\606. . JAMES HALL. 175 



burying place they observed the bodies wrapt in 

 seal skins, " and stones laid in manner of a coffin 

 over them." Here they seized five natives, to 

 carry with them to Denmark, in lieu of whom 

 they put on shore an unfortunate Dane to be 

 left behind for having committed some crime 

 which is not specified. They learned from their 

 new captives that the country was named Seca- 

 nunga, and that the great King, who lived in the 

 interior, was carried upon men's shoulders. 



It was now tht 10th August, the weather 

 began to be very stormy, and, finding themselves 

 exceedingly hampered among the numerous islands 

 and rocks and floating ice, they resolved to return 

 to the southward, and after a long passage arrived 

 in Copenhagen roads on the 4th October. 



This fruitless expedition, it seems, was followed 

 up by another the next year, equally fruitless. It 

 consisted of two ships, the command of which 

 was entrusted to a Danish captain of the name 

 of Karsten Richardisen^ a native of Holstein, v.ho 

 engaged some sailors from Norway and Iceland, 

 as best acquainted with navigation among ice ; but 

 they proceeded no farther than Cape Farewell, as 

 the Danish chronicle says, from mountains of ice 

 obstructing their passage ; but Hall gives a more 

 probable reason. " I have also," says Purchas, 

 " Master Hall's voyage of the next yeere 1607, to 

 Greenland from Denmarke, written, and with 

 representations of land-sights, curiously delineated 



