CHAPTER VIII.--CERTAIN REASONS ALLEGED FOR THE PROVING OF A PASSAGE
BY THE NORTH-EAST BEFORE THE QUEEN'S MAJESTY, AND CERTAIN LORDS OF
THE COUNCIL, BY MASTER ANTHONY JENKINSON, WITH MY SEVERAL ANSWERS
THEN USED TO THE SAME.



Because you may understand as well those things alleged against me
as what doth serve for my purpose, I have here added the reasons of
Master Anthony Jenkinson, a worthy gentleman, and a great traveller,
who conceived a better hope of the passage to Cathay from us to be
by the north-east than by the north-west.

He first said that he thought not to the contrary but that there was
a passage by the north-west, according to mime opinion, but he was
assured that there might be found a navigable passage by the north-
east from England to go to all the east parts of the world, which he
endeavoured to prove three ways.

The first was, that he heard a fisherman of Tartary say in hunting
the morse, that he sailed very far towards the south-east, finding
no end of the sea, whereby he hoped a through passage to be that
way.

Whereunto I answered that the Tartars were a barbarous people, and
utterly ignorant in the art of navigation, not knowing the use of
the sea-card, compass, or star, which he confessed true; and
therefore they could not (said I) certainly know the south-east from
the north-east in a wide sea, and a place unknown from the sight of
the land.