A.D. 



1578. 



Frobisher 

 could have 

 passed to 

 Cataia. 



Faire open 

 way. 



Reasons to 

 proove a pas- 

 sage here. 



Great 

 indrafts. 

 [III. 81 



A current to 

 the West. 



THE ENGLISH VOYAGES 



meaning by that policie (being himselfe led with an 

 honourable desire of further discoverie) to induce the 

 Fleete to follow him, to see a further proofe of that 

 place. And as some of the companie reported, he hath 

 since confessed that if it had not bene for the charge 

 and care he had of the Fleete and fraughted ships, he 

 both would and could have gone through to the South 

 Sea, called Mar del Sur, and dissolved the long doubt of 

 the passage which we seeke to find to the rich countrey of 

 Cataya. 



1 Of which mistaken straights, considering the cir- 

 cumstance, we have great cause to conhrme our opinion, 

 to like and hope well of the passage in this place. For 

 the foresaid Bay or Sea, the further we sayled therein, the 

 wider we found it, with great likelihood of endlesse 

 continuance. And where in other places we were much 

 troubled with yce, as in the entrance of the same, so after 

 we had sayled fiftie or sixtie leagues therein we had no 

 let of yce, or other thing at all, as in other places we 

 found. 



2 Also this place seemeth to have a marvellous great 

 indraft, and draweth unto it most of the drift yce, and 

 other things which doe fleete in the Sea, either to the 

 North or Eastwards of the same, as by good experience 

 we have found. 



3 For here also we met with boordes, lathes, and 

 divers other things driving in the Sea, which was of the 

 wracke of the ship called the Barke Dennis, which 

 perished amongst the yce as beforesaid, being lost at 

 the first attempt of the entrance overthwart the Queenes 

 forelande in the mouth of Frobishers straights, which 

 could by no meanes have bene so brought thither, neither 

 by winde nor tyde, being lost so many leagues off, if 

 by force of the said current the same had not bene 

 violently brought. For if the same had bene brought 

 thither by tide of flood, looke how farre the said flood 

 had carried it, the ebbe would have recarried it as farre 

 backe againe, and by the winde it could not so come to 



336 



