e no place of refuge. But before I begin, I will
briefly set downe the situation and description of the land whereunto we
haue sailed and where we haue inhabited from the yeere 1561. vnto sixty
fiue, to the ende that those things may the more easily be borne away,
which I meane to describe in this discourse.

The description of the West Indies in generall, but chiefly and
particularly of Florida,

(M360) That part of the earth which at this day we call the fourth part of
the world, or America, or rather the West India, was vnknowen vnto our
ancestours by reason of the great distance thereof. In like maner all the
Westerne Islands and fortunate Isles were not discouered but by those of
our age. Howbeit there haue bin some which haue said that they were
discouered in the time of Augustus Caesar, and that Virgil hath, made
mention thereof in the sixt booke of his AEneidos, when he saith, There is
a land beyond the starres, and the coarse of the yeere and of the Sunne,
where Atlas the Porter of Heauen sustaineth the pole vpon his shoulders:
neuerthelesse it is easie to iudge that hee meaneth not to speake of this
land, whereof no man is found to haue written before his time, neither yet
aboue a thousand yeeres after. (M361) Christopher Colon did first light
vpon land in the yeere 1592. And fiue yeeres after Americus went thither
by the commandement of the king of Castile, and gaue vnto it his owne
name, whereupon afterward it was called America. This man was very well
seene in the Arte of Nauigation and in Astronomie: whereby hee discouered
in his time many lands vnknowen vnto the ancient Geographers. This
countrey is named by some, the land of Brasil, and the lande of Parots. It
stretcheth it selfe, according vnto Postell, from the one Pole to the
other, sauing at the streight of Magellan, whereunto it reacheth 53.
degrees beyond the Equator. I will diuide it for the better vnderstanding
into three principall parts. That which is toward the Pole Articke on the
North is called new France, because that in the yeere 1514. Iohn
Verrazzanno a Florentine was sent by King Francis the first and by Madam
the Regent his mother vnto these newe Regions, where he went on land, and
discouered all the coast which is from the Tropicke of Cancer, to wit,
from the eight add twentieth vnto the fiftieth degree, and farther vnto
the North. He planted in this Countrey the Ensignes and Armes of the king
of France: so that the Spaniardes th