Hardly had it been learned that Columbus was mistaken in his
belief, and that the shores he had discovered were not those
of India and Cathay, when vigorous efforts began to find
some easy route to the rich lands of the Orient. Balboa, in
1513, crossed the continent at its narrow neck, and gazed,
with astounded eyes, upon the mighty ocean that lay
beyond,--the world's greatest sea. Magellan, in 1520, sailed
round the continent at its southern extremity, and turned
his daring prows into that world of waters of seemingly
illimitable width. But the route thus laid out was far too
long for the feeble commerce of that early day, and various
efforts were made to pass the line of the continent at some
northern point. The great rivers of North America, the
James, the Hudson, and others, were explored in the eager
hope that they might prove to be liquid canals between the
two great seas. But a more promising hope was that which
hinted that America might be circumnavigated at the north as
well as at the south, and the Pacific be reached by way of
the icy channel of the northern seas.
This hope, born so long ago, has but died out in our own
days. Much of the most thrilling literature of adventure of
the nineteenth century comes from the persistent efforts to
traverse these perilous Arctic ocean wastes. Let us go back
to the oldest of the daring navigators of this frozen sea,
the worthy knight Sir Martin Frobisher, and tell the story
of his notable efforts to discover a Northwest Passage, "the
only thing left undone," as he quaintly says, "whereby a
notable mind might become famous and fortunate."
As an interesting preface to our story we may quote from
that curious old tome, "Purchas his Pilgrimage," the
following quaintly imaginative passage,--
"How shall I admire your valor and courage, yee Marine
Worthies, beyond all names of worthinesse; that neither
dread so long either presense nor absence of the Sunne, nor
those foggie mists, tempestuous windes, cold blasts, snowes
and haile in the aire; nor the unequal Seas, where the
Tritons and Neptune's selfe would quake with chilling feare
to behold such monstrous Icie Islands, mustering themselves
in those watery plaines, where they hold a continuall civill
warre, rushing one upon another, making windes and waves
give back; nor the rigid, ragged face of the broken landes,
sometimes towering themselves to a loftie height, to see if
they can finde refuge from those snowes and colds that
continually beat them, sometimes hiding themselves under
some hollow hills or cliffes, sometimes sinking and
shrinking into valleys, looking pale with snowes and falling
in frozen and dead swounes: sometimes breaking their neckes
into the sea, rather embracing the waters' than the aires'
crueltie," and so on with the like labored fancies. "Great
God," he concludes, "to whom all names of greatnesse are
little, and lesse than nothing, let me in silence admire thy
greatnesse, that in this little heart of man (not able to
serve a Kite for a break-fast) hast placed such greatness of
spirit as the world is too little to fill."
Thus in long-winded meed of praise writes Master Samuel
Purchas. Of those bold mariners of whom he speaks our worthy
knight, Sir Martin, is one of the first and far from the
least.
An effort had been made to discover a northwest passage to
the Pacific as early as 1527, and another nine years later;
but these were feeble attempts, which ended in failure and
disaster, and discovered nothing worthy of record. It was in
1576 that Frobisher, one of the most renowned navigators of
his day, put into effect the project he had cherished from
his youth upward, and for which he had sought aid during
fifteen weary years, that of endeavoring to solve the
ice-locked secret of the Arctic seas.
The fleet with which this daring adventure was undertaken
was a strangely insignificant one, consisting of three
vessels which were even less in size than those with which
Columbus had ventured on his great voyage. Two of these were
but of twenty tons burden each, and the third only of ten,
while the aggregate crews numbered but thirty-five men. With
this tiny squadron, less in size than a trio of
fishing-smacks, the daring adventurer set out to traverse
the northern seas and face the waves of the great Pacific,
if fortune should open to him its gates.
On the 11th of July, 1576, the southern extremity of
Greenland was sighted. It presented a more icy aspect than
that which the Norsemen had seen nearly six centuries
before. Sailing thence westward, the land of the continent
came into view, and for the first time by modern Europeans
was seen that strange race, now so well known under the name
of Eskimo. The characteristics of this people, and the
conditions of their life, are plainly described. The captain
"went on shore, and was encountered with mightie Deere,
which ranne at him, with danger of his life. Here he had
sight of the Savages, which rowed to his Shippe in Boates of
Seales Skinnes, with a Keele of wood within them. They eate
raw Flesh and Fish, or rather devoured the same: they had
long black hayre, broad faces, flat noses, tawnie of color,
or like an Olive."
His first voyage went not beyond this point. He returned
home, having lost five of his men, who were carried off by
the natives. But he brought with him that which was sure to
pave the way to future voyages. This was a piece of
glittering stone, which the ignorant goldsmiths of London
confidently declared to be ore of gold.
Frobisher's first voyage had been delayed by the great
difficulty in obtaining aid. For his new project assistance
was freely offered, Queen Elizabeth herself, moved by hope
of treasure, coming to his help with a hundred and
eighty-ton craft, the "Ayde," to which two smaller vessels
were added. These being provisioned and manned, the bold
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
belonged to the men they had lost the year before. To
rescue or revenge these unfortunates, Frobisher attacked the
natives, who valiantly resisted, even plucking the arrows
from their bodies to use as missiles, and, when mortally
hurt, flinging themselves from the rocks into the sea. At
length they gave ground, and fled to the loftier cliffs,
leaving two of their women as trophies to the assailants.
These two, one "being olde," says the record, "the other
encombred with a yong childe, we took. The olde wretch, whom
divers of our Saylors supposed to be eyther the Divell, or a
witch, had her buskins plucked off, to see if she were
cloven-footed; and for her ougly hewe and deformitie, we let
her goe; the young woman and the childe we brought away."
This was not the last of their encounters with the Eskimos,
who, incensed against them, made every effort to entrap them
into their power. Their stratagems consisted in placing
tempting pieces of meat at points near which they lay in
ambush, and in pretending lameness to decoy the Englishmen
into pursuit. These schemes failing, they made a furious
assault upon the vessel with arrows and other missiles.
Before the strait could be fully traversed, ice had formed
so thickly that further progress was stopped, and, leaving
the hoped-for Cathay for future voyagers, the mariners
turned their prows homeward, their vessels laden with two
hundred tons of the glittering stone.
Strangely enough, an examination of this material failed to
dispel the delusion. The scientists of that day declared
that it was genuine gold-ore, and expressed their belief
that the road to China lay through Frobisher Strait. Untold
wealth, far surpassing that which the Spaniards had obtained
in Mexico and Peru, seemed ready to shower into England's
coffers. Frobisher was now given the proud honor of kissing
the queen's hand, his neck was encircled with a chain of
gold of more value than his entire two hundred tons of ore,
and, with a fleet of fifteen ships, one of them of four
hundred tons, he set sail again for the land of golden
promise. Of the things that happened to him in this voyage,
one of the most curious is thus related. "The Salamander
(one of their Shippes), being under both her Courses and
Bonets, happened to strike upon a great Whale, with her full
Stemme, with suche a blow that the Shippe stood still, and
neither stirred backward or forward. The whale thereat made
a great and hideous noyse, and casting up his body and
tayle, presently sank under water. Within two days they
found a whale dead, which they supposed was this which the
Salamander had stricken."
Other peril came to the fleet from icebergs, through the
midst of which they were driven by a tempest, but they
finally made their way into what is now known as Hudson
Strait, up which, filled with hope that the continental
limits would quickly be passed and the route to China open
before them, they sailed some sixty miles. But to their
disappointment they found that they were being turned
southward, and, instead of crossing the continent, were
descending into its heart.
Reluctantly Frobisher turned back, and, after many
buffetings from the storms, managed to bring part of his
fleet into Frobisher Bay. So much time had been lost that it
was not safe to proceed. Winter might surprise them in those
icy wilds. Therefore, shipping immense quantities of the
"fools' gold" which had led them so sadly astray, they
turned their prows once more homeward, reaching England's
shores in early October.
Meanwhile the "ore" had been found to be absolutely
worthless, the golden dreams which had roused England to
exultation had faded away, and the new ship-loads they
brought were esteemed to be hardly worth their weight as
ballast. For this disappointment the unlucky Frobisher, who
had been appointed High Admiral of all lands and waters
which he might discover, could not be held to blame. It was
not he that had pronounced the worthless pyrites gold, and
he had but obeyed orders in bringing new cargoes of this
useless rubbish to add to the weight of Albion's rock-bound
shores. But he could not obtain aid for a new voyage to the
icy north, England for the time had lost all interest in
that unpromising region, and Frobisher was forced to employ
in other directions his skill in seamanship.
With the after-career of this unsuccessful searcher for the
Northwest Passage we have no concern. It will suffice to say
that fortune attended his later ventures upon the seas, and
that he died in 1594, from a wound which he received in a
naval battle off the coast of France.