AD. THE ENGLISH VOYAGES 



1592. 



was cast upon the ground by a ghost. And when some 

 demanded what he did, after he was tumbled on the 

 earth ? The dead man (quoth he) laying his hands to 

 my throat, went about to strangle me : neither was there 

 any remedy, but by defending my selfe with mine own 

 hands. When others doubted least he might suffer these 

 things of a living man, they asked him how he could 

 discerne a dead man from a living ? To this, he 

 rendered a very probable reason, saying that he seemed 

 in handling to be like Cottum, & that he had no weight, 

 but held him down by maine force. And presently after 

 he addeth. In like manner as in Island, so in the desert 

 sands of ^gypt, Ethiopia, and India, where the sunne 

 is hoat, the very same apparitions, the same sprights 

 are wont to delude wayfaring men. Thus much Cardane. 

 Yet from hence (I trow) no man will conclude as our 

 writers of Island do, that in the places of i^gypt, 

 Ethiopia, and India, there is a prison of damned soules. 

 I thought good to write these things out of Cardane, 

 that I may bring even the testimony of strangers on 

 our sides, against such monstrous fables. This place of 

 Cardane implieth these two things, namely y^ apparitions 

 of sprights are not proper to Island alone (which thing al 

 men know, if they do not maliciously feigne themselves 

 to be ignorant) And secondly that that conference of the 

 dead with the living in ye gulfe of Hecla is not grounded 

 upon any certainty, but only upon fables coined by some 

 idle persons, being more vaine then any bubble, which 

 the brutish common sort have used, to confirme their 

 opinion of the tormenting of soules. And is there any 

 man so fantasticall, that wilbe induced to beleeve these 

 gulfes, mentioned by writers, to be any where extant, 

 although they be never so ful of dead mens miracles ? 

 yea doubtlesse. For from hence also they say, y' 

 reproches are justly used against our nation : namely, 

 y' there is nothing in all the world more base, & worth- 

 lesse then it, which conteineth hell within the bounds 

 therof. This verely is the good that we have gotten 



