CH. XII] 
Hakluyt 
their object. He was a member of the East India 
Company, also of the North-west Passage Company, and 
in 1618 he is mentioned as having fitted out two ships 
for the discovery of some island in the West Indies. He 
died before 1622. One of the branches of Gilbert Sound 
was named Bell's river by Hall. 
Quite as important to posterity as the liberality and 
patriotism of the merchant adventurers were the labours 
of Richard Hakluyt. Without his indefatigable diligence 
much valuable help would have been lost to the explorers 
and many precious documents would have been lost 
to us. 
Born of a good Herefordshire family in 1553, we first 
hear of Hakluyt at Westminster School, " that fruitful 
nursery/' as he called it. His thoughts were early 
turned to geographical studies. It was his hap, he tells 
us, to visit a cousin and namesake, who was a gentleman 
of the Middle Temple, on whose table he found some 
books on cosmography and a map of the world. The 
curiosity and interest of the boy were aroused. His 
cousin began by giving explanatory answers to his eager 
questions, giving him a regular lecture on the divisions of 
the earth, and ending with a disquisition on the com- 
modities and requirements of each country. From the 
map he took him to the Bible and made him read the 
23rd and 24th verses of the 107th Psalm, "They that 
go down to the sea in ships and occupy their business in 
great waters." 
This geographical discourse made so deep an im- 
pression on the boy that he never forgot it. He was 
then told, he says, " things that were of high and rare 
delight to his young nature." He made a resolution 
from which he never swerved, that he would continue 
to study that subject of geography, the doors of which 
had been so happily opened to him. 
In 1570 Hakluyt became a student of Christ Church, 
Oxford. The study of geography had completely fas- 
cinated him. He did not neglect his regular work and 
took his degree in due course, but as soon as his time was 
his own he devoured every narrative of adventure that 
he could get hold of, and mastered six languages in 
order to be able to read them. He soon began to see 
