PROGRESS OF DISCOVERY IN THE NORTH. 77 



with a multitude of natives in the course of the 

 voyage, whom they found a very tractable people, 

 and liberal in their mode of trafficking. 



The discovery by Davis of a nation with whom it 

 seemed practicable to enter into an advantageous 

 traffic, with the great expectations, excited by the 

 open navigation of the strait into which he sailed, 

 of a communication with the Pacific Ocean, occa- 

 sioned Da\'is with his two barks, to which were 

 added a trading vessel of 120 tons, and a pinnace 

 of 10 tons, to be again dispatched the following 

 year. They left Dartmouth on the 7th May. 

 After making the land near Cape Farewell, they 

 proceeded along the west coast of Greenland, where 

 the natives came off to their sliips in 40, 50, or 

 even 100 canoes at a time, bringing with them 

 skins, fish, fowls, and other produce of the country. 

 Davis having, on his passage across the Atlantic, 

 sent two of his vessels to the eastward of Green- 

 land, with orders to seek a passage to the north- 

 ward between Greenland and Iceland, as far as la- 

 titude 80°, was now deserted by his only remaining 

 companion, and proceeded alone on his discovery, in 

 the Moonshine of 35 tons. From the coast of 

 Greenland, in 66° 33', which he discovered, he sail- 

 ed westward 50 leagues until he fell in with land 

 again in latitude 66° 19 ; he cruised about this coast 

 for some time, and then stretched to the southward, 

 examining inlets in the Labrador shore as he 

 went, until the 11th September, when he left the 



