Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality by Charles Morris
page 27 of 347 (07%)
page 27 of 347 (07%)
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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 porepis [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 Queens' 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 |
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