CERTAIN REASONS ALLEGED FOR THE PROVING OF A PASSAGE BY THE NORTH-EAST BEFORE THE QUEEN’S MAJESTY

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CERTAIN REASONS ALLEGED FOR THE PROVING OF A PASSAGE BY THE NORTH-EAST BEFORE THE QUEEN’S MAJESTY, AND CERTAIN LORDS OF THE COUNCIL, BY MASTER ANTHONY JENKINSON, WITH MY SEVERAL ANSWERS THEN USED TO THE SAME.

Because you may understand as well those things alleged against me as what doth serve for my purpose, I have here added the reasons of Master Anthony Jenkinson, a worthy gentleman, and a great traveller, who conceived a better hope of the passage to Cathay from us to be by the north-east than by the north-west.

He first said that he thought not to the contrary but that there was a passage by the north-west, according to mime opinion, but he was assured that there might be found a navigable passage by the north-east from England to go to all the east parts of the world, which he endeavoured to prove three ways.

The first was, that he heard a fisherman of Tartary say in hunting the morse, that he sailed very far towards the south-east, finding no end of the sea, whereby he hoped a through passage to be that way.

Whereunto I answered that the Tartars were a barbarous people, and utterly ignorant in the art of navigation, not knowing the use of the sea-card, compass, or star, which he confessed true; and therefore they could not (said I) certainly know the south-east from the north-east in a wide sea, and a place unknown from the sight of the land.

Or if he sailed anything near the shore, yet he, being ignorant, might be deceived by the doubling of many points and capes, and by the trending of the land, albeit he kept continually along the shore.

And further, it might be that the poor fisherman through simplicity thought that there was nothing that way but sea, because he saw mine land, which proof (under correction) giveth small assurance of a navigable sea by the north-east to go round about the world, for that he judged by the eye only, seeing we in this clear air do account twenty miles a ken at sea.

His second reason is, that there was an unicorn’s horn found upon the coast of Tartary, which could not come (said he) thither by any other means than with the tides, through some strait in the north-east of the Frozen Sea, there being no unicorns in any part of Asia, saving in India and Cathay, which reason, in my simple judgment, has as little force.

First, it is doubtful whether those barbarous Tartars do know an unicorn’s horn, yea or no; and if it were one, yet it is not credible that the sea could have driven it so far, it being of such nature that it cannot float.

Also the tides running to and fro would have driven it as far back with the ebb as it brought it forward with the flood.

There is also a beast called Asinus Indicus (whose horn most like it was), which hath but one horn like an unicorn in his forehead, whereof there is great plenty in all the north parts thereunto adjoining, as in Lapland, Norway, Finmark, etc., as Jocobus Zeiglerus writeth in his history of Scondia.

And as Albertus saith, there is a fish which hath but one horn in his forehead like to an unicorn, and therefore it seemeth very doubtful both from whence it came, and whether it were an unicorn’s horn, yea or no.

His third and last reason was, that there came a continual stream or current through the Frozen Sea of such swiftness, as a Colmax told him, that if you cast anything therein, it would presently be carried out of sight towards the west.

Whereunto I answered, that there doth the like from Palus Maeotis, by the Euxine, the Bosphorus, and along the coast of Greece, etc., as it is affirmed by Contarenus, and divers others that have had experience of the same; and yet that sea lieth not open to any main sea that way, but is maintained by freshets, as by the Don, the Danube, etc.

In like manner is this current in the Frozen Sea increased and maintained by the Dwina, the river Ob, etc.

Now as I have here briefly recited the reasons alleged to prove a passage to Cathay by the north-east with my several answers thereunto, so will I leave it unto your judgment, to hope or despair of either at your pleasure.

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