fbobisher's third voyage. 



265 



birds, which other countries in more temperate zones do yield, 

 we tasted in July the most boisterous boreal blasts." In the 

 middle of the month they entered Frobisher's Strait. On either 

 side the land lay locked in the embrace of winter beneath a 

 midsummer sun. Frobisher would not believe that the cold was 

 sufficiently severe to congeal the sea-water, the tide rising and 

 falling a distance of twenty feet. Ten miles from the coast he 

 had seen fresh-water icebergs, and concluded that they had been 

 formed upon the land and by some accidental cause detached. 

 He reconnoitred the coast in a pinnace, and penetrated some 

 distance into the interior, returning with accounts of supposed 

 riches which he had discovered in the bowels of barren and 

 frozen mountains. A cargo of two hundred tons of the precious 

 earth was taken on board of one of the vessels. On the 20th 

 of August, says the narrative, "it was high time to leave: the 

 men were well wearied, their shoes and clothes well worn; 

 their basket-bottoms were torn out and their tools broken. 

 Some, with overstraining themselves, had their bellies broken, 

 and others their legs made lame. About this time, too, the 

 water began to congeal and freeze about our ships' sides o' nights." 

 The fleet, which had troubled itself very little with the North- 

 west Passage, at once set sail to the southeast, and arrived in 

 England towards the end of September. 



The specimens of ore were assayed and found satisfactory, 

 and Frobisher's reports upon the route to China were received 

 with favor. The queen gave the name of Meta Incognita, or 

 Unknown Boundary, to the region explored. The Government 

 determined to build a fort in Frobisher's Strait and send a gar- 

 rison and a corps of laborers there. In the mean time, Frobisher 

 was despatched a third time with the same three vessels, and 

 with a convoy of twelve freight-ships which were to return laden 

 with Labrador ore. They set sail on the 31st of May, 1578, 

 and made Greenland on the 20th of June. In July they entered 

 the strait, where they were in imminent danger from storms and 



