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
This land is nothing in sight but isles, which increaseth our hope. This
19th of August, at six o'clock in the afternoon, it began to snow, and so
continued all night, with foul weather and much wind, so that we were
constrained to lie at hull all night, five leagues off the shore: in the
morning, being the 20th of August, the fog and storm breaking up, we bore
in with the land, and at nine o'clock in the morning we anchored in a
very fair and safe road and locket for all weathers. At ten o'clock I
went on shore to the top of a very high hill, where I perceived that this
land was islands; at four o'clock in the afternoon we weighed anchor,
having a fair north-north-east wind, with very fair weather; at six
o'clock we were clear without the land, and so shaped our course to the
south, to discover the coast whereby the passage may be through God's
mercy found.
We coasted this land till the 28th day of August, finding it still to
continue towards the south, from the latitude of 67 to 57 degrees; we
found marvellous great store of birds, gulls and mews, incredible to be
reported, whereupon being calm weather we lay one glass upon the lee to
prove for fish, in which space we caught one hundred of cod, although we
were but badly provided for fishing, not being our purpose. This 28th,
having great distrust of the weather, we arrived in a very fair harbour
in the latitude of 56 degrees, and sailed ten leagues in the same, being
two leagues broad, with very fair woods on both sides; in this place we
continued until the 1st of September, in which time we had two very great
storms. I landed, and went six miles by guess into the country, and
found that the woods were fir, pine-apple, alder, yew, withy, and birch;
here we saw a black bear; this place yieldeth great store of birds, as
pheasant, partridge, Barbary hens, or the like, wild geese, ducks,
blackbirds, jays, thrushes, with other kinds of small birds. Of the
partridge and pheasant we killed great store with bow and arrows in this
place; at the harbour-mouth we found great store of cod.
The 1st of September at ten o'clock we set sail, and coasted the shore
with very fair weather. The third day being calm, at noon we struck
sail, and let fall a cadge anchor to prove whether we could take any
fish, being in latitude 54 degrees 30 minutes, in which place we found
great abundance of cod, so that the hook was no sooner overboard but
presently a fish was taken. It was the largest and best refet fish that
ever I saw, and divers fishermen that were with me said that they never
saw a more suaule, or better skull of fish in their lives, yet had they
seen great abundance.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account