After two days, Captain Baffin went on shore with his mathematical instruments, to take the height and distance of the castle wall so as to find the range “for the better levelling of his guns.” But while he was so engaged he was hit by a shot from the fort, and killed on the spot[91]. Baffin’s geographical discoveries were extensive and his scientific observations were not only valuable at the time but were of permanent use. Without his numerous magnetic observations Professor Hansteen could not have constructed his first magnetic chart. Baffin’s devoted zeal and untiring industry, his genius as an inventive observer, his gallantry and intrepidity, and his great services have secured for him a permanent and an honourable place among the naval worthies of the Elizabethan era, side by side with Frobisher and Davis. CHAPTER XVII JENS ERIKSEN MUNK. FOXE AND JAMES. WOOD Sir John Wolstenholme was one of the most persistent of the Merchant Adventurers and, after Baffin’s return, he fitted out a ship in 1619 for John Hawkridge, the friend of Button who had accompanied him on his voyage. But Hawkridge never got beyond the entrance to Hudson Strait. The sailor King of Denmark then resolved to have a turn at the North-west Passage and appointed Jens Eriksen Munk to command an expedition. The early adventures of this gallant Danish seaman are not without interest. His father had an estate at Barbo near Arendal in Norway, but the boy Jens was brought up by an aunt at Aalborg in Jutland from the time that he was nine years old. Three years later, in 1591, he was sent in charge of a Friesland skipper to England, and thence to Oporto to learn the language, in the employment of a Portuguese named Duarte Duez. Duez sent the boy at the age of 13 to his brother Miguel Duez at Bahia in Brazil. On his arrival young Munk found that Miguel Duez was gone, so the boy went on a returning ship to go home. The ship was attacked by a French privateer and sunk, only seven of the crew being saved, including the Danish boy. He was landed at Bahia destitute, and became a shoemaker’s apprentice for eleven, and a portrait painter’s boy for six months. At last Miguel Duez came back, and young Munk was with him for three years. In 1598 two Dutch vessels arrived, and the Spaniards on shore formed a plot to seize them. They were saved by the youthful Dane. Getting wind of the treachery, he swam off to the ships in the night, and warned them just in time. The Dutchmen were grateful, and enabled their saviour to return to Copenhagen. In 1601, Munk entered the service of a merchant named Hendrik Rommel, and made voyages to the Baltic ports and to Spain. He became a Captain in 1605 and made a voyage on his own account to Iceland for a cargo of sulphur, then to Archangel and Kolguev Island, where he was wrecked. In 1610 he made a voyage to Novaya Zemlya. In 1611 he received a commission as Captain in the Danish Royal Navy, and was in a naval action with the