To return to difficulty number two, that of obtaining any ship, instances of it are continually occurring. Consider the complaint that one Greenhalgh writes to his friend[29]—how he wished to go by sea to Naples or elsewhere in Italy, went to the Exchange at London almost daily for a month to read the ships' bills hanging there; could find none to take him; took passage at Blackwall on one that was bound for Dunkirk, but which the wind carried along the coast of Norfolk; reached Dunkirk in four days and four nights; no ship to be found there Italy-bound; nor at Gravelines; nor at Calais; so came back: seven weeks wasted. But it may reasonably be asked, why didn't he go by land? Well, that is a question without an answer; but for any journey where the mileage by sea was near the mileage by land, men of experience of these days reckoned it safer and quicker and consequently cheaper to go by sea. Once when Sir Henry Wotton, who exhaled sixteenth-century wisdom whenever he spoke, was at his favourite occupation of holding forth to the Venetian Signory on things in general, we find him taking it for granted that Poland and Hungary were far from Venice as compared with England and Holland; an exaggeration, no doubt; but an exaggeration that stood no chance of being believed would not have served his purpose. And it would be just plain fact to say, with regard to Danzig and Paris, and every other similar journey, the sea for choice; even from Genoa to Rome, amid all the danger of captivity for life by Barbary pirates, there was a daily service of boats in 1588 according to Villamont; it was the more usual route. Howell, indeed, leaving Paris for Spain, went to St. Malo to find a ship, but the ordinary route was to go down the Loire to Nantes, and by sea thence.