224 BAFFIN BAY 



who had helped to send Frobisher on his first voyage 

 making an entry in his journal that Mr. Secretary 

 Walsingham had come to his house, where by good 

 luck he found Mr. Adrian Gilbert, and so talk began 

 on " the north-west straits discovery " ; and, next day, 

 " I, Mr. Awdrian Gilbert and John Davis, went by 

 appointment to Mr. Beale, his howse, where only we 

 four were secret, and we made Mr. Secretary privie of 

 the N.W. Passage, and all charts and rutters were 

 agreed upon in generall " " rutter " being the French 

 " routier," originating in Le Routier de la Mer, signify- 

 ing a book of sea routes. Another important friend 

 of Davis was William Sanderson, the representative 

 of the merchants by whom the expenses of the voyage 

 were borne, he being the chief subscriber. One of the 

 ships, the Moonshine, seems to have belonged to him, 

 and it was largely owing to his influence among the 

 shareholders that Davis was appointed captain and 

 chief pilot of the " exployt," in which he was to 

 practically rediscover Greenland. 



There were two vessels, the Sunshine of London, 

 fifty-nine tons, with twenty-three persons on board, 

 and the Moonshine of Dartmouth, thirty-five tons, with 

 nineteen. They left Dartmouth on the 7th of June, 

 1585, but had to put in at Falmouth and then at the 

 Scillies, where Davis occupied the twelve days he 

 spent there in surveying and charting the islands. On 

 the 20th of July they were sailing down the east coast 

 of Greenland, and were so little attracted by it that 

 Davis called it the Land of Desolation. Nine days 

 afterwards he found a group of many pleasant green 

 islands bordering on the shore, while the mountains of 



