the land and along a continued field of ice, they came on the 17th to the land of Desolation, crossed over to Gilbert's Sound, the appointed rendezvous, where they remained. till the 31st, when hearing nothing of their consort, they departed for England, and the Sunshine arrived at Radcliffe on the 6th October: she had parted from the North Star in a great storm on the 3d September, the latter of which was never heard of more.

JOHN DAVIS-Third Voyage. 1587.

The second voyage of DAVIS had not been attended with any very encouraging circumstances to the adventurers; but this intrepid navigator writes to his patron Mr. W. Sanderson, on his arrival, in these terms: "I have now experience of much of the north-west part of the world, and have brought the passage to that likelihood, as that I am assured it must bee in one of foure places, or els not at all.". A third voyage was therefore determined on, and the Elizabeth of Dartmouth, the Sunshine of London, and the clincher Helena of London were appointed for this expedition. They sailed from Dartmouth on the 19th May, and on the 14th June descried the land, consisting of very high mountains covered with snow. It was composed of islands lying in lat. 64°.

On the 24th they had reached the lat. of 67°

40′ and saw great store of whales. On the 30th they had clear weather and found by observation that they were in 72° 12', and that the variation of the compass was 28° W. The land along which they had been running, and which was the west coast of Greenland, they named the London coast. At this high latitude, finding the sea all open to the westward and to the northward, and the wind shifting to the northward, they left that part of the shore, which they called Hope Sanderson and, shaping their course west, ran forty leagues in that direction without meeting with any land. On the 2d July, however, they fell in with a "mightie bank of ice" to the westward, among which they were hampered for eleven or twelve days. They then determined to get near the shore and wait five or six days "for the dissolving of the ice, hoping that the sea continually beating it, and the sunne with the extreme force of heat which it had always shining upon it, would make a quicke dispatch, that we might have a further search upon the westerne shore;" but they found the water too deep to come to an anchor, and either from 66 some fault in the barke or the set of some current," they were driven six points out of their course, and on the 19th were abreast of Mount Raleigh: from hence they stood sixty leagues up the strait discovered in the first voyage, (and which is now called Cumberland Strait,) and anchored among the islands at the bottom of the gulph, to

which they gave the name of the Earl of Cumberland's Isles. The variation of the compass was 30°. The air was extremely hot. They stood out from these islands to the south-east and passed an inlet between 63° and 62° of latitude, which they named Lumley's Inlet, and which is the strait discovered by Frobisher, and bearing his name. Passing a headland, which they called Warwick's Foreland, and crossing a great gulf, they fell in on the 1st August with the southernmost cape of the gulf, to which they gave the name of Cape Chidley, in 61° 10' lat. The strait therefore which bears the name of Hudson on all the charts was in fact discovered by Davis, but that in which he sailed to the highest point of northern latitude was very properly stamped with his name. On Lord Darcie's island they saw five deer, which took immediately to the sea on their landing; one of them is stated to be " as bigge as a good prety cow, and one very fat, their feet as bigge as oxe feet." From hence they shaped their course for England, where they arrived on the 15th September, 1587.

Mr. Davis, on his arrival at Dartmouth, writes thus to Mr. Sanderson :-"I have bene in 75°, finding the see all open, and forty leagues betweene land and land. The passage is most probable, the execution easie, as at my coming you shall fully knowe."

*Hakluyt's Voyages and Navigations.

It would appear, however, that Davis was unable to prevail on the merchant adventurers to continue what might hitherto be named fruitless expeditions; but that his zeal for discovery was unabated appears from a little treatise written and published by him eight years after his return from his third voyage.* In this work, addressed to the "lordes of her maiesties most honorable privie consayle," besides many ingenious arguments for the existence of a north-west passage, and the great advantages which England would derive from the discovery thereof, there is the following brief and comprehensive narrative of his own three

voyages.

"In my first voyage not experienced of the nature of those clymattes, and having no direction either by Chart, Globe or other certayne relation in what altitude that passage was to bee searched. I shaped a Northerly course and so sought the same towards the South, and in that my Northerly course I fell upon the shore which in ancient time was called Groynland fiue hundred leagues distant from the durseys West Nor West Northerly, the land being very high and full of mightie mountaines all couered with snow no viewe of wood grasse or earth to be scene, and the shore two

* The Worlde's Hydrographicall Discription, 1595. A very rare and curious little book; of which perhaps not three copies are in existence.

leages of into the sea so full of yse as that no shipping cold by any meanes come neere the same. The lothsome vewe of the shore, and irksome noyse of the yse was such as that it bred strange conceipts among us, so that we supposed the place to be wast and voyd of any sencible or vegitable creatures, wherupon I called the same Desolation so coasting this shore towardes the South in the latitude of sixtie degrees, I found it to trend towardes the west, I still followed the leading thereof in the same height, and after fiftie or sixtie leages, it fayled and lay directly north, which I still followed, and in thirtie leages sayling upon the West side of this coast by me named Desolation, we were past all the yse and found many greene and plesant Ills bordering upon the shore, but the mountains of the maine were still covered with great quantities of snowe, I brought my shippe among those ylls and there mored to refreshe our selves in our wearie travell, in the latitude of sixtie foure degrees or there about. The people of the country having espyed our shipps came down unto us in their canoes, holding up their right hand to the Sunne and crying Yliaout, would stricke their brestes, we doing the like the people came aborde our shippes, men of good stature, unbearded, small eyed and of tractable conditions whom as signes would permit, we understoode that towardes the North and West there was a great sea, and using the people with kindnesse in