T 



AD. THE ENGLISH VOYAGES 



1360- 



Cambrensis (qui floruit. An. 12 10.) in libro de mirabi- 



libus Hyberniae, sic enim scribit. Non procul ab insulis 



Hebridibus, Islandia, &c. ex parte Boreali, est maris 



quasdam miranda vorago, in quam a remotis partibus 



omnes undique fluctus marini tanquam ex condicto 



fluuntj & recurrunt, qui in secreta naturae penetralia se 



ibi transfundentes, quasi in Abyssum vorantur. Si vero 



navem hac forte transire contigerit, tanta rapitur, & attra- 



hitur fluctuum violentia, ut earn statim irrevocabiliter vis 



voracitatis absorbeat. 



Quatuor voragines hujus Oceani, a quatuor oppositis 



mundi partibus Philosophi describunt, unde & tarn 



marinos fluctus, quam & ^Eolicos flatus causaliter 



pervenire nonnulli conjectant, 



[I. 122.] The same in English. 



Ouching the description of the North partes, I have 

 taken the same out of the voyage of James Cnoyen 

 of Hartzevan Buske, which alleageth certaine conquests 

 of Arthur king of Britaine : and the most part, and 

 chiefest things among the rest, he learned of a certaine 

 priest in the king of Norwayes court, in the yeere 1364. 

 This priest was descended from them which king Arthur 

 had sent to inhabite these Islands, and he reported that in 

 the yeere 1360, a certaine English Frier, a Franciscan, 

 and a Mathematician of Oxford, came into those Islands, 

 who leaving them, and passing further by his Magicall 

 Arte, described all those places that he sawe, and tooke 

 the height of them with his Astrolabe, according to the 

 forme that I (Gerard Mercator) have set downe in my 

 mappe, and as I have taken it out of the aforesaid James 

 Cnoyen. Hee sayd that those foure Indraughts were 

 drawne into an inward gulfe or whirlepoole, with so great 

 a force, that the ships which once entred therein, could 

 by no meanes be driven backe againe, and that there is 

 never in those parts so much winde blowing, as might be 

 sufficient to drive a Corne mill. 



Giraldus Cambrensis (who florished in the yeere 12 10, 



302 



ii 



