Richard Hakluyt

“ You know the man by report, I by experience, you by words, I by deeds, you by speech and company, but I by the daily trial of his life, have a full and perfect knowledge of him. And you are also to remember into how many perils for your sakes, and his country’s love, he is now to run: whereof it is requisite that we be not unmindful, if it please God to send him good success. We commit a little money to the chance and hazard of fortune: he commits his life (a thing to a man of all things most dear) to the raging sea, and the uncertainties of many dangers. ”

“ Les Turcs ont la politique d'avoir toujours des armées deux fois plus nombreuses que celles des chrétiens. Cette supériorité de nombre augmente leur courage, et elle leur permet en même temps de former différens corps pour attaquer par divers côtés à la fois. S'ils parviennent à percer, ils se précipitent en foule innombrable par l'ouverture, et alors c'est un grand miracle si tout n'est pas perdu. ”

“ We shall here live and rest at home, quietly with our friends and acquaintance; but he in the meantime labouring to keep the ignorant and unruly mariners in good order and obedience, with how many cares shall he trouble and bear himself, with how many troubles shall he break himself, and how many disquietings shall he be forced to sustain: we shall keep our own coasts and country, he shall seek strange and unknown kingdoms. He shall commit his safety to barbarous and cruel people, and shall hazard his life amongst the monstrous and terrible beasts of the sea. ”

“ The thermometer runs down to more than sixty degrees below freezing, a temperature tolerable in calm weather, but distressing in a wind. The eye-piece of the telescope must be protected now with leather, for the skin is destroyed that comes in contact with cold metal. The voice at a mile’s distance can be heard distinctly. Happy the day when first the sun is seen to graze the edge of the horizon; but summer must come, and the heat of a constant day must accumulate, and summer wane, before the ice is melted. ”

“ Pour l'instruction de ceux qui, comme moi, voudroient l'entreprendre, je dirai que l'usage est de traiter avec le grand trucheman de Jérusalem; que celui-ci commence par percevoir un droit pour le soudan et un autre pour lui, et qu'alors il envoie prévenir le trucheman de Gaza, qui à son tour traite du passage avec les Arabes du désert. Ces Arabes jouissent du droit de conduire les pélerins; et comme ils ne sont pas toujours fort soumis au soudan, on est obligé de se servir de leurs chameaux, qu'ils louent à deux ducats par bête. ”

“ They wear all black garments, and so do none other in all the land, but at that abbey only.
They have no preachers—no, not one in all the land to instruct the people, so that there are many, and the most part of the poor in the country, who if one ask them how many gods there be, they will say a great many, meaning that every image which they have is a god; for all the country and the Emperor’s Majesty himself will bless and bow and knock their heads before their images, insomuch that they will cry earnestly unto their images to help them to the things which they need. ”

“ The dreary, dazzling waste in which there was that little patch of life, the stars, the fog, the moonlight, the glittering wonder of the northern lights, in which, as Greenlanders believe, souls of the wicked dance tormented, are familiar to us. The she-bear stays at home; but the he-bear hungers, and looks in vain for a stray seal or walrus—woe to the unarmed man who meets him in his hungry mood! Wolves are abroad, and pretty white arctic foxes. ”

“ The weather waxed reasonable, and the Saturday we set sail, and having a great number of men and little victual, our hope of life waxed less and less. Some desired to yield to the Spaniards, some rather desired to obtain a place where they might give themselves to the infidels; and some had rather abide, with a little pittance, the mercy of God at sea. So thus, with many sorrowful hearts, we wandered in an unknown sea by the space of fourteen days, till hunger enforced us to seek the land; for hides were thought very good meat; rats, cats, mice, and dogs, none escaped that might be gotten ”

“ All which learned men and painful travellers have affirmed with one consent and voice, that America was an island, and that there lieth a great sea between it, Cathay, and Greenland, by the which any man of our country that will give the attempt, may with small danger pass to Cathay, the Moluccas, India, and all other places in the east in much shorter time than either the Spaniard or Portuguese doth, or may do, from the nearest part of any of their countries within Europe. ”

“ The husband is bound to find the wife colours to paint her withal, for they use ordinarily to paint themselves; it is such a common practice among them that it is counted for no shame. They grease their faces with such colours that a man may discern them hanging on their faces almost a fight-shot off. I cannot so well liken them as to a miller’s wife, for they look as though they were beaten about the face with a bag of meal; but their eyebrows they colour as black as jet. ”

“ And on the 8th of October we came to land again, in the bottom of the Bay of Mexico, where we hoped to have found some inhabitants, that we might have had some relief of victuals and a place where to repair our ship, which was so greatly bruised that we were scarce able, with our weary arms, to keep out the water. Being thus oppressed, by famine on the one side and danger of drowning on the other, not knowing where to find relief, we began to be in wonderful despair. ”

“ C'est dans Adène que je vis pour la première fois les deux jeunes gens qui à la Mecque s'étoient fait crever les yeux après avoir vu la sépulture de Mahomet.
Les Turcs sont gens de fatigue, d'une vie dure, et à qui il ne coute rien, ainsi que je l'ai vu tout le long de la route, de dormir sur la terre commes les animaux. Mais ils sont d'humeur gaie et joyeuse, et chantent volontiers chansons de gestes. Aussi quelqu'un qui veut vivre avec eux ne doit être ni triste ni rêveur, mais avoir toujours le visage riant. Du reste, ils sont gens de bonne foi et charitables les uns envers les autres. ”

“ Next unto Moscow, the city of Novogorode is reputed the chiefest of Russia; for although it be in majesty inferior to it, yet in greatness it goeth beyond it. It is the chiefest and greatest mart town of all Muscovy; and albeit the Emperor’s seat is not there, but at Moscow, yet the commodiousness of the river falling into the gulf which is called Sinus Finnicus, whereby it is well frequented by merchants, makes it more famous than Moscow itself. This town excels all the rest in the commodities of flax and hemp; it yields also hides, honey, and wax. ”

“ When I gave myself to the study of geography, after I had perused and diligently scanned the descriptions of Europe, Asia, and Africa, and conferred them with the maps and globes both antique and modern, I came in fine to the fourth part of the world, commonly called America, which by all descriptions I found to be an island environed round about with the sea, having on the south side of it the Strait of Magellan, on the west side the Mare de Sur, which sea runneth towards the north, separating it from the east parts of Asia, where the dominions of the Cathaians are. ”

“ J'ai parlé de leurs selles: ils y sont assis comme dans un fauteuil, bien enfoncés, les genoux fort haut et les étriers courts; position dans laquelle ils ne pourroient pas supporter le moindre coup de lance sans être jetés bas.
L'arme de ceux qui ont quelque fortune est un arc, un tarquais, une épée et une forte masse à manche court, dont le gros bout est taillé à plusieurs carnes. Ce bâton a du danger quand on l'assène sur des épaules ou des bras dégarnis. Je suis même convaincu qu'un coup bien appuyé sur une tête armée de salade étourdiroit l'homme. ”

“ Having, I say, no victuals in the galley, it might seem one misery continually to fall upon another's neck; but to be brief the famine grew to be so great that in twenty-eight days, wherein they were on the sea, there died eight persons, to the astonishment of all the rest.
So it fell out that upon the twenty-ninth day after they set from Alexandria, they fell on the isle of Candia, and landed at Gallipoli, where they were made much of by the abbot and monks there, who caused them to stay there while they were well refreshed and eased. ”

“ I think there is no man will judge their fare good, or their bodies unloaden of stripes, and not pestered with too much heat, and also with too much cold; but I will go to my purpose, which is to show the end of those being in mere misery, which continually do call on God with a steadfast hope that He will deliver them, and with a sure faith that He can do it. ”

“ Before the sun hath warmed the air and dissolved the ice, each one well knoweth that there can be no sailing; the ice once broken through the continual abode, the sun maketh a certain season in those parts. How shall it be possible for so weak a vessel as a ship is to hold out amid whole islands, as it were, of ice continually beating on each side, and at the mouth of that gulf, issuing down furiously from the north, safely to pass, when whole mountains of ice and snow shall be tumbled down upon her? ”

“ As for the furniture of the Emperor himself, it is then above all other times most notable. The coverings of his tent for the most part are all of gold, adorned with stones of great price, and with the curious workmanship of plumasiers; as often as they are to skirmish with the enemy, they go forth without any order at all; they make no wings, nor military divisions of their men, as we do, but lying for the most part in ambush, do suddenly set upon the enemy. Their horses can well abstain two whole days from any meat. ”

“ Master Rowit, therefore, passing to the Spanish General, the rest of the galleys, having espied him, thought, indeed, that the English were rather determined to yield than to fight, and therefore came flocking about the frigate, every man crying out, "Que nuevas? que nuevas? Have these Englishmen yielded?" The frigate answered, "Not so; they neither have nor purpose to yield. Only they have sent a man of their company to speak with our General." ”

“ It is a perilous and an exciting thing to push through pack ice in a gale.
Now there is ice as far as eye can see, that is “an ice-field.” Masses are forced up like colossal tombstones on all sides; our sailors call them “hummocks;” here and there the broken ice displays large “holes of water.” Shall we go on? Upon this field, in 1827, Parry adventured with his men to reach the North Pole, if that should be possible. With sledges and portable boats they laboured on through snow and over hummocks, launching their boats over the larger holes of water. ”

“ This Emperor useth great familiarity, as well unto all his nobles and subjects, as also unto Strangers which serve him either in his wars or in occupations: for his pleasure is that they shall dine oftentimes in the year in his presence; and, besides that, he is oftentimes abroad, either at one church or another, and walking with his noblemen abroad. And by this means he is not only beloved of his nobles and commons, but also had in great dread and fear through all his dominions, so that I think no prince in Christendom is more feared of his own than he is, nor yet better beloved. ”

“ By the time our vessel has reached Baffin’s Bay, still coasting along Greenland, in addition to old floes and bergs, the water is beset with “pancake ice.” That is the young ice when it first begins to cake upon the surface. Innocent enough it seems, but it is sadly clogging to the ships. It sticks about their sides like treacle on a fly’s wing; collecting unequally, it destroys all equilibrium, and impedes the efforts of the steersman. Rocks split on the Greenland coast with loud explosions, and more icebergs fall. ”

“ When any man or woman dieth, they stretch him out, and put a new pair of shoes on his feet, because he hath a great journey to go; then do they wind him in a sheet, as we do; but they forget not to put a testimony in his right hand, which the priest giveth him to testify unto St. Nicholas that he died a Christian man or woman. And they put the corse always in a coffin of wood, although the party be very poor—and when they go towards the church, the friends and kinsmen of the party departed carry in their hands small wax candles, and they weep and howl and make much lamentation. ”

“ Well, grant the West Indies not to continue continent unto the Pole, grant there be a passage between these two lands, let the gulf lie nearer us than commonly in cards we find it set, namely, between the sixty-first and sixty-fourth degrees north, as Gemma Frisius in his maps and globes imagineth it, and so left by our countryman Sebastian Cabot in his table which the Earl of Bedford hath at Theinies; let the way be void of all difficulties, yet doth it not follow that we have free passage to Cathay. ”

“ The Metropolitan is next unto God, Our Lady and St. Nicholas excepted; for the Emperor’s Majesty judgeth and affirmeth him to be of higher dignity than himself: “For that,” saith he, “he is God’s spiritual officer, and I, the Emperor, am His temporal officer;” and therefore his Majesty submitteth himself unto him in many things concerning religious matters, as in leading the Metropolitan horse upon Palm Sunday, and giving him leave to sit on a chair upon the Twelfth Day, when the river Moscow was in blessing, and his Majesty standing on the ice. ”

“ If we had not incurred this danger amongst these monstrous islands of ice, we should have lost our general and master, and the most of our best sailors, which were on the shore destitute of victuals; but by the valour of our master gunner, Master Jackman and Andrew Dier, the master’s mates, men expert both in navigation and other good qualities, we were all content to incur the dangers afore rehearsed, before we would, with our own safety, run into the seas, to the destruction of our said general and his company. ”

“ Moreover, it is very doubtful whether we should long enjoy that trade by the north-east if there were any such passage that way, the commodities thereof once known to the Muscovite, what privilege soever he hath granted, seeing pollice with the maze of excessive gain, to the enriching of himself and all his dominions, would persuade him to presume the same, having so great opportunity, to distribute the commodities of those countries by the Naruc.
But by the north-west we may safely trade without danger or annoyance of any prince living, Christian or heathen, it being out of all their trades. ”

“ These worthy souls, laid up with the agonies of scurvy, knew that in action was their only hope; they forced their limbs to labour, among ice and water, every day. They set about the building of a boat, but the hard frozen wood had broken their axes, so they made shift with the pieces. To fell a tree, it was first requisite to light in fire around it, and the carpenter could only labour with his wood over a fire, or else it was like stone under his tools. Before the boat was made they buried the carpenter. The captain exhorted them to put their trust in God ”

“ First, who can assure us of any passage rather by the north-west than by the north-east? do not both ways lie in equal distance from the North Pole? stand not the North Capes of either continent under like elevation? is not the ocean sea beyond America farther distant from our meridian by thirty or forty degrees west than the extreme points of Cathay eastward, if Ortellius’ general card of the world be true? ”

“ The good man, wife, children, and other of their family, eat and sleep on the one side of the house, and their cattle on the other, very beastly and rudely in respect of civilisation. They are destitute of wood, their fire is turf and cow shardes. They have corn, bigge, and oats, with which they pay their king’s rent to the maintenance of his house. They take great quantity of fish, which they dry in the wind and sun; they dress their meat very filthily, and eat it without salt. Their apparel is after the nudest sort of Scotland. Their money is all base. ”

“ Ice floats about us now, and here is a whale blowing; a whale, too, very near Spitzbergen. When first Spitzbergen was discovered, in the good old times, there were whales here in abundance; then a hundred Dutch ships, in a crowd, might go to work, and boats might jostle with each other, and the only thing deficient would be stowage room for all the produce of the fishery. Now one ship may have the whole field to itself, and travel home with an imperfect cargo. ”

“ The 29th of July we discovered land in 64 degrees 15 minutes of latitude, bearing north-east from us. The wind being contrary to go to the north-westward, we bear in with this land to take some view of it, being utterly void of the pester of ice, and very temperate. Coming near the coast we found many fair sounds and good roads for shipping, and many great inlets into the land, whereby we judged this land to be a great number of islands standing together. Here, having moored our barque in good order, we went on shore upon a small island to seek for water and wood. ”

“ A fourth way to go unto these aforesaid happy islands, the Moluccas, Sir Humphrey Gilbert, a learned and valiant knight, discourseth of at large in his new “Passage to Cathay.” The enterprise of itself being virtuous, the fact must doubtless deserve high praise, and whensoever it shall be finished the fruits thereof cannot be small; where virtue is guide, there is fame a follower, and fortune a companion. But the way is dangerous, the passage doubtful, the voyage not thoroughly known, and therefore gainsaid by many, after this manner. ”

“ Now when we were come to the eastern coast, the water something deep, and some of our company fearful withal, we durst not come to an anchor, but bore off into sea again. The poor people, seeing us go away again, came rowing after us into the sea, the waves being somewhat lofty. We trucked with them for a few skins and darts, and gave them beads, nails, needles, and cards, they pointing to the shore as though they would show us great friendship ”

“ Out of Plato it is gathered that America is an island. Homer, Strabo, Aristotle, Dionysius, Mela, Pliny, Pius, affirm the continent of Asia, Africa, and Europe, to be environed with the ocean. I may therefore boldly say (though later intelligences thereof had we none at all) that Asia and the West Indies be not tied together by any isthmus or strait of land, contrary to the opinion of some new cosmographers, by whom doubtfully this matter hath been brought in controversy. ”

“ The weather being very foggy we coasted this north land; at length when it brake up we perceived that we were shot into a very fair entrance or passage, being in some places twenty leagues broad and in some thirty, altogether void of any pester of ice, the weather very tolerable, and the water of the very colour, nature, and quality of the main ocean, which gave us the greater hope of our passage. Having sailed north-west sixty leagues in this entrance, we discovered certain islands standing in the midst thereof, having open passages on both sides. ”

“ Thus we joyful whites, being at liberty, took in all our sails, and lay a hull, praising God for our deliverance, and stayed to gather together our fleet; which once being done, we seeing that none of them had any great hurt, neither any of them wanted, saving only they of whom I spake before, and the ship which was lost, then at the last we hoisted our sails, and lay bulting off and on, till such time as it would please God to take away the ice, that we might get into the straits. ”

“ If they, for necessity’s sake, stand in need of the premises, such grass as the country yieldeth they pluck up and eat, not daintily, or saladwise, to allure their stomachs to appetite, but for necessity’s sake, without either salt, oils, or washing, like brute beasts devouring the same. They neither use table, stool, or table-cloth for comeliness: but when they are imbrued with blood, knuckle deep, and their knives in like sort, they use their tongues as apt instruments to lick them clean; in doing whereof they are assured to lose none of their victuals. ”

“ Now having coasted the land which we called London Coast from the 21st of this present till the 30th, the sea open all to the westwards and northwards, the land on starboard side east from us, the wind shifted to the north, whereupon we left that shore, naming the same Hope Sanderson, and shaped our course west, and ran forty leagues and better without the sight of any land. ”

“ Four famous ways there be spoken of to those fruitful and wealthy islands, which we do usually call Moluccas, continually haunted for gain, and daily travelled for riches therein growing. These islands, although they stand east from the meridian, distant almost half the length of the world, in extreme heat under the equinoctial line, possessed of infidels and barbarians, yet by our neighbours great abundance of wealth there is painfully sought in respect of the voyage dearly bought, and from thence dangerously brought home to us. ”