8 INTRODUCTORY 



bearings of those beautiful 'Mlands of the Bay,"^ 

 where, nearly three hundred years later, so much of 

 the Investigator s work was performed, and to think 

 that John Davis' Sailing Directio7is for the West 

 Coast of Sumatra, which may be found in Captain 

 Markham's Voyages and Works of John Davis, 

 published by the Hakluyt Society, are the earliest 

 records of those surveys in the Bay of Bengal that 

 the Investigator is still labouring to complete accord- 

 ing to modern standards. 



Another of the illustrious band of arctic pioneers 

 whose destiny was accomplished in a voyage of 

 exploration into Indian seas was William Baffin, 

 whose name is enshrined, monumentu7n aere perennius, 

 in Baffin-land and Baffin Bay, and whom Sir Clements 

 Markham calls the first Indian marine surveyor. 

 After several voyages to " the sea without a human 

 shore," Baffin made two voyages to India, in the 

 first of which he drew certain charts of the eastern 

 seas which earned the commendation and reward of 

 his employers. But the second ended tragically, for 

 he was killed in action against the Portuguese, at the 

 entrance to the Persian Gulf. "In the Indies he 

 dyed, in the late Ormus businesse, slaine in fight 

 with a shot, as hee was trying his mathematicall 

 proiects and conclusions " to find the range of his 

 guns. May his spirit be guarding those disputed 



Andaman Islands, 



