The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation — Volume 04Hakluyt, Richard
History
The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of the English Nation — Volume 04
Hakluyt, Richard
Discoveries in geography -- English; Voyages and travels
This is a strange alteration and very apt to deceiue the Sailer, vnlesse
hee know the vnconstancie and variation of the Compasse, and take the
eleuation of the pole sometimes with his instruments. If master Arthur be
not well prouided in this behalfe, or of such dexteritie, that perceiuing
the errour he be not able to correct the same, I feare lest in wandering vp
and downe he lose his time, and be ouertaken with the ice in the midst of
the enterprise. For that gulfe, as they say, is frozen euery yere very
hard. Which if it be so, the best counsel I could giue for their best
safetie, were to seeke some harborough in that baie, and those riuers
whereof I haue spoken, and by some Ambassador to make friendship and
acquaintance with the great Can, in name of the Queenes maiestie, which I
beleeue will be gratefull to the mightiest Emperour in the world, yea most
excellent for the length of the traffique, and great distance of the
places. [Sidenote: The mouthes of Bautisus and Oechardus 300. leagues from
Cambalu.] I thinke from the mouthes of the mighty riuers Bautisus and
Oechardus to Cambalu the chiefest seat of the prince the Can, there are not
past 300. Germaine miles, and to passe by Ezina a citie of the kingdom of
Tangut, which seemeth to be but 100. Germaine miles from the mouthes of the
sayd riuers, and is subiect to the great Can.
I would gladly know how high the sea doeth flowe commonly in the port of
Moscouia where your men do harborow, and in other Easterly places vnto
Tabin. [Sidenote: Vpon the obseruations of the tides depend great
speculations.] And also whether the sea in this streight do flow alwaies
one way to the East or to the West, or whether it do ebbe and flow
according to the matter of the tides in the middle of the chanel, that is
to say, whether it flow there sixe houres into the West, and as many backe
againe to the East, for hereupon depend other speculations of importance. I
would wish M. Frobisher to obserue the same Westwards. Concerning the gulfe
of Merosro and Canada, and new France which are in my mappes, they were
taken out of a certaine sea card drawn by a certaine priest out of the
description of a Frenchman, a Pilot very skilfull in those partes, and
presented to the worthy Prince George of Austria, bishop of Liege: for the
trending of the coast, and the eleuation of the pole, I doubt not but they
are very neere the trueth: For the Charte had beside a scale of degrees of
latitude passing through the middest of it, another particularly annexed to
the coast of New France, wherewith the errour of the latitudes committed by
reason of the variation of the compasse might be corrected. The historie of
the voyage of Iacobus Cnoyen Buschoducensis throughout al Asia, Affrica,
and the North, was lent me in time past by a friend of mine at Antwerpe.
After I had vsed it, I restored it againe: after many yeeres I required it
againe of my friend, but hee had forgotten of whom hee had borrowed it. The
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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