
He first said that he thought not to the contrary but that there was
a passage by the north-west, according to mime opinion, but he was
assured that there might be found a navigable passage by the north-
east from England to go to all the east parts of the world, which he
endeavoured to prove three ways.
The first was, that he heard a fisherman of Tartary say in hunting
the morse, that he sailed very far towards the south-east, finding
no end of the sea, whereby he hoped a through passage to be that
way.
Whereunto I answered that the Tartars were a barbarous people, and
utterly ignorant in the art of navigation, not knowing the use of
the sea-card, compass, or star, which he confessed true; and
therefore they could not (said I) certainly know the south-east from
the north-east in a wide sea, and a place unknown from the sight of
the land.
Or if he sailed anything near the shore, yet he, being ignorant,
might be deceived by the doubling of many points and capes, and by
the trending of the land, albeit he kept continually along the
shore.
And further, it might be that the poor fisherman through simplicity
thought that there was nothing that way but sea, because he saw mine
land, which proof (under correction) giveth small assurance of a
navigable sea by the north-east to go round about the world, for
that he judged by the eye only, seeing we in this clear air do
account twenty miles a ken at sea.
His second reason is, that there was an unicorn's horn found upon
the coast of Tartary, which could not come (said he) thither by any
other means than with the tides, through some strait in the north-
east of the Frozen Sea, there being no unicorns in any part of Asia,
saving in India and Cathay, which reason, in my simple judgment, has
as little force.
