34 
SECOND EXPEDITION OF DAVIS. 
him, in seal skins, stags, white hares, and fish. The sailors 
however could scarcely eradicate the belief from their minds, 
that the natives were a kind of witches, and that they practised 
several kinds of enchantments. 
It is a rare quality in a traveller, to decline giving the descrip¬ 
tion of any particular object, which he may have fallen in with, 
from the notion that on account of its extraordinary or wonderful 
nature, he might be considered as dealing largely in fiction and 
romance, this however appears to have been the case with Davis. 
An iceberg, such as is seen in the high northern latitudes, was 
an object, which had scarcely ever yet fallen under the observa¬ 
tion of any former navigator *, in fact, the existence of those 
gigantic accumulations of ice ; the base of some of which rests 
upon the bottom of the ocean, was scarcely known of; Davis 
however fell in with several of these mountainous masses, but he 
declines to describe them, on the singular principle, that his 
veracity might be called in question. 
The seamen of those days were not of the race of the Hep¬ 
burns, who accompanied a Franklin or a Ross, willing however 
as they might have been to enter upon any enterprise, to which 
any lucrative advantages were attached. The great accumulations 
of ice, and other untoward circumstances natural to the northern 
latitudes, dispirited the seamen of Davis, and it was with the 
greatest difficulty that he could induce them to continue the 
voyage northwards. They, however, reached the latitude of 67° 
north, where they found land trending to the westward; and on 
running southward to 54°, they fell in with a great number of 
inlets, where from the appearance of the sea, it being of a greenish 
colour, their hopes began to revive that they should still meet 
with the much desired passage. Encountering however some 
tempestuous weather on the coast of Labrador, Davis bent his 
course homewards, and arrived in England the beginning of 
October. It must however be remarked in exculpation of this 
apparently timid conduct on the part of Davis, that the vessel in 
which he sailed, was from her burthen by no means fitted to 
contend with the storms, the fields of ice, and other natural 
obstacles, which abound in the high northern latitudes, and 
