A.D. 



.578. 



THE ENGLISH VOYAGES 



Experience to 

 prove thai Tor- 

 rida Zona is 

 habitable. 



Experiences and reasons of the Sphere, to proove 

 all partes of the worlde habitable, and thereby 

 to confute the position of the five Zones. 



Irst, it may be gathered by experience of 

 our Englishmen in Anno 1553. For 

 Captaine Windam made a Voyage with 

 Merchandise to Guinea, and entred so 

 farre within the Torrida Zona, that he 

 was within three or foure degrees of the 

 Equinoctiall, and his company abiding 

 there certaine Moneths, returned, with gaine. 



Also the Englishmen made another Voyage very pros- 

 perous and gainefull, An. 1554. to the coasts of Guinea, 

 within 3. degrees of the Equinoctiall. And yet it is 

 reported of a trueth, that all the tract from Cape de 

 las Palmas trending by C. de tres puntas alongst by 

 Benin, unto the He of S. Thomas (which is perpendi- 

 culer under the Equinoctial) all that whole Bay is more 

 subject to many blooming and smoothering heates, with 

 infectious and contagious ayres, then any other place in 

 all Torrida Zona : and the cause thereof is some accidents 

 in the land. For it is most certaine, that mountains, 

 Seas, woods and lakes &c. may cause through their 

 sundry kinde of situation, sundry strange and extraor- 

 dinary effects, which the reason of the clyme otherwise 

 would not give. I mention these Voyages of our 

 Englishmen, not so much to proove that Torrida Zona 

 may bee, and is inhabited, as to shew their readinesse 

 in attempting long and dangerous Navigations. Wee 

 also among us in England have blacke Moores, ^Ethio- 

 pians, out of all partes of Torrida Zona, which after a 

 small continuance, can well endure the colde of our 

 Countrey, and why should not we as well abide the 

 heate of their Countrey ? But what should I name 

 any more experiences, seeing that all the coastes of 

 Guinea and Benin are inhabited of Portugals, Span- 



252 



