Page:The principal navigations, voyages, traffiques and discoveries of the English nation 16.djvu/250

 in 52 degrees and a halfe of Southerly latitude.

Also here is to be noted, that it is colder to the Southward of the line then to the Northward: in such wise, that in forty degrees to the Southward the cold is more sharpe, then in fiftie degrees to the North: experience doth alwaies shew the same: for it is as colde euen in the streights of Magellan, as it is in sixty degrees of Northerly latitude. Howbeit the colde is not the cause why nauigators frequent not the same, but the Westerly and Southerly windes, which blowe most furiously on that coast, and that oftentimes out of the very mouth of the streights, and so continue for the most part of the yeere. Also there runneth sometimes such a strong current, that if the winde and it goe all one way, the cables cannot holde, neither can the ship withstand the force thereof. For which cause, and also for that there is no harbour till you be passed 30 leagues into the said streights, most part of the ships that haue gone thither haue indured many troubles before they could come to the streights, and being come to the mouth thereof they haue bene hindered by the current and winde, and so haue bene put backe againe. And to the end you may vnderstand the truth, I will declare vnto you all the shippes that haue past through the said streights, since Magellan first found them, vnto this present yeere of 1586, when I haue once ended my discourse of Magellan his owne voyage. Nowe you are by the way to vnderstande, that the North side of the entrance of these streights is plaine lande without any wood or trees:

here are likewise some Indians though not many, yet are they very mightie men of bodie of ten or eleuen foot high, and good bow-men, but no man-eaters, neither haue they any victuals, but such as they get by hunting and fishing; they couer their bodies with the skinnes of beasts that they kill, to defend them from the colde: neither was there euer to this day any siluer or golde found among them or in their countrey.

These Streights (they say) extend in length from East to West about an hundred and twentie leagues.

At the middle of these streights on the North side are many mountaines, couered with snow, which mountaines stretch from thence along the frontiers of Chili, Peru, and Nueuo reino de Granda, euen vnto the shore of the North sea at Santa Martha, as I haue before signified. It is a wonder to behold the exceeding heigth