ame had the passages been never so
strait or difficult, the country being so temperate, pleasant, and
fruitful in comparison of their own. But there was never any such people
found there by any of the Spaniards, Portuguese, or Frenchmen, who first
discovered the inland of that country, which Spaniards or Frenchmen must
then of necessity have seen some one civilised man in America,
considering how full of civilised people Asia is; but they never saw so
much as one token or sign that ever any man of the known part of the
world had been there.

4. Furthermore, it is to be thought, that if by reason of mountains or
other craggy places the people neither of Cathay or Tartary could enter
the country of America, or they of America have entered Asia if it were
so joined, yet some one savage or wandering-beast would in so many years
have passed into it; but there hath not any time been found any of the
beasts proper to Cathay or Tartary, etc., in America; nor of those proper
to America in Tartary, Cathay, etc., or in any part of Asia, which thing
proveth America not only to be one island, and in no part adjoining to
Asia, but also that the people of those countries have not had any
traffic with each other.

5. Moreover at the least some one of those painful travellers which of
purpose have passed the confines of both countries, with intent only to
discover, would, as it is most likely, have gone from the one to the
other, if there had been any piece of land, or isthmus, to have joined
them together, or else have declared some cause to the contrary.

6. But neither Paulus Venetus, who lived and dwelt a long time in
Cathay, ever came into America, and yet was at the sea coasts of Mangia
over against it, where he was embarked and performed a great navigation
along those seas; neither yet Veratzanus or Franciscus Vasquez de
Coronado, who travelled the north part of America by land, ever found
entry from thence by land to Cathay, or any part of Asia.

7. Also it appeareth to be an island, insomuch as the sea runneth by
nature circularly from the east to the west, following the diurnal motion
of the _Primum Mobile_, and carrieth with it all inferior bodies movable,
as well celestial as elemental; which motion of the waters is most
evidently seen in the sea, which lieth on the south side of Africa, where
the current that runneth from the east to the west is so strong (by
reason of such motion) that the Portuguese in their voyag