Round About the North Pole

by W. J. Gordon

To complete the story. In 1861 (say three hundred years afterwards) Captain Hall—hearing among the Eskimos how numerous white men had arrived first in two, then three, then a great many ships, how they had killed several natives and taken away two, how five of the white men had been captured, and how these had built a large boat and put a mast in her and sailed away to death when the water was open—went to Kod-lun-arn (White Man's Island) and there found the house of lime and stone as described, and traces of the diggings, and many relics among which he made the collection presented by him to the British Government.

In the year 1583, when Sir Humphrey Gilbert, whose Discourse gave so great a stimulus to Arctic discovery, founded St. John's, Newfoundland—the first English colony in America—a patent was granted by Queen Elizabeth to his brother Adrian "of Sandridge in the county of Devon," as one of the colleagues of the Fellowship for the Discovery of the North-West Passage. At this Sandridge—on the east of the Dart, bounded on three sides by the river, some two miles above Dartmouth—was the home of the three Gilberts (John, Humphrey, and Adrian), whose mother by a second marriage became the mother of Carew and Walter Raleigh; and here, about 1550, of a family also owning property in the small peninsula, was born John Davis, as we know him, or John Davys, as he signed himself, who was probably a playmate, and certainly a life-long friend, of these five.

Davis was an accomplished seaman, the best of the Elizabethan navigators, and a man of accurate observation, always on the alert, whose reputation does not rest only on the work he did in the northern and other seas, for he was the author of The Seaman's Secrets, the most popular practical navigation treatise of its time. Very early, perhaps from the first, he was one of the moving spirits in this new north-west enterprise, for on the 23rd of January, 1583, we find Dr. Dee-who had helped to send Frobisher on his first voyage—making an entry in his journal that Mr. Secretary Walsingham had come to his house, where by good luck he found Mr. Adrian Gilbert, and so talk began on "the north-west straits discovery"; and, next day, "I, Mr. Awdrian Gilbert and John Davis, went by appointment to Mr. Beale, his howse, where only we four were secret, and we made Mr. Secretary privie of the N.W. Passage, and all charts and rutters were agreed upon in generall"—"rutter" being the French "routier," originating in Le Routier de la Mer, signifying a book of sea routes. Another important friend of Davis was William Sanderson, the representative of the merchants by whom the expenses of the voyage were borne, he being the chief subscriber. One of the ships, the Moonshine, seems to have belonged to him, and it was largely owing to his influence among the shareholders that Davis was appointed captain and chief pilot of the "exployt," in which he was to practically rediscover Greenland.

There were two vessels, the Sunshine of London, fifty-nine tons, with twenty-three persons on board, and the Moonshine of Dartmouth, thirty-five tons, with nineteen. They left Dartmouth on the 7th of June, 1585, but had to put in at Falmouth and then at the Scillies, where Davis occupied the twelve days he spent there in surveying and charting the islands. On the 20th of July they were sailing down the east coast of Greenland, and were so little attracted by it that Davis called it the Land of Desolation. Nine days afterwards he found a group of many pleasant green islands bordering on the shore, while the mountains of the mainland were still covered with snow, and here he landed on the west coast at Gilbert Sound, as he named it, near where Godthaab now is, and entered into communication with the natives.

A GREENLANDER IN HIS KAYAK

For such occasions, apparently, he had among the Sunshine people four described as musicians, whom, on sighting the Eskimos, he sent for. As soon as they arrived from the ship he ordered them to strike up a dancing tune, and to their merry music Davis and his men began to caper as if they were enjoying themselves immensely, while the lookers-on gradually increased in number. "At length," he says, "one of them poynting up to the sunne with his hande would presently strike his brest so hard that we might hear the blowe. This he did many times, before he would any way trust us. Then John Ellis the master of the Mooneshine, was appointed to use his best policie to gaine their friendshippe: who strooke his breast and poynted to the sunne after their order: which when he had diverse times done, they began to trust him, and one of them came on shoare, to whom we threwe our caps, stockings and gloves, and such other things as then we had about us, playing with our musicke, and making signes of joy, and dancing. So the night comming we bade them farewell, and went aboord our barks."

The next morning, being the 30th of July, thirty-seven canoes came up to the ships, their occupants calling to the English to come on shore. "Wee not making any great haste unto them, one of them went up to the top of the rocke, and lept and daunced as they had done the day before, shewing us a seales skinne, and another thing made like a timbrel, which he did beate upon with a sticke, making a noyse like a small drumme." Whereupon Davis manned his boats and went to the waterside where they were in their canoes, "and after we had sworne by the sunne after their fashion, they did trust us. So I shooke hands with one of them, and hee kissed my hand, and we were very familier with them. We bought five canoas of them, we bought their clothes from their backs, which were all made of seales skins and birdes skinnes: their buskins, their hose, their gloves, all being commonly sewed and well dressed: so that we were fully persuaded that they have divers artificers among them. Wee had a paire of buskins of them full of fine wooll like bever. Their apparell for heate, was made of bird skinnes with their feathers on them. We sawe among them leather dressed like glovers leather, and thicke thongs like white leather of a good length. Wee had of their darts and oares, and found in them that they would by no meanes displease us, but would give us whatsoever we asked of them and would be satisfied with whatsoever we gave them. They took great care one of an other: for when we had bought their boates, then two other woulde come and carie him away betweene them that had soulde us his." He describes them as "a very tractable people, voyde of craft or double dealing, and easie to be brought to civiltie or good order," the men of good stature, unbearded, small-eyed, "by whom, as signes would permit, we understood that towards the north and west there was a great sea."

During his stay among these islands he found considerable quantities of wood—fir, spruce, and juniper—which whether it came floating any great distance or grew in some island near he did not discover; but he thought it grew further inland because the people had so many darts and paddles which they held of little value and gave away for insignificant trifles. He also found "great abundance of seales" in shoals as if they were small fish; but saw no fresh water, only snow water in large pools, and he notes that the "cliffes were all of such oare as M. Frobisher brought from Meta Incognita."

Leaving the sound on the 1st of August he crossed the strait now named after him and reached land in 66° 40´. In water "altogether voyd from ye pester of ice" he anchored, "in a very fair rode, under a very brave mount, the cliffs whereof were as orient as gold." This mount he named Mount Raleigh, the roadstead he called Totnes Rode, the sound round the mount he named Exeter Sound, the foreland to the north he called Dyer's Cape, the southern foreland being named Cape Walsingham—all of which names remain. Here white bears were killed "of monstrous bignesse," a raven was descried upon Mount Raleigh, withies were found growing low like shrubs, and there were flowers like primroses, though there was no grass.