ice: with capstan bars, with boats' oars, and
with great planks they thrust it from the ships. Some of the men
leaped down upon the moving floes and bore with might and main against
the ships to break the shock. At times the little vessels were lifted
clear out of the sea, their sides torn with the fierce blows of the
ice-pack, their seams strained and leaking. All night they looked for
instant death. But, with the coming of the morning, the wind shifted
to the west and cleared the ice from the sea, and God sent to the
mariners, so runs their chronicle, 'so pleasant a day as the like we
had not of a long time before, as after punishment consolation.'

But their dangers were not ended. As the ships stood on and off the
land, they fell in with a great berg of ice that reared its height four
hundred feet above the masts, and lay {20} extended for a half mile in
length. This they avoided. But a few days later, while they were
still awaiting a landing, a great mist rolled down upon the seas, so
that for five days and nights all was obscurity and no ship could see
its consorts. Current and tide drove the explorers to and fro till
they drifted away from the mouth of Frobisher Strait southward and
westward. Then another great sound opened before them to the west.
This was the passage of Hudson Strait, and, had Frobisher followed it,
he would have found the vast inland sea of Hudson Bay open to his
exploration. But, intent upon his search for ore, he fought his way
back to the inhospitable waters that bear his name. There at an island
which had been christened the Countess of Warwick's Island, the fleet
was able to assemble by August 1. But the ill-fortune of the
enterprise demanded the abandonment of all idea of settlement.
Frobisher and his men made haste to load their vessels with the
worthless rock which abounded in the district. In one 'great black
island alone' there was discovered such a quantity of it that 'if the
goodness might answer the plenty thereof, it might reasonably suffice
all the gold-gluttons of the world.' In leaving Meta Incognita,
Frobisher and his {21} companions by no means intended that the
enterprise should be definitely abandoned. Such timbers of the house
as remained they buried for use next year. A little building, or fort,
of stone was erected, to test whether it would stand against the frost
of the Arctic winter. In it were set a number of little toys, bells,
and knives to tempt