Upon which considerations the day and year before expressed, he departed from Blackwall to Harwich, where making an accomplishment of things necessary, the last of May we hoisted up sails, and with a merry wind the 7th of June we arrived at the islands called Orchades, or vulgarly Orkney, being in number thirty, subject and adjacent to Scotland, where we made provision of fresh water, in the doing whereof our general licensed the gentlemen and soldiers, for their recreation, to go on shore.At our landing the people fled from their poor cottages with shrieks and alarms, to warn their neighbours of enemies, but by gentle persuasions we reclaimed them to their houses.It seemeth they are often frighted with pirates, or some other enemies, that move them to such sudden fear.Their houses are very simply builded with pebble stone, without any chimneys, the fire being made in the midst thereof.The good man, wife, children, and other of their family, eat and sleep on the one side of the house, and their cattle on the other, very beastly and rudely in respect of civilisation.They are destitute of wood, their fire is turf and cow shardes.They have corn, bigge, and oats, with which they pay their king's rent to the maintenance of his house.They take great quantity of fish, which they dry in the wind and sun; they dress their meat very filthily, and eat it without salt.Their apparel is after the nudest sort of Scotland.
Their money is all base.Their Church and religion is reformed according to the Scots.The fishermen of England can better declare the dispositions of those people than I, wherefore I remit other their usages to their reports, as yearly repairers thither in their courses to and from Iceland for fish.
We departed here hence the 8th of June, and followed our course between west and north-west until the 4th of July, all which time we had no night, but that easily, and without any impediment, we had, when we were so disposed, the fruition of our books, and other pleasures to pass away the time, a thing of no small moment to such as wander in unknown seas and long navigations, especially when both the winds and raging surges do pass their common and wonted course.
This benefit endureth in those parts not six weeks, whilst the sun is near the tropic of Cancer, but where the pole is raised to 70 or 80 degrees it continueth the longer.
All along these seas, after we were six days sailing from Orkney, we met, floating in the sea, great fir trees, which, as we judged, were, with the fury of great floods, rooted up, and so driven into the sea.Iceland hath almost no other wood nor fuel but such as they take up upon their coasts.It seemeth that these trees are driven from some part of the Newfoundland, with the current that setteth from the west to the east.
The 4th of July we came within the making of Friesland.From this shore, ten or twelve leagues, we met great islands of ice of half a mile, some more, some less in compass, showing above the sea thirty or forty fathoms, and as we supposed fast on ground, where, with our lead, we could scarce sound the bottom for depth.
Here, in place of odoriferous and fragrant smells of sweet gums and pleasant notes of musical birds, which other countries in more temperate zones do yield, we tasted the most boisterous Boreal blasts, mixed with snow and hail, in the months of June and July, nothing inferior to our untemperate winter: a sudden alteration, and especially in a place of parallel, where the pole is not elevated above 61 degrees, at which height other countries more to the north, yea unto 70 degrees, show themselves more temperate than this doth.All along this coast ice lieth as a continual bulwark, and so defendeth the country, that those which would land there incur great danger.Our general, three days together, attempted with the ship boat to have gone on shore, which, for that without great danger he could not accomplish, he deferred it until a more convenient time.All along the coast lie very high mountains, covered with snow, except in such places where, through the steepness of the mountains, of force it must needs fall.Four days coasting along this land we found no sign of habitation.Little birds which we judged to have lost the shore, by reason of thick fogs which that country is much subject unto, came flying to our ships, which causeth us to suppose that the country is both more tolerable and also habitable within than the outward shore maketh show or signification.
From hence we departed the 8th of July, and the 16th of the same we came with the making of land, which land our general the year before had named the Queen's Forehand, being an island, as we judge, lying near the supposed continent with America, and on the other side, opposite to the same, one other island, called Halles Isle, after the name of the master of the ship, near adjacent to the firm land, supposed continent with Asia.Between the which two islands there is a large entrance or strait, called Frobisher's Strait, after the name of our general, the first finder thereof.This said strait is supposed to have passage into the sea of Sur, which I leave unknown as yet.
It seemeth that either here, or not far hence, the sea should have more large entrance than in other parts within the frozen or untemperate zone, and that some contrary tide, either from the east or west, with main force casteth out that great quantity of ice which cometh floating from this coast, even unto Friesland, causing that country to seem more untemperate than others much more northerly than the same.
I cannot judge that any temperature under the Pole, being the time of the Sun's northern declination, half a year together, and one whole day (considering that the sun's elevation surmounteth not twenty-three degrees and thirty minutes), can have power to dissolve such monstrous and huge ice, comparable to great mountains, except by some other force, as by swift currents and tides, with the help of the said day of half a year.
