United States or Lesotho ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Terra Australis seemeth to be a great, firme land, lying under and aboute the south pole, being in many places a fruitefull soyle, and is not yet thorowly discovered, but only seen and touched on the north edge thereof by the travaile of the Portingales and Spaniards in their voyages to their East and West Indies.
The second cause hath bene the multitude of people too fruitefull in generation, which being no longer able to dwell in their natiue soyles, haue entred vpon their neighbours limites, and oftentimes passing further haue pearced euen vnto the vttermost regions.
The Mountaynes of Norway and Swethland are fruitefull of mettalls in which siluer and copper are concoct and molten in veines, which may scarcely bee done with fornaces, by which reason also the vapors and hot exhalations pearcing the earth and the waters and through both those natures breathing forth into the ayre, tempereth the quantitie thereof making it tollerable, as wyttnes the huge bignes of whales in those seas, with the strength of body and long life of such beastes as liue on the land, which thing could not bee except all thinges were there comodiously nourished, by the benefit of the heauen and the ayre, for nothing that in time of increase is hindred by any iniury or that is euill seed all the time it liueth can prosper well.
They take a certaine portion of the most fruitefull of the Mays that growes in their farmes, the which they put in a certaine granary which they do calle Pirua, with certaine ceremonies, watching three nightes; they put this Mays in the richest garments they have, and, being thus wrapped and dressed, they worship this Pirua, and hold it in great veneration, saying it is the Mother of the Mays of their inheritances, and that by this means the Mays augments and is preserved.
Word Of The Day