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our own days. Much of the most thrilling literature of adventure of the nineteenth century comes from the persistent efforts to traverse these perilous Arctic ocean wastes. Let us go back to the oldest of the daring navigators of this frozen sea, the worthy knight Sir Martin Frobisher, and tell the story of his notable efforts to discover a Northwest Passage, "the only thing left undone," as he quaintly says, "whereby a notable mind might become famous and fortunate."

As an interesting preface to our story we may quote from that curious old tome, "Purchas his Pilgrimage," the following quaintly imaginative passage,

"How shall I admire your valor and courage, yee Marine Worthies, beyond all names of worthinesse ; that neither dread so long either presense nor absence of the Sunne, nor those foggie mists, tempestuous windes, cold blasts, snowes and haile in the aire; nor the unequal Seas, where the Tritons and Neptune's selfe would quake with chilling feare to behold such monstrous Icie Islands, mustering themselves in those watery plaines, where they hold a continuall civil warre, rushing one upon another, making windes and waves give back; nor the rigid, ragged face of the broken landes, sometimes towering themselves to a loftie height, to see if they can finde refuge from those snowes and colds that continually beat them, sometimes hiding themselves under some hollow hills or cliffes, sometimes sinking and shrinking into valleys, looking pale with snowes, and falling in frozen and dead swounes;

sometimes breaking their neckes into the sea, rather embracing the waters' than the aires' crueltie," and so on with the like labored fancies. "Great God,"

he concludes, "to whom all names of greatnesse are little, and lesse than nothing, let me in silence admire thy greatnesse, that in this little heart of man (not able to serve a Kite for a break-fast) hast placed such greatness of spirit as the world is too little to fill."

Thus in long-winded meed of praise writes Master Samuel Purchas. Of those bold mariners of whom he speaks our worthy knight, Sir Martin, is one of the first and far from the least.

An effort had been made to discover a northwest passage to the Pacific as early as 1527, and another nine years later; but these were feeble attempts, which ended in failure and disaster, and discovered nothing worthy of record. It was in 1576 that Frobisher, one of the most renowned navigators of his day, put into effect the project he had cherished from his youth upward, and for which he had sought aid during fifteen weary years, that of endeavoring to solve the ice-locked secret of the Arctic seas.

The fleet with which this daring adventure was undertaken was a strangely insignificant one, consisting of three vessels which were even less in size than those with which Columbus had ventured on his great voyage. Two of these were but of twenty tons burden each, and the third only of ten, while the aggregate crews numbered but thirty-five men. With this tiny squadron, less in size than a trio of fishing-smacks, the daring adventurer set out to

traverse the northern seas and face the waves of the great Pacific, if fortune should open to him its gates.

On the 11th of July, 1576, the southern extremity of Greenland was sighted. It presented a more icy aspect than that which the Norsemen had seen nearly six centuries before. Sailing thence westward, the land of the continent came into view, and for the first time by modern Europeans was seen that strange race, now so well known under the name of Eskimo. The characteristics of this people, and the conditions of their life, are plainly described. The captain "went on shore, and was encountered with mightie Deere, which ranne at him, with danger of his life. Here he had sight of the Savages, which rowed to his Shippe in Boates of Seales Skinnes, with a Keele of wood within them. They eate raw Flesh and Fish, or rather devoured the same: they had long black hayre, broad faces, flat noses, tawnie of color, or like an Olive."

His first voyage went not beyond this point. He returned home, having lost five of his men, who were carried off by the natives. But he brought with him that which was sure to pave the way to future voyages. This was a piece of glittering stone, which the ignorant goldsmiths of London confidently declared to be ore of gold.

Frobisher's first voyage had been delayed by the great difficulty in obtaining aid. For his new project assistance was freely offered, Queen Elizabeth herself, moved by hope of treasure, coming to his help with a hundred and eighty-ton craft, the "Ayde," to which two smaller vessels were added. These

being provisioned and manned, the bold navigator, with "a merrie wind" in his sails, set out again for the desolate north.

His first discovery here was of the strait now known by his name, up which he passed in a boat, with the mistaken notion in his mind that the land bounding the strait to the south was America, and that to the north was Asia. The natives proved friendly, but Frobisher soon succeeded in making them hostile. He seized some of them and attempted to drag them to his boat, "that he might conciliate them by presents." The Eskimos, however, did not approve of this forcible method of conciliation, and the unwise knight reached the boat alone, with an arrow in his leg.

But, to their great joy, the mariners found plenty of the shining yellow stones, and stowed abundance of them on their ships, deeming, like certain Virginian gold-seekers of a later date, that their fortunes were now surely made. They found also "a great dead fish, round like a porcpis [porpoise], twelve feet long, having a Horne of two yardes, lacking two ynches, growing out of the Snout, wreathed and straight, like a Waxe-Taper, and might be thought to be a Sea-Unicorne. It was reserved as a Jewell by the Queen's commandment in her Wardrobe of Robes."

A northwest wind having cleared the strait of ice, the navigators sailed gayly forward, full of the belief that the Pacific would soon open to their eyes. It was not long before they were in battle with the Eskimos. They had found European articles in some

native kyacks, which they supposed belonged to the men they had lost the year before. To rescue or revenge these unfortunates, Frobisher attacked the natives, who valiantly resisted, even plucking the arrows from their bodies to use as missiles, and, when mortally hurt, flinging themselves from the rocks into the sea. At length they gave ground, and fled to the loftier cliffs, leaving two of their women as trophies to the assailants. These two, one "being olde," says the record, "the other encombred with a yong childe, we took. The olde wretch, whom divers of our Saylors supposed to be eyther the Divell, or a witch, had her buskins plucked off, to seo if she were cloven-footed; and for her ougly hewe and deformitie, we let her goe; the young woman and the childe we brought away."

This was not the last of their encounters with the Eskimos, who, incensed against them, made every effort to entrap them into their power. Their stratagems consisted in placing tempting pieces of meat at points near which they lay in ambush, and in pretending lameness to decoy the Englishmen into pursuit. These schemes failing, they made a furious assault upon the vessel with arrows and other missiles.

Before the strait could be fully traversed, ice had formed so thickly that further progress was stopped, and, leaving the hoped-for Cathay for future voyagers, the mariners turned their prows homeward, their vessels laden with two hundred tons of the glittering stone.

Strangely enough, an examination of this material failed to dispel the delusion. The scientists of that

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