1576.] The Discovery of Meta Incognita. 129 Thus Frobisher was left alone with the Gabriel, with eighteen mariners and gentlemen on board. In no way daunted, though his own little ship had been seriously injured, he continued his voyage. On the 21st of July he reached the group of islands lying westward of what is now called Davis's Straits. These he supposed to be a part of Labrador, and he named the one which he first saw Queen Elizabeth's Foreland. Deterred by fogs and snow-covered rocks from landing, he sailed up and down the coast, hoping to meet with a suitable harbour in which to land and repair his ship. At last, after several days' searching, he found a resting-place on an island which he called Hall's Island, in honour of the master of the Gabriel, who, in a rowing-boat, with four sailors, first made a landing on it on the 1st of August. Thence he sailed into the more southern of the two bays in Cumberland Island. To this bay he gave the name, still borne by it, of Frobisher's Straits. Through it he supposed that he could easily proceed to the other side of America. On his first voyage, however, he only explored some of the islands and part of the northern coast-line near the entrance to the Straits. All this neighbourhood was afterwards called Meta Incognita. One of the voyagers has given a lively description of Frobisher's experiences. "He saw mighty deer which seemed to be man-kind, which ran at him, and hardly he escaped with his life in a narrow way, where he was fain to use defence and policy to save his life. In this place he saw and perceived sundry tokens of the people's resorting thither. And being ashore upon the VOL. I. K top of a hill, he perceived a number of small things fleeting in the sea afar off, which he supposed to be porpoises or seals, or some kind of strange fish; but coming nearer, he discovered them to be men in small boats made of leather. And before he could descend from the hill, certain of those people had almost cut off his boat from him, having stolen secretly behind the rocks for that purpose: whereupon he speedily hasted to his boat, and went himself to his halberd, and narrowly escaped the danger and saved his boat. Afterwards he had sundry conferences with them, and they came aboard his ship, and brought him salmon and raw flesh and fish, and greedily devoured the same before our men's faces. And to show their agility, they tried many masteries upon the ropes of the ship after our mariners' fashion, and appeared to be very strong of their arms and nimble of their bodies. They exchanged coats of seals and bear-skins and such like with our men, and received bells, looking-glasses, and other toys, in recompense thereof again." Chiefly in hopes of finding the passage to Cathay, which he believed to be within his reach, and partly also that he might fully explore the district at which he had arrived, Frobisher made several little expeditions in the neighbourhood, sometimes in the Gabriel, sometimes in a rowing-boat. He observed many small islands, and landed upon a few of them. places he saw huts and signs of human life, but no actual residents. In others he met with men "of a nature given to fierceness and rapine." In others the In some 1576.] His Observations in Meta Incognita. 131 natives treated him kindly, and seemed anxious to have intercourse with him and to understand the wonderful circumstances of civilization that he brought within their reach. But concerning all of them it was reported that "their manner of life and food is very beastly." "They be like to Tartars, with long black hair, broad faces and flat noses, and tawny in colour, wearing sealskins; and so do the women, not differing in fashion; but the women are marked in the face with blue streaks down the cheeks, and round about the eyes. Their boats are made all of seal-skins, with a keel of wood within the skin. The proportion of them is like a Spanish shallop, save only they be flat in the bottom and sharp at both ends." In these investigations three weeks were profitably spent. But on the 20th of August occurred a terrible disaster. One of the Esquimaux having been brought on board the Gabriel, Frobisher gave him a bell and a knife, and then sent him ashore in the ship's boat, with five men to manage it. These five men, anxious to make a little exploration on their own account, disobeyed orders and rowed out of sight. They never returned. After waiting for them all that day, Frobisher spent the four following days in coasting the shore in the direction which they were supposed to have taken, blowing a trumpet and firing guns to let them know he was in search of them. Then, feeling persuaded that they had been murdered by the natives, and being convinced that it would be impossible for him to pursue his voyage with only the thirteen men and boys that |