CH. XVlj 
William Baffin 
145 
Baffin concluded that all the openings were bays. 
He was right as regards Wolstenholme and Whale Sounds. 
But those named after Sir Thomas Smith, Sir Francis 
Jones, and Sir James Lancaster are channels leading to 
the Polar Ocean, not sounds. 
In returning south the Discovery had to run through 
much ice, and Baffin was never able to reach the land 
on the west side, which he was anxious to do, so as to 
obtain green food for the sick, for scurvy had attacked 
them. Richard Wayman, the cook, died on the 26th 
July, and Master Herbert 1 , with two or three others, 
was very ill. So Baffin stood over to the Greenland 
side, and reaching Cockayne Sound on the 28th an 
abundant supply of scurvy grass, sorrel, and orpine was 
gathered, while the natives brought salmon peel to 
barter. The scurvy grass was boiled in beer, and made 
into salads with sorrel. In a week all were restored to 
health, and on the 6th August, 1616, they were homeward 
bound. The Irish coast was sighted on the 25th, and 
on the 30th the Discovery anchored in Dover roads. 
Purchas has printed the brief narrative of Baffin, and 
his very interesting letter to Sir John Wolstenholme in 
which he says that though there is no passage by Baffin's 
Bay, voyages might be profitable from the whalebone 
and oil, the seal-skins, and the walrus and narwhal ivory. 
In this he was right, and his discovery led to the annual 
acquisition of wealth for many years. 
We only have in Purchas the Brief e and True Relation 
and the letter to Sir John Wolstenholme ; but in the 
Relation Baffin says, " all these sounds and islands the 
map doth truly describe." We are then treated to the 
following exasperating note by Purchas, " This map of 
the author, with the tables of his journal " (the tabulated 
log) " and sailing were somewhat troublesome and too 
costly to insert." The mischief done by the loss to 
posterity of these precious documents endured for two 
centuries. It led to such confusion in the ideas of map- 
makers that at last the very existence of Baffin's Bay 
was doubted. On the map of Luke Foxe (1635) it is 
1 I have not been successful in my attempts to discover who Master 
Herbert was. He was probably a gentleman volunteer. 
M. I. 
IO 
