A.D. 



i 57 8. 



Frobishers re- 

 turne. 



The taking 

 possession of 

 Meta incog- 

 nita. 



How the ore 

 was found by 

 chance. 



THE ENGLISH VOYAGES 



side to receive the bel ; which when he thought to 

 take at the captaines hand, he was thereby taken him- 

 selfe : for the captaine being readily provided let the 

 bell fall, and caught the man fast, and plucked him 

 with maine force boat and all into his barke out of 

 the sea. Whereupon when he found himselfe in cap- 

 tivity, for very choler and disdaine he bit his tongue 

 in twaine within his mouth : notwithstanding, he died 

 not thereof, but lived untill he came in England, and 

 then he died of cold which he had taken at sea. 



Now with this new pray (which was a sufficient wit- 

 nesse of the captaines farre and tedious travell towards 

 the unknowen parts of the world, as did well appeare 

 by this strange infidell, whose like was never seene, 

 read, nor heard of before, and whose language was 

 neither knowen nor understood of any) the sayd cap- 

 taine Frobisher returned homeward, and arrived in 

 England in Harwich the 2 of October following, and 

 thence came to London 1576, where he was highly 

 commended of all men for his great and notable at- 

 tempt, but specially famous for the great hope he 

 brought of the passage to Cataya. 



And it is especially to be remembred that at their 

 first arrivall in those parts there lay so great store of 

 ice all the coast along so thicke together, that hardly 

 his boat could passe unto the shore. At length, after 

 divers attempts he commanded his company, if by any 

 possible meanes they could get ashore, to bring him 

 whatsoever thing they could first finde, whether it were 

 living or dead, stocke or stone, in token of Christian 

 possession, which thereby he tooke in behalfe of the 

 Queenes most excellent Majesty, thinking that thereby 

 he might justify the having and injoying of the same 

 things that grew in these unknowen parts. 



Some of his company brought floures, some greene 

 grasse ; and one brought a piece of blacke stone much 

 like to a sea cole in colour, which by the waight 

 seemed to be some kinde of metall or minerall. This 



282 



