THE NORTHWEST PASSAGE ad. 



1576. 



To proove by reason, a passage to be on the 

 Northside of America, to goe to Cataia, &c. 



Chap. 3. 



First, all seas are maintained by the abundance of Experimented 

 water, so that the neerer the end any River, Bay h our English 

 or Haven is, the shallower it waxeth, (although by some rs ' 

 accidentall barre, it is sometime found otherwise) But 

 the farther you sayle West from Island towards the place, 

 where this fret is thought to be, the more deepe are the 

 seas : which giveth us good hope of continuance of the 

 same Sea with Mar del Sur, by some fret that lyeth 

 betweene America, Groneland and Cataia. 



2 Also if that America were not an Island, but a part 



of ye continent adjoyning to Asia, either the people [III. 14.] 

 which inhabite Mangia, Anian, & Quinzay, &c. being 

 borderers upon it, would before this time have made 

 some road into it, hoping to have found some like com- 

 modities to their owne. 



3 Or els the Scythians and Tartarians (which often 

 times heretofore have sought farre and neere for new 



seats, driven thereunto through the necessitie of their Neede makes 

 cold and miserable countreys) would in all this time have ^ e °J^ wl f e 

 found the way to America, and entred the same, had the 

 passages bene never so straite or difficult; the countrey 

 being so temperate, pleasant and fruitfull, in comparison 

 of their owne. But there was never any such people 

 found there by any of the Spaniards, Portugals, or 

 Frenchmen, who first discovered the Inland of that 

 countrey : which Spaniards, or Frenchmen must then of 

 necessitie have seene some one civil man in America, 

 considering how full of civill people Asia is : But they 

 never saw so much as one token or signe, that ever 

 any man of the knowen part of the world had bene 

 there. 



4 Furthermore it is to be thought, that if by reason 

 of mountaines, or other craggy places, the people neither 



165 



, t0 

 trotte. 



