Page:The principal navigations, voyages, traffiques and discoveries of the English nation 16.djvu/341

 great countrey and kingdome of China. He went from the citie of Cochin in the moneth of April.

They receiued pepper, being the principal marchandise to be sold in all China of any value: And he was farther commanded by the king Don Emmanuel to goe also to Bengala with his letter and dispatch to a knight called Iohn Coelo. This was the first Portugall, as farre as I know, which drunke of the water of the riuer Ganges.

This yeere 1516. died Don Fernando king of Spaine.

In the yeere 1517. this Fernando Perez went vnto the citie of Malacha, and in the moneth of Iune he departed from thence towards China with eight sailes fower Portugals and the other Malayans. He arriued in China:

And because he could not come on land without an ambassage, there was one Thomas Perez which had order for it: and he went from the citie of Canton, where they came to an anker; They went by land fower hundred leagues, and came vnto the citie of Pekin, where the king was, for this prouince and countrey is the biggest that is in the worlde. It beginneth at Sailana in twentie degrees of latitude towards the north, and it endeth almost in 50. degrees. Which must be 500. leagues in length: and they say that it containeth 300 leagues in bredth.

Fernando Perez was 14. moneths in the Isle Da Veniaga, learning as much as he could of the countrey, according as the king his master had commanded him. And although one Raphael Perestrello had beene there in a Iunke or barke of certaine marchants of Malaca, yet vnto Fernando Perez there ought to be giuen the praise of this discouerie:

as well for that he had commandment for the king, as in discouering so much with Thomas Perez by land, and George Mascarenhas by sea, and for coasting vnto the citie of Foquiem standing in 24. degrees of latitude.

In this same yeere 1517. Charles, which afterward was Emperour, came into Spaine, and tooke possession thereof. And in the same yeere Francis Fernandes de Cordoua, Christopher Morantes, and Lopez Ochoa armed three ships at their owne proper charges