Voyages in Search of the North-West PassageHakluyt, Richard
History
Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage
Hakluyt, Richard
Arctic regions -- Discovery and exploration; Northwest Passage; Voyages and travels
4. Also, if, notwithstanding such impossibilities, they might have
recovered Germany by coming from India by the south-east, yet must they
without all doubt have struck upon some other part of Europe before their
arrival there, as the isles of Madeira, Portugal, Spain, France, England,
Ireland, etc., which, if they had done, it is not credible that they
should or would have departed undiscovered of the inhabitants; but there
was never found in those days any such ship or men, but only upon the
coasts of Germany, where they have been sundry times and in sundry ages
cast ashore; neither is it like that they would have committed themselves
again to sea, if they had so arrived, not knowing where they were, nor
whither to have gone.
5. And by the south-west it is impossible, because the current
aforesaid, which cometh from the east, striketh with such force upon the
Straits of Magellan, and falleth with such swiftness and fury into Mare
de Sur, that hardly any ship--but not possibly a canoe, with such
unskilful mariners--can come into our western ocean through that strait
from the west seas of America, as Magellan's experience hath partly
taught us.
6. And further, to prove that these people so arriving upon the coast of
Germany were Indians, and not inhabiters of any part either of Africa or
America, it is manifest, because the natives, both of Africa and America,
neither had, or have at this day, as is reported, other kind of boats
than such as do bear neither masts nor sails, except only upon the coasts
of Barbary and the Turks' ships, but do carry themselves from place to
place near the shore by the oar only.
CHAPTER VI.
TO PROVE THAT THOSE INDIANS CAME NOT BY THE NORTH-EAST, AND THAT THERE IS
NO THROUGH NAVIGABLE PASSAGE THAT WAY.
1. It is likely that there should be no through passage by the
north-east whereby to go round about the world, because all seas, as
aforesaid, are maintained by the abundance of water, waxing more shallow
and shelving towards the end, as we find it doth, by experience, in the
Frozen Sea, towards the east, which breedeth small hope of any great
continuance of that sea to be navigable towards the east, sufficient to
sail thereby round about the world.
2. Also, it standeth scarcely with reason that the Indians dwelling
under the Torrid Zone could endure the injury of the cold air, about the
northern latitude of 80 degrees, under which elevation the passage by the
north-east cannot be, as the often experiences had of all the south part
of it showeth, seeing that some of the inhabitants of this cold climate,
whose summer is to them an extreme winter, have been stricken to death
with the cold damps of the air, about 72 degrees, by an accidental
mishap, and yet the air in such like elevation is always cold, and too
cold for such as the Indians are.
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