BAFFIN, DAMPIER, ETC. 483 
homeward voyage, which was performed under the extremity of 
famine. Whatever horrors may have attended the last moments 
of Hudson, his sufferings were less, for his conscience was unde- 
filed by guilt. 
In the year 1616 Baffin sailed round the enormous bay to 
which his name has been given, but without attempting to 
penetrate through any one of those wide sounds that have led 
the Arctic navigators of our days to so many glorious disco- 
veries. 
From the times of Tasman, whose bold voyage through the 
wastes of the Southern Pacific has already been mentioned, to 
those of our own immortal Cook, but very little was done for 
the progress of geography, as if, after so many heroic endeavours, 
the spirit of maritime discovery had required a long repose to 
recruit its energies, ere the greatest navigator of modern times 
was destined to unveil the mysterious darkness which still con- 
cealed one half of the vast Pacific from the knowledge of man- 
kind. The voyages most worthy of remark during this period 
were those of the Cossack Semen Deshnew (1654), who sailed 
from the mouth of the Kolyma River round the eastern pro- 
montory of Asia, and must be considered as the discoverer of 
Behring’s Straits; of the adventurous Dampier (1689—1691), 
that strange combination of the buccaneer, the author, and the 
naturalist, who first discovered the strait which separates New 
Guinea from New Ireland; of the Dutchman Roggewein (1721 
—23), who made known some islands in the Pacific; of the 
brothers Laptew and of Prontschitschew (1734—1743), who 
unveiled the greatest part of the Siberian coast; of Commodore 
Anson (1740—1744), whose heroic sufferings and successes in the 
Pacific still live in the memory of his countrymen; and of the 
unfortunate Behring (1730—1741), who terminated his second 
unsuccessful exploring expedition by a miserable death on a 
desert island. 
After the peace of Aix la Chapelle England felt that the 
dominion of the seas imposed upon her the obligation of extend- 
ing the bounds of geographical knowledge, and thus in rapid 
succession Byron (1764) and Wallis and Carteret (1766—1768) 
were sent forth to discover unknown shores, while France nade 
a simultaneous effort to refresh the somewhat meagre laurels slie 
k K 
