10 THE WHALEBONE WHALES OF THE WESTERN NORTH ATLANTIC. 
land coast in May, 1612. The record for the 12th day of that month contains the 
following note: 
[1612. BAFFIN’S FIRST RECORDED VOYAGE. | 
“This day [May 12 , 1612] the water changed of a blackish colour; also, we 
saw many whales and gr ‘ampus’s. Lis 
This was near (and east of) Cape Farewell, which they sighted May 18th, and 
again May 14th. In 1616, in the same month, Baffin was once more in Greenland 
waters, and the narrative of that voyage contains an interesting account of the find- 
ing of a dead whale in Davis Strait somewhat north of Disco Island. Baffin 
records the incident thus: 
[1616. BAFFIN’S SECOND VOYAGE TO GREENLAND. (FIFTH RECORDED VOYAGE.)] 
“The two and twentieth day [of May, 1616], at a north sunne, wee set saile 
and plyed still northward, the winde being right against vs as we stood off and 
on. Vpon the sixe and twentieth day, in the afternoone, we found a dead whale, 
about sixe and twentie leagues from shoare, hauing all her finnes [whalebone ]. 
Then making our ship fast, wee vsed the best means wee could to get them, and 
with much toile got a hundred and sixtie that euening. The next morning the sea 
went uery high, and the winde arising, the whale broke from vs, and we were 
forced to leaue her and set saile, and hauing not stood past three or foure leagues 
north-westward, came to the ice, then wee tacked and stood to the shoare-ward, a 
sore storme ensued.” * 
This dead whale is mentioned again in a letter which Baffin wrote to Sir John 
Wolstenholme, one of the principal promoters of the enterprise, in connection with 
quite extended remarks on the whales of Baffin Bay, so that we are enabled to 
identify it as a Greenland Right whale. The paragraphs which are pertinent to 
our subject are as follows 
[1616. BAFFIN’S LETTER TO SIR JOHN WOLSTENHOLME. | 
“ Now that the worst is knowne (concerning the passage) it is necessarie and 
requisite your worship should vnderstand what probabilitie and hope of profit 
might here be made hereafter, if the voyage might bee attempted by fitting men. 
And first, for the killing of whales: certaine it is, that in this Bay [ Baffin Bay | 
are great numbers of them, which the Biscayners call the Grand Bay whales, of 
the same kind as are killed at Greeneland, and as it seemeth to me, easie to be 
strooke, because they are not vsed to be chased or beaten. For we being but one 
day in Whale Sound (so called for the number of whales we saw there e sleeping, 
and lying aloft on the water, not fearing our ship, or ought else); that if we had 
beene fitted with men and things necessarie, it had beene no hard matter to haue 
strooke more then would have made three ships a sauing voyage; and that it is of 
that sort of whale, theare is no feare; I being twise at Greeneland, tooke sufficient 
notice to know them againe ; besides a dead whale we found at sea, hauing all her 
*The Voyages of William Baffin. Ed. by C.R. Markham. MHakluyt Soc., 1881, p. 7. From 
Churchill’s Collection of Voyages and Travels, 6, 1732, pp. 241-251. Written by John Gatonbe. 
* Op. cit., pp. 139-140. From Purchas. Written by Baffin. 
