A Fourth Way To Go Unto These Aforesaid Happy Islands, The Moluccas,
Sir Humphrey Gilbert, A Learned And Valiant Knight,
Discourseth of
at large in his new "Passage to Cathay." The enterprise of itself
being virtuous, the fact must doubtless
Deserve high praise, and
whensoever it shall be finished the fruits thereof cannot be small;
where virtue is guide, there is fame a follower, and fortune a
companion. But the way is dangerous, the passage doubtful, the
voyage not thoroughly known, and therefore gainsaid by many, after
this manner.
First, who can assure us of any passage rather by the north-west
than by the north-east? do not both ways lie in equal distance from
the North Pole? stand not the North Capes of either continent under
like elevation? is not the ocean sea beyond America farther distant
from our meridian by thirty or forty degrees west than the extreme
points of Cathay eastward, if Ortellius' general card of the world
be true? In the north-east that noble knight - Sir Hugh Willoughbie
perished for cold, and can you then promise a passenger any better
hap by the north-west, who hath gone for trial's sake, at any time,
this way out of Europe to Cathay?
If you seek the advice herein of such as make profession in
cosmography, Ptolemy, the father of geography, and his eldest
children, will answer by their maps with a negative, concluding most
of the sea within the land, and making an end of the world
northward, near the 63rd degree.
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