Sect. I.
After what manner the Inhabitants of America came thither.
¶ In the next place, let us enquire, how the Americans were transmitted thither, whether by Sea, or Land? Both which are feasible two several ways; if they made an Expedition thither, as Discoverers, or were driven on those Coasts by stress of Weather.
The first is most unlikely, and not seeming possible, for how could they Steer thorow so vast an Ocean, to Countreys they never heard of, without the Compass, and other Necessaries for such a Voyage? for when first discover’d, their want of experience in Shipping for so long a Voyage, knowing no further than the use of small Boats or Canoos, plainly explode, that they willingly Steer’d from a known World, to an unknown, with no better accommodation; but some probable reasons may be made out, to induce us to believe, that they were rather driven thither by Storm.
But some will say, How liv’d the little Boats, and how indur’d they in such a continual Tempest, and were not either swallow’d up amidst the Waves, or starv’d for want of Provision, which their hollow Troughs could not contain?
The first doubt is the least, for there are Examples enough by which appear, that oftentimes great Ships Bulging, are over-set or sunk in the Sea by foul Weather when the Mariners escape in their Cock-Boat; and if they were but thinly Victual’d for so long a Voyage, questionless, that little which they had, they spun out, and made it last, while the impetuous Storm shortned the passage, which fair Weather would have made much longer.
Plin. l. 5. c. 22.
Strange voyage of a Roman Slave.
Pliny tells us of Annius Plocquius, General of the Red-Sea, That one of his Slaves being Enfranchiz’d, Sailing down towards the Arabian Gulf, was carry’d by a violent Tempest from the North, beyond Caramania, and on the fifteenth day came to an Anchor in Hippuros, a Haven of Taprobane, which Ortelius judges to be Sumatra; but Mercator and Cluverius, on better grounds, Zeylon, which is no less than three thousand English Miles.