Orkneys, for in one of the islands they found a mine of silver. The vessels
only stayed there one day, however, and then put out to sea, now drifting
to the north and now to the west, as the wind shifted. They were
seventy-six days without sight of land, but they met on their way trunks of
trees, and monstrous fishes and fowls. At length the wind was prosperous,
and they came to Greenland, where the sea near the coast was again full of
drift ice. One day whilst they were cruising about here they dropped a hook
into the sea, and caught an enormous fish called a halibut, which is said
to have furnished a whole day's food for the ship's company. It must have
been a very large fish to have dined and supped 140 persons. All along the
dreary shores the only living creatures they saw were some little birds.
The weather, being very cold and stormy they made for Frobisher's Straits,
and came again to the smaller of Hall's Islands, where the ore had been
taken up the year before, but they only found this time one little piece.
On the large island, however, they found plenty of what they supposed to be
gold, and Frobisher, with forty gentlemen and soldiers, ascended a steep
hill, and planting a column or cross upon it, he sounded a trumpet, and
called the place Mount Warwick, after the good earl. Then they knelt down
in a ring, and said their prayers and thanksgivings. As they were going
back to their boats, they saw a number of savages making signs to them from
the top of the hill, as if they wished to be friendly, but Frobisher,
remembering the fate of the five mariners, did not feel inclined to trust
them, and he only held up two of his fingers to signify that two of their
men should advance towards two of his own. This was done, and then they
began to be more confident of each other's designs. The people here had a
very odd way of bartering their wares: they would bring sealskins and raw
flesh and lay them on the ground, and make signs that the strangers should
do the same with the things they meant to exchange. Then they went away,
and if they liked the toys and the beads they saw on the ground, they came
back in a little while and took them up, leaving their own wares behind
them; and if they did not like them, they gathered up their property and
departed.
After passing through many dangers and tempests Frobisher found a bay which
he thought would be a good harbour for his ships, and he landed with his
gold finers on a little island, where all the sands and cliffs glittered so
brightly, that they thought they had indeed come to a land of gold. But
when they tried it, to their great disappointment it turned out to be only
black-lead. In the same sound they came to a small island, to which they
gave the name of Smith's Island, because the smith belonging to the ship's
company first set up his forge there. Here they found a mine of silver, but
they had a great deal of trouble to get it out of the rocks.
Soon after this Frobisher marched upon the southern shore of the strait in
search of ore with all his best men, and when he had appointed leaders, and
told all those who were to follow them that they must be orderly and
persevering, he made every man kneel down and thank God that He had
preserved them hitherto from all dangers. Then, with a banner flying, they
marched towards the tops of the mountains, which were steep and very
difficult to ascend. The whole land was silent; not a human being was to be
seen, so they went back to their ships, and landed next on the northern
shore. Here they saw people, and found hidden under a stone such things as
kettles made of fish-skins, knives of bone, and bridles. One of the
savages took a bridle and caught with it a dog belonging to the strangers,
to show how dogs were used to draw the sledges.
Five leagues from Bear's Sound, Frobisher found a bay in which he could
anchor, near a small island, which he named after the Countess of Warwick,
and this was the farthest place he visited that year. There was plenty of
ore in it, and Frobisher set the miners to work, and worked hard himself
also, that he might encourage the others by his example. And he sent the
bark _Michael_, in which he had come to the island, for the _Aid_ and the
rest of his people. They were very much astonished to see on the mainland
the dwellings of the Esquimaux; these were holes in the ground, shaped like
an oven, and were usually made at the foot of a hill for shelter, and
opened towards the south. Above ground they built with whalebone, because
they had no timber, and covered in the roof of it with sealskins, and
strewed moss on the floor for a carpet. Travellers of more recent date
describe the huts of the Esquimaux, as the people in these northern regions
were called, as being made in the same manner. A winter hut is a hole
hollowed out in the earth or snow, like a cellar; a large piece of ice
serves for a door, and a lamp burns inside, where the family sleep on the
skins of seals and sea-dogs. Close by is a similar hole, where they eat the
flesh of whales, seals, and sea-dogs--and all of it raw. The mariners who
went with Frobisher tell how the savages ate ice when they were thirsty,
and could get no water. Their dogs were not unlike wolves, and were yoked
together to draw the sledges; the smaller ones they fattened and kept for
eating. Their weapons were made of bone, and their bow-strings of sinews;
they clothed themselves in the skins of seals and sea-dogs, and sometimes
even in garments made of feathers; for God, in His loving mercy, has given
the fowls thicker feathers than those of more southern latitudes, and the
animals warmer furs for the comfort of man, just as He has given luscious
fruits to refresh his parched lips in tropical countries, and gigantic
trees to shelter him from the intense heat of the sun.
A captive, who had been taken by some of the mariners, was shown a portrait
of the savage who had been enticed on board the _Gabriel_ the year before.
When he saw it, he began talking to it, and asking it questions, just as if
it had been really alive. He told the strangers by signs that he had
knowledge of the five men who were missing, and declared that they had not
been eaten up by the savages. It is supposed that they lived the rest of
their lives amongst the savages; and Frobisher determined, as he could find
no trace of them, that he would load his ships with the ore he had found,
and return to England. He was very proud when all the labour was brought to
an end, for with "five poor miners," and a few gentlemen and soldiers, they
had carried on board almost two hundred tons of ore in twenty days. On the
night of the 21st of August the whole company were ready to embark, and
glad they were to return, for they were very weary, and the water began to
freeze around their ships at night. The next day they took down their
tents, lighted bonfires on the highest hill, and having marched round the
island with their banner unfurled, they fired a volley of cannon in sign
of farewell, and after having encountered several storms on their voyage,
they reached Milford Haven about the end of September.
When Frobisher arrived in England he hastened to Windsor, where he was very
graciously received by Queen Elizabeth. A third expedition was planned for
the next spring, both to search for gold and to try and discover the
north-west passage. A strong fort was devised, the pieces of which were to
be carried in one of the ships, and put together when they arrived in the
new region, to which Queen Elizabeth gave the name of "Meta Incognita," or
"Unknown Land." The fort was intended for the people to dwell in, who were
to remain there during the winter, whilst twelve of the vessels out of the
fifteen that composed the fleet were to come home laden with ore--that is
to say, if it were to be found. All the captains bade the queen farewell at
Greenwich, and kissed her hand, and she gave to Frobisher "a chain of fair
gold," to show the delight she took in his enterprise. They left Harwich
for the third time on the 31st of May--Frobisher sailed in the _Aid_: the
strictest order was to be observed during the voyage; the whole company on
board were to serve God twice a day with the prayers of the Church of
England: the sailors were not allowed to swear, or to play at cards and
dice. Every evening all the fleet had to come up and speak with the
admiral, and the watchword, if any came up in the night, was this, "Before
the world was God." And the answer from the other vessel was, "After God,
came Jesus Christ His Son."
On the 20th of June, after having sailed fourteen days without sight of
land, they came, at two o'clock in the morning, to the west of Freeseland.
Frobisher took possession of it in the queen's name, calling it West
England, and gave the name of Charing Cross to one of its high cliffs. The
nights in the northern regions are never dark during the summer months. As
far north as the vessels sailed the sun does not set until after ten
o'clock, and it rises again before two, so that a great part of the night,
the sky is filled with the rosy flush of sunrise and sunset. Then, in the
winter, when the days are as short as the nights are in summer, because the
north part of the world is turned away from the sun, the moon and stars are
wondrously bright, and with the northern lights enliven the long dark
hours.
The savages in West Freeseland were like those in Meta Incognita; they were
very timid, and fled at the approach of the strangers, leaving all their
household goods behind them. Amongst these the mariners found some dried
herrings and a box of small nails, also some pieces of carved fir wood; but
for whatever they took they left pins, knives, or looking-glasses in
exchange.
From Freeseland they went towards Frobisher's Straits, and on the way one
of the ships, called the _Salamander_, struck a great whale such a blow
with her stern that she stood quite still. A horrible noise rose up from
the sea, and the next day the dead body of a whale was seen floating about.
One night the vessels entered somewhere inside the straits, and found the
whole place frozen into "walls, bulwarks, and mountains," which they could
not pass: they had to stem and strike the rocks of ice to make their way
at all. Some of the fleet, where they found the sea open, entered in, and
were in great danger.
The bark _Dennis_ struck against one of the rocks and sank within sight of
the fleet. In her distress she fired a gun, and happily the whole of her
crew were rescued in the boats that were sent to her aid. It was a great
misfortune, nevertheless, because part of the fort was on board, and was
thus lost. A violent wind from the south-east drove the ice on the backs of
the vessels. The mariners and miners had never witnessed such peril before,
and they were indeed in terrible plight, because they were shut in by
blocks of ice on all sides, and had to fix cables, beds, and planks around
their ships to protect them from them, or they would have been all cut to
pieces. Besides this they had to stand the whole night and the next day
beating it off with poles, pikes, and oars--Frobisher working hardest of
all, and cheering his men by his kind words, and his brave, steadfast
spirit. And those who were not strong enough to work prayed for the rest;
which the weak can always do, whilst stronger men are doing God's will by
helping their fellow-creatures; and prayer and work, blended in one, rise
up an acceptable offering to the Father in heaven.
Four of the vessels were out in the open sea, and during the storm the
mariners were in great alarm for the safety of those shut up in the ice,
and they too knelt praying for them around their mainmast. The wind at last
blew from the north-west, and dispersed the ice, and the second night the
ships in distress were seen of the four others. Then the whole fleet
veered off seaward, meaning to wait until the sun should melt the icebergs,
or the winds drive them quite away, and when they had got out far into the
sea, they took in their sails and lay adrift. On the 7th of July they
thought they saw the North Foreland of the straits, but there was a dense
fog at the time; and the snow often fell in flakes so that they could not
clearly see, although now and then the sun would shine on the vessels with
intense heat. Thus they were carried far out of the way, and the lands in
that region were so much alike that Frobisher took counsel with the
captains of the fleet, to determine what part they had reached.
The fogs lasted twenty days, and during that time they had indeed drifted
sixty leagues out of their way into unknown straits. Frobisher was very
anxious to recover the position he had lost, and as soon as he saw the ice
a little open he bravely led the way and anchored at last in the Countess
of Warwick's Sound. Just as he thought all peril was past, he met a great
iceberg, which forced the anchor through the ship's bows and made a breach.
Here they found, to their joy, two barks, which had been missing since the
night of their greatest danger: it was a joyful meeting, and a good man,
named Master Wolfall, who had left his living in his own country, and his
wife and children, in the hope of converting the heathens in the new land,
preached a sermon to the whole company, in which he told them to thank God
for their deliverance, and reminded them that they should ever watch and
pray, since none could tell how soon he might die.
Now that they were all assembled once more Frobisher lost no time, but set
at work at once to look for the ore. Gentlemen and soldiers, all helped the
miners in their labour, whilst the captains of the vessels sought out new
mines, and the gold finers made trial of the ore. But when they wanted to
raise the fort, so many parts of it had been destroyed in the storm that it
was no longer fitted for its object, and although one of the brave captains
wanted to remain there with only fifty men, it was found that a building
large enough to hold them all could not be raised before the winter set in.
The cold was now rapidly increasing; every night the ships' ropes were
frozen so that no man might handle them without cutting his hands; besides
this the vessels were leaky, and the ice at any moment might have blocked
them in altogether, when all on board must have perished.
Thus Frobisher was compelled to return to England without having found the
passage he had hoped all his life to discover. It is said that if he had
not had charge of the fleet, he would have sailed straight to the South
Sea, and thus pointed out a nearer route to China.
Before they left, they caused a house of lime and stone to be built, on the
Countess of Warwick's Island, which they hoped would remain standing until
the following year, and they left in it bells, pictures, looking-glasses,
whistles, and pipes for the delight of the savages, and an oven, with bread
baked in it, that they might taste it and see how it was made. Then they
sowed peas and corn, and various sorts of grain, to see if they would grow;
and they buried all the timber left of the fort, that it might be ready for
them to use if they came to the place again.
Whilst the ships were being laden with the ore, the admiral wanted to find
something else, and he went higher up the straits in a pinnace. It was then
that he discovered that the land on either side was not all firm as he had
imagined, but broken up into many islands.
On the voyage home some of the vessels got scattered during the violent
storms that arose, and they were kept long apart, but they all reached
England by October of the year 1578.
After this there is no account of Frobisher until he went in his ship the
_Aid_ on an expedition to the West Indies with Sir Francis Drake, and was
present at the taking and sacking of St. Domingo. When Philip II. of Spain
sent the Invincible Armada to invade England, the English fleet prepared to
resist it was divided into four squadrons, and Frobisher commanded one of
them in the ship called the _Triumph_. Lord Howard of Effingham, the Lord
High Admiral of the fleet, was a witness of his gallant conduct on that
occasion, and knighted him on board the _Triumph_ whilst the action was
going on. A little later he served under Sir Walter Raleigh in an
expedition directed towards the coasts of Spain. And in 1594 Queen
Elizabeth, having engaged to help King Henry the Fourth of France against
the Spaniards, he was sent with four vessels to protect the coasts of
Normandy and Bretagne from their attacks.
On being told that they had seized the Fort of Croysson, near Brest in
Bretagne, and that Sir John Norris was trying to regain it, he hastened to
land his troops and join the English and French. With the help he afforded
the fort was taken; and although he was wounded severely during the
assault, he brought back the fleet in safety to Plymouth.
Soon after he arrived, however, his wound proved mortal, through the
carelessness, as it is said, of his surgeon, and England lost the services
of one of her bravest and most faithful officers. His chroniclers say of
him that he was courageous, clever, upright, hasty, and severe. He was not
the less a hero because he did not succeed in his undertakings; his
attempts were made in an earnest and faithful spirit, and his example
served to encourage other men to embark in fresh voyages of discovery,
which proved more fortunate than his own.
It is said that some of the ore he brought home the third time did not
prove to be gold, and Queen Elizabeth therefore renounced the idea of a
fourth expedition.
In her wardrobe of jewels she preserved the bone of a strange fish, "like a
sea-unicorn," the mariners had found on their second voyage, embedded in
the ice. "The fish was twelve yards long," round like a porpoise, with a
bone of two yards growing out of the snout or nostrils.
SIR WALTER RALEIGH.
Sir Walter Raleigh, famed as a soldier, a sailor, an author, and a
courtier, was born in Devonshire, in the year 1552. His father, Walter
Raleigh, whose ancestors were known before the Conquest, had an estate near
Plymouth; his mother was Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Philip Camperdown. He
received the earlier part of his education at a school in the parish of
Budely; at the age of sixteen we find that he was a commoner at Oxford, and
already distinguished as an orator and a philosopher. A year later he went
as a volunteer with one of his relations to help the Protestants in France,
and afterwards served in the Netherlands under the Prince of Orange.
Raleigh had naturally a very active mind, and when he was not engaged in
war, he would be busily employed in planning expeditions to the New World,
some of which were carried out partly at his own expense. He had read the
voyages of Columbus and of Vasco de Gama with the deepest interest, and,
like many other ardent men of his time, desired earnestly to follow in the
path of those brave pioneers.
In the year 1580 he commanded the royal troops in Ireland at the time of
Desmond's rebellion. Philip II., to punish Elizabeth for having helped his
Flemish subjects, sent a number of Spaniards and Italians to join the
rebels. The Spanish general was besieged in a fort he had built at Kerry;
he was forced to surrender, and the enemies of Raleigh cast great blame on
him for the cruelties exercised towards the unhappy prisoners, whilst in
reality he was only carrying out the orders of Lord Grey, the deputy of
Ireland.
In a dispute he had with Lord Grey on his return to England, Raleigh
defended himself so cleverly, that he drew upon him the attention of the
queen; and an incident which occurred about this time served to bring him
into great favour at court.
The queen was out walking with some of her courtiers, and having come to a
muddy place, she paused, as if in doubt whether to cross it or not. Raleigh
was present, and he immediately threw off a beautiful new cloak he wore,
and spread it on the ground. The queen tripped lightly over it, much
pleased with the gallant action, which she never forgot.
Raleigh was of middle height; he had dark hair, and was said to have been
very handsome, although he had an exceedingly high forehead, and was
"long-faced and sour-lidded." His dress as he stood amongst the courtiers
would have consisted of a doublet of silk or satin fitting closely to the
body, with enormous silken or velvet hose, richly ornamented; a peaked hat,
and the cloak of gay hue, "fronted with gold and silver lace," would have
completed the costume. Raleigh was always richly attired; at one time of
his life he had a suit of armour composed of solid plates of silver, with
which he wore a belt adorned with precious stones; and Sir Walter Scott
describes a portrait he had seen of him which represented him clad in white
satin, with a chain of very large pearls hanging around his neck.
The queen in the course of time bestowed on him lands in Ireland, both in
the counties of Cork and Waterford. She also gave him an estate at
Sherborne, in Dorsetshire, where he laid out some beautiful gardens. He
asked so many favours for his friends, as well as for himself, that
Elizabeth once said to him soon after she had knighted him, "When shall you
cease to be a beggar, Sir Walter?"
"When your Majesty ceases to be benevolent," he replied.
The court life, however gay and pleasant, did not satisfy his eager spirit,
and he rejoiced very much when the queen granted him a patent for the
discovery and planting of new lands in America. For this purpose he fitted
out two small vessels, which reached the coast of Florida in the year 1585.
They sailed northward as far as an island called Roanoke, and found a tract
of land on the continent, to which Elizabeth gave the name of Virginia, but
it did not really become a flourishing colony until the reign of her
successor.
Raleigh, like many other noble-minded men of his time, bore a great hatred
to Spain on account of her tyrannies; and when the invincible Armada came
to invade England, he was amongst the bravest of those who fought for their
queen and their country. And the next year he held an important command
under Drake and Norris in an expedition to place Don Antonio on the throne
of Portugal.
When he returned to England, after having won great fame by his valour, he
found that the young Earl of Essex was rising rapidly in the queen's
favour. Much jealousy existed between these two courtiers; they were
constantly quarrelling, and the following incident will show how petty were
the means used by Essex to annoy his rival.
The nobles used to make a very splendid appearance at the jousts and
tournaments which were held on the queen's birthday, and on one of these
occasions Raleigh took it into his head to accoutre all his followers in
orange-coloured plumes. Essex hearing of this, got together a much more
numerous cavalcade, decked all in the colour chosen by Raleigh, and
appeared at the head of his followers dressed in a complete suit of
orange-colour, so that when he entered the tilt-yard in sight of Elizabeth,
the followers of his rival only looked "like so many appendages to his own
train."[23] Raleigh once set out at the head of a fleet with two of the
queen's ships, and had the good fortune to capture a Portuguese vessel
which had a very rich cargo. It was in the year 1595 that he sailed with
five vessels for the discovery and conquest of Guiana,[24] a country of
South America, which was called "El Dorado," on account of the gold mines
it was supposed to contain. This was an enterprise he had planned during
some months that he had been living in retirement at Sherborne, having
incurred the displeasure of the queen. First of all he had sent out a
captain to the spot, who made a favourable report of his voyage when he
returned home. So Raleigh put out to sea and landed in the island of
Trinidad, where he burnt the fort of Saint Joseph, which had been lately
constructed by the Spaniards, and took Don Antonio, the Spanish governor,
prisoner. He treated Antonio very kindly, and gained from him some valuable
information in reference to the country he desired to explore. He was now
very eager to set out on his enterprise, and liked the idea of it all the
better because it would undoubtedly be attended with danger. He left his
ships at Cariapan, in Trinidad, and sailed with a hundred men in several
small barks to find "the golden land." And before he returned to England he
had sailed 400 miles up the river Orinoco, which flows through Guiana, thus
being the first Englishman who had ventured in that direction.
Sir Walter Raleigh wrote some strange accounts of the people he found in
the new country. Those that inhabited the mouth of the Orinoco upon the
northern branches of the river were called "Tissitinas;" they were very
brave, and talked slowly and sensibly. In dry weather they had their
dwellings on the ground like most other people, but between May and
September the Orinoco rising thirty feet and overflowing the broken land,
they lived up in the trees, as Columbus had already found men living in
other parts a century before. They never eat anything that was planted or
sown, and for bread they used the tops of the palmitos.[25] The people
dwelling on the branches of the Orinoco called Capuri, and Macureo, were
skilful makers of canoes, and sold them for gold and tobacco. When their
chief, or king, died, they had the strange custom of keeping his body until
all the flesh fell off its bones, and then they adorned the skull with
gay-coloured feathers, and the limbs with gold plates, and hung up the
skeleton in the house the chief had dwelt in when alive. The more gentle
natives used to make war on the cannibals, but all tribes were at peace
with one another, and held the Spaniards for their common enemy when the
English appeared amongst them.
Sometimes the adventurers suffered greatly from thirst and from the
excessive heat of the climate, since Guiana lies all in the torrid zone,
the hottest part of the earth. In one district they passed through, which
was low and marshy, the water that issued out of the boggy ground was
almost red, and they could only fill their waterpots with it about noon,
for if they filled them at morning or evening, it was as bad to drink as
poison, and at night it was worst of all. The wine that was used in some
parts was very strong; it was made of the juice of different fruits and
herbs, and highly seasoned with pepper. The natives kept it in great
earthen pots, which held ten or twelve gallons each.