In the spring of 1556, Stephen Burrough, afterwards chief pilot of England, fitted out the “Search-thrift” pinnace, and sailed away for the remote north. He discovered the strait leading into the sea of Kara, between Novaia Zemlaia and the island Waigatz; but he made up his mind to return, because, first, of the north winds, which blew continually; second, “the great and terrible abundance of ice which we saw with our eyes;” and third, because the nights waxed dark. He arrived at Archangel on September 11, wintered there, and returned to England in the following year. Twenty years later, on a bright May morning, Queen Elizabeth waved a farewell to Martin Frobisher and his gallant company, as they dropped down the Thames in two small barks, the _Gabriel_ and the _Michael_, each of thirty tons, together with a pinnace of ten tons. They gained the shores of Friesland on the 11th of July; and sailing to the south-west, reached Labrador. Then, striking northward, they discovered “a great gut, bay, or passage,” which they named Frobisher Strait (lat. 63° 8’ N.), and fell into the error of supposing that it connected the Atlantic Ocean with the Pacific. Here they came into contact with some Eskimos; and Frobisher describes them as “strange infidels, whose like was never seen, read, nor heard of before: with long black hair, broad faces and flat noses, and tawny in colour, wearing seal-skins, the women marked in the face with blue streaks down the cheeks, and round about the eyes.” Frobisher’s discoveries produced so great an impression on the public mind, that in the following year he was placed at the head of a larger expedition, in the hope that he would throw open to English enterprise the wealth of “far Cathay.” About the end of May 1577, he sailed from Gravesend with the _Ayde_ of one hundred tons, the _Gabriel_ of thirty, and the _Michael_ of thirty, carrying crews of ninety men in all, besides about thirty merchants, miners, refiners, and artisans. He returned in September with two hundred tons of what was supposed to be gold ore, and met with a warm reception. It was considered almost certain that he had fallen in with some portion of the Indian coast, and Queen Elizabeth, naming it _Meta Incognita_, resolved to establish there a colony. For this purpose, Frobisher was dispatched with fifteen well-equipped ships, three of which were to remain for a twelvemonth at the new settlement, while the others, taking on board a cargo of the precious ore, were to return to England.