passage by sea through Moscovy into Pont Euxine, now called Mare
Maggiore. Again, in the aforesaid Mediterranean Sea we sail to
Alexandria in Egypt, the barbarians bring their pearl and spices
from the Moluccas up the Red Sea and Arabian Gulf to Suez, scarcely
three days' journey from the aforesaid haven; yet have we no way by
sea from Alexandria to the Moluccas for that isthmus or little trait
of land between the two seas. In like manner, although the northern
passage be free at sixty-one degrees latitude, and the west ocean
beyond America, usually called Mare del Sur, known to be open at
forty degrees elevation for the island of Japan, yea, three hundred
leagues northerly of Japan, yet may there be land to hinder the
through passage that way by sea, as in the examples aforesaid it
falleth out, Asia and America there being joined together in one
continent. Nor can this opinion seem altogether frivolous unto any
one that diligently peruseth our cosmographers' doings. Josephus
Moletius is of that mind, not only in his plain hemispheres of the
world, but also in his sea-card. The French geographers in like
manner be of the same opinion, as by their map cut out in form of a
heart you may perceive as though the West Indies were part of Asia,
which sentence well agreeth with that old conclusion in the schools,
Quid-quid praeter Africum et Europam est, Asia est, "Whatsoever land
doth neither appertain unto Africa nor to Europe is part of Asia."

Furthermore, it were to small purpose to make so long, so painful,
so doubtful a voyage by such a new found way, if in Cathay you
should neither be suffered to land for silks and silver, nor able to
fetch the Molucca spices and pearl for piracy in those seas. Of a
law denying all aliens to enter into China, and forbidding all the
inhabiters under a great penalty to let in any stranger into those
countries, shall you read in the report of Galeotto Petera, there