least opened he knew not how far
into the land, so that he sailed thence along the coast continually full
south, so far as he could travel in the space of five days, where he
discovered a mighty river which opened far into the land, and in the
entry of this river he turned back again."

Whereby it appeareth that he went the very way that we now do yearly
trade by S. Nicholas into Muscovia, which way no man in our age knew for
certainty to be sea, until it was since discovered by our Englishmen in
the time of King Edward I., but thought before that time that Greenland
had joined to Normoria Byarmia, and therefore was accounted a new
discovery, being nothing so indeed, as by this discourse of Ochther's it
appeareth.

Nevertheless if any man should have taken this voyage in hand by the
encouragement of this only author, he should have been thought but
simple, considering that this navigation was written so many years past,
in so barbarous a tongue by one only obscure author, and yet we in these
our days find by our own experiences his former reports to be true.

How much more, then, ought we to believe this passage to Cathay to be,
being verified by the opinions of all the best, both antique and modern
geographers, and plainly set out in the best and most allowed maps,
charts, globes, cosmographical tables, and discourses of this our age and
by the rest not denied, but left as a matter doubtful.

CHAPTER II.

1. All seas are maintained by the abundance of water, so that the nearer
the end any river, bay, or haven is, the shallower it waxeth (although by
some accidental bar it is sometime found otherwise), but the farther you
sail west from Iceland, towards the place where this strait is thought to
be, the more deep are the seas, which giveth us good hope of continuance
of the same sea, with Mare del Sur, by some strait that lieth between
America, Greenland, and Cathay.

2. Also, if that America were not an island, but a part of the continent
adjoining to Asia, either the people which inhabit Mangia, Anian, and
Quinzay, etc., being borderers upon it, would before this time have made
some road into it, hoping to have found some like commodities to their
own.

3. Or else the Syrians and Tartars (which oftentimes heretofore have
sought far and near for new seats, driven thereunto through the necessity
of their cold and miserable countries) would in all this time have found
the way to America and entered the s