black stone which the sailor had brought home, having been shown by his wife to an assayer, he persuaded her that it was a rich marcasite of gold. The hope of discovering a gold mine operated now like a miracle; and a large subscription, chiefly among the gentlemen about the Court, was quickly raised for prosecuting that most alluring object. Frobisher obtained command of the Aid, a Queen's ship of 200 tons burthen, and carrying 100 volunteers and sailors, to which he joined his two former barks. On 26th May 1577, he weighed anchor at Blackwall, and took his departure from Harwich on the 28th. On the 7th of June, he touched at Orkney, and victualled his little squadron. There his gold-finers, who appear always to have been as sanguine as their employers, pretended they had found a mine of silver. Next day, he set sail again with a merry' wind, and soon met with drift-wood and with English whalers, now on their return home. On the 4th of July, he reached, at the latitude of 603, the coast of Frizeland or South Greenland, defended by a frozen bulwark, and met with islands of ice, half a mile or more in compass, rising 30 or 40 fathoms above the surface, and yielding fresh water when melted; a proof, it was conceived, that they had not been formed on the sea. There his crew, instead of odoriferous and fragrant smells of sweet gums, and pleasant notes of musical birds, tasted the most borcal blasts, mixed with snow and hail, in the months of * June and July, nothing inferior to an intemperate winter. After keeping along the shore four days, he found it impossible to effect a landing; and he therefore bore away for Labrador. It blew a fierce tempest; but, after passing through several floating islands of ice, Frobisher himself, from the maintop, descried land on the 7th of July. He entered his Strait again, but could find no gold ore. Still intent, however, upon taking possession of the country, he ascended with his men to the top of a high hill, where they made a column or cross of stones, heaped up of a good height, and solemnly sounded a trumpet, and said certain prayers, kneeling about the ensign, and honoured the place by the name of Mount Warwick. The natives afterwards invited a parley; and a traffic by barter was soon established. But Frobisher, with all his religious pretensions, acted very treacherously towards the poor savages. In attempting to surprise them, he roused their vengeance; and a hot athray ensued, which obliged his sailors to fly for shelter to the boats. Yet he succeeded in catching one man, and afterwards a woman with her child; and these captives conducted themselves on board the ship, during the rest of the voyage, with a propriety and modesty which might well have put their

oppressors to the blush. The woman appeared so ugly to the sailors, that those ignorant and superstitious beings seriously suspected her to be a devil, till they found, by inspection, that her feet were not cloven!

Frobisher, taking with him a select party in the two barks, penetrated farther into the country, and clambered over the frozen tracts and snowy mountains, in search of the supposed ore. In this excursion, he met with the winter dwellings of the natives, resembling ovens, and commonly planted on the south side of some eminence, but sunk two fathoms under ground, and strewed with moss, being enclosed with whales' jaws instead of posts, and covered over with seal-skins, leaving only a small occasional aperture. On the 9th of August, he erected a small fort, which, being entrenched, was encircled with casks of earth. His company now laboured hard in digging the ore. With only five poor miners, and the help of a few gentlemen and soldiers,' 200 tons of that precious earth were brought on board, in the space of twenty days. But, at last, they were all heartily sick of this toil; and the water had already begun to freeze at night by the ships' sides. On the 22d of August, they struck their tents; and, firing a parting volley, they gladly embarked. Two days after, the snow fell half a foot deep. About the beginning of September, it was very stormy; but Frobisher, shaping his course by the west of Ireland, reached Milford Haven on the 20th of that month.

We need scarcely observe, that this ore with which Frobisher, at so much risk and fatigue, had loaded his ship, was, like the black micaceous sand which the first planters of Virginia sent home, totally worthless, and contained no metal what

On

But the absolute failure of the gold mine was not immediately acknowledged; and the same active captain was again despatched in the following year, but chiefly for the discovery of Cathay or China, by the Meta Incognita. A wooden fort, capable of holding 100 men, was framed, to be carried out in separate pieces, and then put together. Twelve private vessels joined him, to be loaded with the fancied ore; and the whole fleet rendezvoused on the 27th May 1578, at Harwich. this occasion, the Admiral (for so he was now styled) issued general orders, some of which are curious, and savour strongly of those times, when religion was so often debased by an association with piracy and plunder. The watchword given was-Before the world was God; and the countersign-After God came Christ his Son. The fleet sailed round by the west of England, and made Cape Clear, the southern point of Ireland, on the 6th of June; and, after navigating the Atlantic fourteen days, dur,

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ing which it encountered a strong current setting from southwest, it reached the coast of Labrador. Here Frobisher, and some other gentlemen, landed and took formal possession of the country, in the name of his sovereign. He then proceeded on his voyage northwards, and soon met with floating ice, and nunerous troops of whales. On the last day of June, the Salamander, being under both her corses and bonets, happened to strike a great whale with her full stem, with such a blow, that the ship stood still, and stirred neither forward nor backward. The whale thereat made a great and ugly noise, and cast up his body and tail, and so went under water. Two days after, a dead whale, supposed to be the same monster, was seen floating on the surface of the sea.

The weather now became so extremely foggy, that the flect was with the utmost difficulty kept together, by continually beating drums and sounding trumpets. On the 7th of July, it encountered a furious storm from the south-cast, which collected and pressed around it innumerable shoals and mounttains of ice. The poor sailors were quite worn out with anxiety and fatigue during this dreadful besetment. One of the barks went down; but the rest of the fleet at length got clear of the ice, and stood out to sea. It again bore up for the land, and approached, as was supposed, Mount Warwick. But the foggy weather prevented any observation of latitude; and the coast appeared so much covered with snow, that it could not with certainty be recognised by the most experienced pilots. From this state of perplexity and continual danger, a part of the fleet turned back, and directed their course homewards. The commander, however, still persevered in the search after his Strait, and was followed at some distance by most of the remaining ships. Near three weeks were thus spent in fruitless attempts under a dense fog, and exposed, among numerous islands, to the action of currents and the hazards of drifting ice. On the 25th of July, his squadron was assailed by a tremendous storm, and next day the snow fell half a foot thick on the hatches; while the air was so bitterly cold, that the men could hardly open their eyes, or handle the ropes or the sails. At length the different straggling vessels were joyfully reassembled, having escaped incredible dangers; but the sailors were so much discouraged, that they began to murmur; and it required all the eloquence of Master Wolfall, the chaplain, (who, in the expectation of converting the heathen, had left at home a kind wife and a good living), to compose their minds, and dissuade them from breaking out in open mutiny. About the beginning of August, the miners and most of the crews

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landed, and set vigorously to work in digging black ore and gathering pretty stones. But a part of the frame of the woodeu fort having been wrecked, and the stores not being found. sufficient for a twelvemonth's provision, it was resolved to abandon the design of leaving a garrison. After various adventures in the country, and some unprincipled attempts to entrap the poor natives, who had now grown more wary, the Holy Sacrament was, on the 30th of August, celebrated on shore with great devotion. Next day a general consultation being held, respecting the expediency of any longer stay, the whole remaining fleet, with the precious cargo of black earth, took its departure for England. They were dispersed, however, by a violent storm; but most of them reached different ports about the beginning of October, with the loss of only forty men.

Frobisher appears, upon this occasion, to have rambled about the cluster of islands in the mouth of the entrance to Hudson's Bay. But his voyage proved very unfortunate, and grievously disappointed the golden dreams of the adventurers. We hear no more of that rich black earth so eagerly coveted, which had been procured with such difficulty, and collected with so much toil and danger.

Though the hopes of finding a gold mine on the coast of Labrador had completely failed, the prospect of discovering a north-west passage to China was yet sufficiently alluring. Some gentlemen of the West of England, joined to a few London merchants, formed themselves into a society to resume the attempt of exploring that channel. They chose for the commander John Davis, one of the best skilled and most humane of the early English navigators; who sailed from Dartmouth on the 7th of June 1585, with the Sunshine of London, a bark of 50 tons and 23 men, and the Moonshine of Dartmouth, of only 35 tons and 19 men, some of them being musicians. From the 6th to the 18th of July, he saw multitudes of whales; and, on the 19th of that month, he met with numerous islands of floating ice, which, by their continual attrition, created a disagreeable rustling noise. He filled his boat with the smaller pieces, which yielded excellent fresh water. Next day the fog dispersing, he descried the coast of Greenland, rising like a white sugar-loaf: but he could not land on account of the ice, which formed a broad rampart. On the 29th of July, he reached the latitude of 64° 15'; and the sea being there utterly void of the pester of ice, and very temperate,' he anchored among a group of islands, one of which he ascended, and observed the natives screeching and howling like wolves. But having desired his musicians to play some simple airs, he soon drew the savages near him; and,

while they capered and danced, he won their confidence by gentleness and attention. A brisk trade of barter was now carried on. The canoes crowded about the ships, and the utmost cordiality and ease prevailed. Great quantities of floating wood were seen among those islands, and the rocks appeared full of that shining mica which had tempted the avarice of Frobisher's employers.

Davis advanced, on the 1st of August, to the latitude of 66° 40', and found the coast clear of ice. There his men had various hard conflicts with white bears. When the fog was dispelled, he landed, and saw sledges and large trained dogs with pricked ears and long bushy tails. Despairing of the existence of any passage, he now resolved to turn back; and arrived, without any remarkable occurrence, at Dartmouth on the 30th of September.

In the following year, Davis was again despatched by the same company a month earlier, with his two barks, and the addition of the Mermaid, a vessel of 120 tons. On the 15th of June, he descried Greenland at the latitude of 60°; but the coast was still inaccessible, being blocked with ice to the distance of ten, and in some places, to that of twenty or thirty leagues. After encountering much tempestuous weather, he saw land again in the latitude of 64°, and, approaching the shore, the natives pushed out to him in their canoes, shouting vehemently. These grateful creatures surrounded the Mermaid, embraced the Captain, and leaped for joy. More than a hundred canoes appeared at one time, loaded with skins of seals and stags, ptarmigans and partridges, salmon, cod, and other dried fish.

On the 3d of July, Davis manned one of his boats, and explored several inlets or sounds, attended by fifty canoes of the natives, who eagerly assisted his people in climbing over the rocks. These savages appeared to be of the Tartar race. They were of good stature, well in body proportioned, with small slender hands and feet, with broad visages and small eyes, wide mouths, the most part unbearded, great lips, and close toothed.' They were idolaters, had store of images, and practised sorcery. After making a long oration, one of them proceeded to kindle a sacred fire. This priest took a piece of board wherein was a hole half through; into that hole he put the end of a round stick like a bedstaff; and whetting the end thereof in train and in fashion of a turner with a piece of leather, with this motion did very speedily produce fire.' This he then collected on dry turf, and added various other things to make a sacrifice, accompanied by many words and strange gestures. But Davis, to show his contempt of such witcheries, caused a sailor to kick the burning matter into the