a.d. THE ENGLISH VOYAGES 



1576. 



that gulfe, issuing downe furiously from the north, and 

 safely to passe, when whole mountaines of yce and snow 

 shall be tumbled downe upon her ? 

 Ob. 4. Well, graunt the West Indies not to continue con- 

 tinent unto the Pole, grant there be a passage betweene 

 these two lands, let the gulfe lie neerer us then commonly 

 in cardes we finde it set, namely, betweene the 61. and 

 64. degrees north, as Gemma Frisius in his mappes and 

 globes imagineth it, and so left by our countryman 

 Sebastian Cabot in his table which the Earle of Bedford 

 hath at Cheinies : Let the way be voyde of all difficulties, 

 yet doeth it not follow that wee have free passage to 

 Cathayo. For examples sake : You may trend all 

 Norway, Finmarke, and Lappeland, and then bowe 

 Southward to Saint Nicholas in Moscovia : you may 

 likewise in the Mediterranean Sea fetch Constantinople, 

 and the mouth of Tanais : yet is there no passage by Sea 

 through Moscovia into Pont Euxine, now called Mare 

 Maggiore. Againe, in the aforesaid Mediterranean sea, 

 we saile to Alexandria in Egypt, the Barbarians bring 

 their pearle and spices from the Moluccaes up the Red 

 sea or Arabian gulph to Sues, scarcely three dayes journey 

 from the aforesayd haven : yet have wee no way by sea 

 from Alexandria to the Moluccaes, for that Isthmos or 

 litle straight of land betweene the two seas. In like 

 maner although the Northerne passage be free at 61 

 degrees of latitude, and the West Ocean beyond America, 

 usually called Mar del Zur, knowen to be open at 40. 

 degrees elevation from the Island Japan, yea three 

 hundred leagues Northerly above Japan : yet may there 

 be land to hinder the thorow passage that way by Sea, 

 as in the examples aforesaid it falleth out, Asia and 

 America there being joyned together in one continent. 

 Ne can this opinion seeme altogether frivolous unto any 

 one that diligently peruseth our Cosmographers doings. 

 Josephus Moletius is of that minde, not onely in his 

 plaine Hemispheres of the world, but also in his Sea 

 card. The French Geographers in like maner be of 



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