dayes iourney from the aforesayd hauen: yet haue wee no way by sea from
Alexandria to the Moluccaes, for that Isthmos or litle straight of land
betweene the two seas. In like maner although the Northerne passage be free
at 61 degrees of latitude, and the West Ocean beyond America, vsually
called Mar del Zur, knowen to be open at 40. degrees eleuation from the
Island Iapan, yea, three hundred leagues Northerly aboue Iapan: yet may
there be land to hinder the thorow passage that way by Sea, as in the
examples aforesaid it falleth out, Asia and America there being ioyned
together in one continent. Ne can this opinion seeme altogether friuolous
vnto any one that diligently peruseth our Cosmographers doings. Iosephus
Moletius is of that minde, not onely in his plaine Hemispheres of the
world, but also in his Sea card. The French Geographers in like maner be of
the same opinion, as by their Mappe cut out in forme of a Hart you may
perceiue: as though the West Indies were part of Asia. Which sentence well
agreeth with that old conclusion in the Schooles. Quicquid præter Africam
et Europam est, Asia est, Whatsoeuer land doeth neither apperteine vnto
Afrike nor to Europe, is part of Asia.

[Sidenote: Ob. 5.] Furthermore it were to small purpose to make so long, so
painefull, so doubtfull a voyage by such a new found way, if in Cathayo you
should neither bee suffered to land for silkes and siluer, nor able to
fetch the Molucca spices and pearle for piracie in those Seas. Of a law
denying all Aliens to enter into China, and forbidding all the inhabiters
vnder a great penaltie to let in any stranger into those countreys, shall
you reade in the report of Galeotto Perera there imprisoned with other
Portugals: as also in the Iaponish letters, how for that cause the worthy
traueller Xauierus bargained with a Barbarian Merchant for a great summe of
pepper to be brought into Canton, a port in China. The great and dangerous
piracie vsed in those Seas no man can be ignorant of, that listeth to reade
the Iaponish and East Indian historie.