Voyages in Search of the North-West PassageHakluyt, Richard
History
Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage
Hakluyt, Richard
Arctic regions -- Discovery and exploration; Northwest Passage; Voyages and travels
The sixth day it cleared, and we ran north-west into the shore to get a
harbour, and being towards night, we notwithstanding kept at sea.
The seventh day we plied room with the shore, but being near it it waxed
thick, and we bare off again.
The eighth day we bended in towards the shore again.
The ninth day we sounded, but could get no ground at 130 fathoms. The
weather was calm.
The tenth I took four men and myself, and rode to shore, to an island one
league from the main, and there the flood setteth south-west along the
shore, and it floweth as near as I could judge so too. I could not tarry
to prove it, because the ship was a great way from me, and I feared a
fog; but when I came ashore it was low water. I went to the top of the
islands and before I came back it was hied a foot water, and so without
tarrying I came aboard.
The eleventh we found our latitude to be 63 degrees and 8 minutes, and
this day entered the strait.
The twelfth we set sail towards an island called the Gabriel's Island,
which was 10 leagues then from us.
We espied a sound, and bare with it, and came to a sandy bay, where we
came to an anchor, the land bearing east-south-east of us, and there we
rode all night in 8 fathom water. It floweth there at a south-east moon;
we called it Prior's Sound, being from the Gabriel's Island 10 leagues.
The fourteenth we weighed and ran into another sound, where we anchored
in 8 fathoms water, fair sand, and black ooze, and there caulked our
ship, being weak from the gunwales upward, and took in fresh water.
The fifteenth day we weighed, and sailed to Prior's Bay, being a mile
from thence.
The sixteenth day was calm, and we rode still without ice, but presently
within two hours it was frozen round about the ship, a quarter of an inch
thick, and that bay very fair and calm.
The seventeenth day we weighed, and came to Thomas William's Island.
The eighteenth day we sailed north-north-west and anchored again in 23
fathoms, and caught ooze under Bircher's Island, which is from the former
island 10 leagues.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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