SECOND EDITION 1598 j 



successe hath not bene correspondent unto theirs: yet in this j 

 our attempt the uncertaintie of finding was farre greater, 



and the difficultie and danger of searching was no whit \ 



lesse. For hath not Herodotus (a man for his time, most | 

 skilfull and judicial in Cosmographie, who writ above ^ j 



2000. yeeres ago) in his 4. booke called Melpomene, signi- | 

 iied unto the Portugales in plaine termes ; that Africa, 



except the small Isthmus between the Arabian gulfe and the , 



Mediterran sea, was on all sides environed with the Ocean r ] 



And for the further confirmation thereof, doth he not ; 



make mention of one Neco an Egyptian King, who (for ,! 



trials sake) sent a fleet of Phoenicians downe the Red sea ; ! 



who setting forth in Autumne and sailing Southward till t 



they had the Sunne at noonetide upon their sterbourd ] 



(that is to say, having crossed the Equinoctial and the ^ 



Southerne tropique) after a long Navigation, directed their S 



course to the North, and in the space of 3. yeeres envi- \ 



roned all Africk, passing home through the Gaditan J 



streites, and arriving in ^gypt? And doth not II Plinie \\Lik2.nat. \ 



tel them, that noble Hanno, in the flourishing time and ^'^^^' ^^P- ^7- ^ 



estate of Carthage, sailed from Gades in Spaine to the J 



coast of Arabia foelix, and put downe his whole journall j 



in writing? Doth he not make mention, that in the time | 



of Augustus Caesar, the wracke of certaine Spanish ships 1i 



was found floating in the Arabian gulfe ? And, not to be \ 



over-tedious in alleaging of testimonies, doth not Strabo 1 



in the 2. booke of his Geography, together with Cornelius 1 



Nepos and Plinie in the place beforenamed, agree all in \ 



one, that one Eudoxus fleeing from king Lathyrus, and \ 



valing downe the Arabian bay, sailed along, doubled the 1 



Southern point of Africk, and at length arrived at Gades ? j 



And what should I speake of the Spaniards? Was not ; 



divine II Plato (who lived so many ages ago, and plainely ||/« Timceo. ! 



described their West Indies under the name of Atlantis) ! 



was not he (I say) instead of a Cosmographer unto them ? | 



Were not those Carthaginians mentioned by Aristotle lib. ; 



II de admirabil. auscult. their forerunners? And had they ik^P\^«^^«, ; 



not Columbus to stirre them up, and pricke them torward rojy. \ 



xli ! 



