QUESTION OF CUTTING THE ISTHMUS. 135 



and makes distinct seas, taking their names from the Pro- LlB&amp;lt; m&amp;lt; 

 vinces they bathe ; and almost all the mediterranean Seas 

 continue and ioyne together, and with the Ocean it selfe, 

 by the straight of Gibraltar, which the Ancients called the 

 Pillars of Hercules, although the Eed Sea beeing separated 

 from the mediterranean seas, enters alone into the Indian 

 Ocean ; and the Caspian sea ioynes not with any other : so 

 that at the Indies wee finde not anie other sea then this 

 Ocean, which they divide into two, the one they call the 

 north sea, and the other the south; for that the Indies 

 which were first discovered by the Ocean, and reacheth 

 vnto Spaine, lies all to the north, and by that land there 

 after discovered a sea on the other side, the which they 

 called the South Sea, for that they decline vntill they have 

 passed the Line; and having lost the North, or Pole 

 articke, they called it South. For this cause they have 

 called all that Ocean the South Sea, which lieth on the 

 other side of the East Indies, althogh a great part of it be 

 seated to the north, as al the coast of new Spaine, Nica 

 ragua, Guatimala, and Panama. They say that hee that 

 first discovered this sea was called Blasco Nunez de Balboa, 

 the which he did by that part which we now call Tierra 

 Firme, where it growes narrow, and the two seas approach 

 so neere the one to the other, that there is but seaven 

 leagues of distance; for although they make the way 

 eighteene from Nombre de Dios to Panama, yet is it with 

 turning to seeke the commo cfitie of the way, but drawing 

 a direct line the one sea shall not be found more distant 

 from the other. Some have discoursed and propounded to 

 cut through this passage of seaven leagues, and to ioyne 

 one sea to the other, to make the passage from Peru more 

 commodious and easie, for that these eighteene leagues of 

 land betwixt Nombre de Dios and Panama is more paine- 

 full and chargeable then 2300 by sea, wherevpon some 

 would say it were a meanes to drowne the land, one sea 



