The Natural and Moral History of the Indies, by Father Joseph de Acosta by Clements R. Markham

Author:Clements R. Markham [Markham, Clements R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Nonfiction, History, Modern, 17th Century
ISBN: 9781317023340
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2017-05-15T04:00:00+00:00

CHAP. X.—Of the Ocean that invirons the Indies, and of the North and South Seas.

Amongst all waters the Ocean is the principall, by which the Indies have beene discovered, and are invironed therewith ; for either they be Hands of the Ocean sea, or maine land, the which wheresoever it ends is bounded with this Ocean. To this day they have not discovered at the Indies any mediterranean sea, as in Europe, Asia, and Affrike, into the which there enters some arme of this great sea, and makes distinct seas, taking their names from the Provinces they bathe; and almost all the mediterranean Seas continue and ioyne together, and with the Ocean it selfe, by the straight of Gibraltar, which the Ancients called the Pillars of Hercules, although the Red Sea beeing separated from the mediterranean seas, enters alone into the Indian Ocean ; and the Caspian sea ioynes not with any other : so that at the Indies wee finde not anie other sea then this Ocean, which they divide into two, the one they call the north sea, and the other the south; for that the Indies which were first discovered by the Ocean, and reacheth vnto Spaine, lies all to the north, and by that land thereafter discovered a sea on the other side, the which they called the South Sea, for that they decline vntill they have passed the Line; and having lost the North, or Pole articke, they called it South. For this cause they have called all that Ocean the South Sea, which lieth on the other side of the East Indies, althogh a great part of it be seated to the north, as al the coast of new Spaine, Nicaragua, Guatimala, and Panama. They say that hee that first discovered this sea was called Blasco Nuñez de Balboa, the which he did by that part which we now call Tierra Firme, where it growes narrow, and the two seas approach so neere the one to the other, that there is but seaven leagues of distance; for although they make the way eighteene from Nombre de Dios to Panama, yet is it with turning to seeke the commoditie of the way, but drawing a direct line the one sea shall not be found more distant from the other. Some have discoursed and propounded to cut through this passage of seaven leagues, and to ioyne one sea to the other, to make the passage from Peru more commodious and easie, for that these eighteene leagues of land betwixt Nombre de Dios and Panama is more painefull and chargeable then 2300 by sea, wherevpon some would say it were a meanes to drowne the land, one sea being lower then another. As in times past we finde it written, that for the same consideration they gave over the enterprize to win the Red sea into Nile, in the time of King Sesostris, and since, in the Empire of the Ottomans. But for my part, I hold

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