Il6 DISCOVERIES OF 1587- 



It would appear, however, that Davis was 

 iinahle to prevail on the merchant adventurers to 

 continue what might hitherto he named fruitless 

 expeditions ; but that his zeal for discovery was 

 unabated appears from a little treatise written and 

 published by him eight years after his return from 

 his third voyage.* In this work, addressed to the 

 " lordes of her ma.iesties most honorable privie 

 consayle," besides many ingenious arguments for 

 the existence of a north-west passage, and the 

 great advantages which England would derive 

 from the discovery thereof, there is the following 

 brief and comprehensive narrative of his own three 

 vo^^ages. 



" In my first voyage not experienced of the 

 nature of those clymattes, and having no direction 

 either by Chart, Globe or other certayne relation 

 in what altitude that passage was to bee searched. 

 I shaped a Northerly course and so sought the 

 same towards the South, and in that my Northerly 

 course I fell upon the shore which in ancient time 

 was called Groynland fine hundred leagues distant 

 from the durseys West Nor West Northerly, the 

 land being very high and full of mightie moun- 

 taines all couered with snow no viewe of wood 

 grasse or earth to be scene, and the shore two 



* 



* The Worlde's Hydrographicall Discription, 1595. A very 

 rare and curious litUe book; of which perhaps not three copies 

 are in existence. 



