A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 09: Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present TimeKerr, Robert
History
A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels — Volume 09: Arranged in Systematic Order: Forming a Complete History of the Origin and Progress of Navigation, Discovery, and Commerce, by Sea and Land, from the Earliest Ages to the Present Time
Kerr, Robert
Voyages and travels
I have been given to understand that there are no great cities in the
interior of Corea, between which inland country and the sea there are
immense bogs or morasses, so that no one can travel on horseback, and
hardly even a-foot; and as a remedy against this, they have great
waggons or carts upon broad flat wheels, which are moved by means of
sails like ships. Thus, by observing the monsoons or periodical winds,
they transport their goods backwards and forwards, by means of these
sailing waggons. In that country they make damasks, sattins, taffaties,
and other silk stuffs, as well as in China.
It is said that _Fico Same_, otherwise called _Quabicondono_, the former
emperor of Japan, pretended to have conveyed a great army in these
sailing waggons, to make a sudden assault upon the emperor of China in
his great city of Pekin, where he ordinarily resides; but was prevented
by a nobleman of Corea, who poisoned himself to poison the emperor and
many of the nobles of Japan. On which occasion, as is said, the Japanese
lost, about twenty-two years ago, all that they had conquered in Corea.
James Turner, the youth who used to play the fiddle, left a girl here
with child; and though I gave her two tayes in silver to bring up the
child; she killed it as soon as it was born, which is a common thing in
this country. The whistle and chain belonging to Mr Foster, the master
of the Clove, are found, and are under the charge of Mr Adams, who will
be accountable for them. I meant to have sent you a Japanese almanack by
a former letter to the same effect as this, dated the 25th _ultimo_, and
sent by the Sea Adventure by way of Siam, but forgot to do so; and which
I now send along with this letter. I pray you that this letter may
suffice for your brother, Mr George Saris, and the rest of my loving
friends: And, with hearty commendations in general, I leave you all to
the holy protection of the Almighty; resting always your ever loving
friend at command, RICHARD COCKS.
_No. 2. Letter from Mr Richard Cocks, dated Firando, 10th December,
1614, to the Worshipful Thomas Wilson, Esq. at his House in the
Britain-burse[58] in the Strand._
[Footnote 58: Perhaps that now called Exeter Change.--E.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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