Upon Which Considerations The Day And Year Before Expressed, He
Departed From Blackwall To Harwich, Where Making An Accomplishment
Of
Things necessary, the last of May we hoisted up sails, and with a
merry wind the 7th of June we
Arrived at the islands called
Orchades, or vulgarly Orkney, being in number thirty, subject and
adjacent to Scotland, where we made provision of fresh water, in the
doing whereof our general licensed the gentlemen and soldiers, for
their recreation, to go on shore. At our landing the people fled
from their poor cottages with shrieks and alarms, to warn their
neighbours of enemies, but by gentle persuasions we reclaimed them
to their houses. It seemeth they are often frighted with pirates,
or some other enemies, that move them to such sudden fear. Their
houses are very simply builded with pebble stone, without any
chimneys, the fire being made in the midst thereof. The good man,
wife, children, and other of their family, eat and sleep on the one
side of the house, and their cattle on the other, very beastly and
rudely in respect of civilisation. They are destitute of wood,
their fire is turf and cow shardes. They have corn, bigge, and
oats, with which they pay their king's rent to the maintenance of
his house. They take great quantity of fish, which they dry in the
wind and sun; they dress their meat very filthily, and eat it
without salt. Their apparel is after the nudest sort of Scotland.
Their money is all base. Their Church and religion is reformed
according to the Scots. The fishermen of England can better declare
the dispositions of those people than I, wherefore I remit other
their usages to their reports, as yearly repairers thither in their
courses to and from Iceland for fish.
We departed here hence the 8th of June, and followed our course
between west and north-west until the 4th of July, all which time we
had no night, but that easily, and without any impediment, we had,
when we were so disposed, the fruition of our books, and other
pleasures to pass away the time, a thing of no small moment to such
as wander in unknown seas and long navigations, especially when both
the winds and raging surges do pass their common and wonted course.
This benefit endureth in those parts not six weeks, whilst the sun
is near the tropic of Cancer, but where the pole is raised to 70 or
80 degrees it continueth the longer.
All along these seas, after we were six days sailing from Orkney, we
met, floating in the sea, great fir trees, which, as we judged,
were, with the fury of great floods, rooted up, and so driven into
the sea. Iceland hath almost no other wood nor fuel but such as
they take up upon their coasts. It seemeth that these trees are
driven from some part of the Newfoundland, with the current that
setteth from the west to the east.
The 4th of July we came within the making of Friesland. From this
shore, ten or twelve leagues, we met great islands of ice of half a
mile, some more, some less in compass, showing above the sea thirty
or forty fathoms, and as we supposed fast on ground, where, with our
lead, we could scarce sound the bottom for depth.
Here, in place of odoriferous and fragrant smells of sweet gums and
pleasant notes of musical birds, which other countries in more
temperate zones do yield, we tasted the most boisterous Boreal
blasts, mixed with snow and hail, in the months of June and July,
nothing inferior to our untemperate winter: a sudden alteration,
and especially in a place of parallel, where the pole is not
elevated above 61 degrees, at which height other countries more to
the north, yea unto 70 degrees, show themselves more temperate than
this doth. All along this coast ice lieth as a continual bulwark,
and so defendeth the country, that those which would land there
incur great danger. Our general, three days together, attempted
with the ship boat to have gone on shore, which, for that without
great danger he could not accomplish, he deferred it until a more
convenient time. All along the coast lie very high mountains,
covered with snow, except in such places where, through the
steepness of the mountains, of force it must needs fall. Four days
coasting along this land we found no sign of habitation. Little
birds which we judged to have lost the shore, by reason of thick
fogs which that country is much subject unto, came flying to our
ships, which causeth us to suppose that the country is both more
tolerable and also habitable within than the outward shore maketh
show or signification.
From hence we departed the 8th of July, and the 16th of the same we
came with the making of land, which land our general the year before
had named the Queen's Forehand, being an island, as we judge, lying
near the supposed continent with America, and on the other side,
opposite to the same, one other island, called Halles Isle, after
the name of the master of the ship, near adjacent to the firm land,
supposed continent with Asia. Between the which two islands there
is a large entrance or strait, called Frobisher's Strait, after the
name of our general, the first finder thereof. This said strait is
supposed to have passage into the sea of Sur, which I leave unknown
as yet.
It seemeth that either here, or not far hence, the sea should have
more large entrance than in other parts within the frozen or
untemperate zone, and that some contrary tide, either from the east
or west, with main force casteth out that great quantity of ice
which cometh floating from this coast, even unto Friesland, causing
that country to seem more untemperate than others much more
northerly than the same.
I cannot judge that any temperature under the Pole, being the time
of the Sun's northern declination, half a year together, and one
whole day (considering that the sun's elevation surmounteth not
twenty-three degrees and thirty minutes), can have power to dissolve
such monstrous and huge ice, comparable to great mountains, except
by some other force, as by swift currents and tides, with the help
of the said day of half a year.
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