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Certaine other reasons, or arguments to prooue a passage by the Northwest, learnedly written by M. Richard Willes, Gentleman. Foure famous wayes there be spoken of to those fruitfull and wealthie Islands, which wee doe vsually call Moluccaes, continually haunted for gaine, and dayly trauelled for riches therein growing.

Then being enformed, that the Whales which are deadly wounded in the grand Bay, and yet escape the fisher for a time, are woont vsually to shoot themselues on shore on the Isle of Assumption, or Natiscotec, which lieth in the very mouth of the great riuer that runneth vp to Canada, we shaped our course ouer to that long Isle of Natiscotec, and wee found the distance of the way to the Estermost ende thereof to be about fourty foure leagues: and it standeth in the latitude of 49.

No publike prisons, no common gayles, no ordinary Iusticers: priuately each householder hath the hearing of matters at home in his owne house, and the punishing of greater crimes that deserue death without delay. Thus vsually the people is kept in awe and feare.

Being therefore imbarked, they sayled two whole dayes: and before they came to the dwelling of the Indians, they found two of them on the Riuers side, which were expressly sent vnto that place to descry whether any of their enemies were come to that part, with intention to surprise them, as they did vsually.

In euery rode there be at the least thirtie, in some two hundred men, as the passage requireth. This guard is kept vsually vntill you come to the City Onchio, where continually the Tutan of this shire, and eke of Cantan, maketh his abode.

The first foure haue in them at the least three thousand and fiue hundred schollers: in the fift are many mo. For Bandu prouince is very great and possessed with sixe princes, fiue whereof are vassals vnto the sixt, yet he himselfe subiect vnto the Iaponish king, vsually called the great king of Meaco: lesser scholes there be many in diuers places of this Ilande.

I was aduertised by certaine of our company, which vsually went on hunting into the woods and through the villages, that in the village Sarauahi situated on the other side of the riuer, and two leagues distant from the Forte, and in the village Emoloa there were fields wherein the mill was very forward, and that there was thereof in those partes in great abundance.

Where being vsually at that time of the yere, and vntill the fiue of August, a multitude of ships repairing thither for fish, we should be relieued abundantly with many necessaries, which after the fishing ended, they might well spare, and freely impart vnto vs.

In like maner although the Northerne passage be free at 61 degrees of latitude, and the West Ocean beyond America, vsually called Mar del Zur, knowen to be open at 40. degrees eleuation from the Island Iapan, yea, three hundred leagues Northerly aboue Iapan: yet may there be land to hinder the thorow passage that way by Sea, as in the examples aforesaid it falleth out, Asia and America there being ioyned together in one continent.

In the second I will set downe all the commodities which we know the countrey by our experience doth yeeld of it selfe for victuall and sustenance of mans life, such as are vsually fed vpon by the inhabitants of the countrey, as also by vs during the time we were there.