4. Also, If, Notwithstanding Such Impossibilities, They Might Have
Recovered Germany By Coming From India By The South-East, Yet
Must
they without all doubt have struck upon some other part of Europe
before their arrival there, as the isles
Of Madeira, Portugal,
Spain, France, England, Ireland, etc., which, if they had done, it
is not credible that they should or would have departed undiscovered
of the inhabitants; but there was never found in those days any such
ship or men, but only upon the coasts of Germany, where they have
been sundry times and in sundry ages cast ashore; neither is it like
that they would have committed themselves again to sea, if they had
so arrived, not knowing where they were, nor whither to have gone.
5. And by the south-west it is impossible, because the current
aforesaid, which cometh from the east, striketh with such force upon
the Straits of Magellan, and falleth with such swiftness and fury
into Mare de Sur, that hardly any ship - but not possibly a canoe,
with such unskilful mariners - can come into our western ocean
through that strait from the west seas of America, as Magellan's
experience hath partly taught us.
6. And further, to prove that these people so arriving upon the
coast of Germany were Indians, and not inhabiters of any part either
of Africa or America, it is manifest, because the natives, both of
Africa and America, neither had, or have at this day, as is
reported, other kind of boats than such as do bear neither masts nor
sails, except only upon the coasts of Barbary and the Turks' ships,
but do carry themselves from place to place near the shore by the
oar only.
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