Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage by Richard Hakluyt
page 38 of 168 (22%)
page 38 of 168 (22%)
|
to perform such a voyage.
3. Presupposing also, if they had been driven to the west, as they must have been, coming that way, then they should have perished, wanting supply of victuals, not having any place--once leaving the coast of Africa--until they came to America, north of America, until they arrived upon some part of Europe or the islands adjoining to it to have refreshed themselves. 4. Also, if, notwithstanding such impossibilities, they might have recovered Germany by coming from India by the south-east, yet must they without all doubt have struck upon some other part of Europe before their arrival there, as the isles of Madeira, Portugal, Spain, France, England, Ireland, etc., which, if they had done, it is not credible that they should or would have departed undiscovered of the inhabitants; but there was never found in those days any such ship or men, but only upon the coasts of Germany, where they have been sundry times and in sundry ages cast ashore; neither is it like that they would have committed themselves again to sea, if they had so arrived, not knowing where they were, nor whither to have gone. 5. And by the south-west it is impossible, because the current aforesaid, which cometh from the east, striketh with such force upon the Straits of Magellan, and falleth with such swiftness and fury into Mare de Sur, that hardly any ship--but not possibly a canoe, with such unskilful mariners--can come into our western ocean through that strait from the west seas of America, as Magellan's experience hath partly taught us. 6. And further, to prove that these people so arriving upon the |
|