The reports given by Davis respecting the vast number of whales and seals observed, and the peltries to be obtained from the Esquimaux, aroused the enterprise of the merchants, and several persons in Exeter and other parts of the West of England combined to add a trading vessel, the _Mermaid_, of one hundred and twenty tons, to those which had been employed the previous season. Davis again reached the west coast of Greenland, where much intercourse was held with the natives, who came off to the vessels sometimes in as many as one “hundred canoes at a time ... bringing with them seale skinnes, stagge skinnes, white hares, seale fish, samon peale, smal cod, dry caplin, with other fish, and birds such as the country did yield.” The natives do not seem to have made quite so favourable an impression as on the former occasion, and were described as thievish and mischievous, prone to steal everything on which they could lay their hands. After some remarks on their diet, we are gravely informed that they “drink salt water,” and eat grass and ice as luxuries. They were found to be extremely nimble and strong, and fond of leaping and wrestling, in which they beat the best of the crew, who were west-country wrestlers. In the middle of July the adventurous navigators were alarmed at the appearance of a most “mighty and strange quantity of yce in one entire masse,” so large that Davis was afraid to mention its dimensions, lest he should not be believed. The same modesty and diffidence has not been observed, to any marked degree, in the narratives of most modern voyagers and travellers! They coasted the ice till the end of July, and the cold was so severe, even in this month, that the shrouds, ropes, and sails were frozen, and the air was loaded with a thick fog. Sickness prevailed among the men, and they commenced to murmur. They “advised their captain, through his overboldness, not to leave their widows and fatherless children to give him bitter curses.” He therefore left the _Mermaid_ to remain where she was, in readiness to return, while with the _Moonshine_ he would proceed round the ice. Davis made several discoveries of some geographical importance, and thought that off the Labrador coast, in latitude 54° N., he had actually discovered the opening to the north-west passage. Two of his vessels, the _Sunshine_ and _North Star_, had been despatched previously to seek a passage northward, between Greenland and Iceland, as far as latitude 80°. They proceeded some little distance north, being much hampered by the ice, but in effect accomplished nothing. The latter vessel was lost on the passage home.