TO PROVE THAT THESE INDIANS, AFORENAMED, CAME NOT BY THE SOUTH-EAST,
SOUTH-WEST, NOR FROM ANY OTHER PART OF AFRICA OR AMERICA.
1. They could not come from the south-east by the Cape of Good Hope,
because the roughness of the seas there is such--occasioned by the
currents and great winds in that part--that the greatest armadas the King
of Portugal hath cannot without great difficulty pass that way, much
less, then, a canoe of India could live in those outrageous seas without
shipwreck, being a vessel but of very small burden, and the Indians have
conducted themselves to the place aforesaid, being men unexpert in the
art of navigation.
2. Also, it appeareth plainly that they were not able to come from along
the coast of Africa aforesaid to those parts of Europe, because the winds
do, for the most part, blow there easterly or from the shore, and the
current running that way in like sort, would have driven them westward
upon some part of America, for such winds and tides could never have led
them from thence to the said place where they were found, nor yet could
they have come from any of the countries aforesaid, keeping the seas
always, without skilful mariners to have conducted them such like courses
as were necessary to perform such a voyage.
3. Presupposing also, if they had been driven to the west, as they must
have been, coming that way, then they should have perished, wanting
supply of victuals, not having any place--once leaving the coast of
Africa--until they came to America, north of America, until they arrived
upon some part of Europe or the islands adjoining to it to have refreshed
themselves.
4. Also, if, notwithstanding such impossibilities, they might have
recovered Germany by coming from India by the south-east, yet must they
without all doubt have struck upon some other part of Europe before their
arrival there, as the isles of Madeira, Portugal, Spain, France, England,
Ireland, etc., which, if they had done, it is not credible that they
should or would have departed undiscovered of the inhabitants; but there
was never found in those days any such ship or men, but only upon the
coasts of Germany, where they have been sundry times and in sundry ages
cast ashore; neither is it like that they would have committed themselves
again to sea, if they had so arrived, not knowing where they were, nor
whither to have gone.
5. And by the south-west it is impossible, because the current
aforesaid, which cometh from the east, striketh with such force upon the
Straits of Magellan, and falleth with such swiftness and fury into Mare
de Sur, that hardly any ship--but not possibly a canoe, with such
unskilful mariners--can come into our western ocean through that strait
from the west seas of America, as Magellan's experience hath partly
taught us.
6. And further, to prove that these people so arriving upon the coast of
Germany were Indians, and not inhabiters of any part either of Africa or
America, it is manifest, because the natives, both of Africa and America,
neither had, or have at this day, as is reported, other kind of boats
than such as do bear neither masts nor sails, except only upon the coasts
of Barbary and the Turks' ships, but do carry themselves from place to
place near the shore by the oar only.