"Bodhisattva! So what you use is the ancient Water Floating Fish!... Heat an iron needle until it's red-hot, then chill it suddenly, and it can float on the water in a bowl, pointing more or less south... That's an old method with quite a few years behind it, but it's just easy for it to be inaccurate..."
"Oh! You also rely on the sun by day and the stars by night to indicate your position at sea? And you record the mountains and great rivers along the way, record what the coast looks like?... That is a commonly used method too... It's just that without an exact needle route, you have to sail close to the coast, not daring to go too far from shore, let alone sail into the open sea..."
"What! After a 'Great Shaman Hall spirit descent,' you have a sea chart divined from it, and so know the rough coast and the road ahead?!... Ah, this! Heavens! All along your journey, you actually relied on divination to know what there would be on the sea ahead?!... Main God! There are actually gods and Buddhas this efficacious? A great Shaman with such boundless magic power?..."
"My lord!... You also recruit Sailors and guides from savage tribes everywhere? From the local tribes, you ask out the shape of one stretch of waterway after another, then inch along toward the western coast bit by bit... Bodhisattva! You actually, truly, just like this, just like this... relying on gods, Buddhas, and tribes... sailed twenty thousand li all the way!!..."
The northern coast of Alaska was faintly visible along the edge of the sky, and those towering, unbroken peaks were the most striking sea marks for over a hundred li around. The sea wind blowing from the southwest was passing over