ery colour of the ocean itself, buoyed up their
hopes of the discovery of the Western Passage. Davis turned his ships
to the south, coasting the shore. Here and there signs of man were
seen, a pile of stones fashioned into a rude wall and a human skull
lying upon the rock. The howling of wolves, as the sailors thought it,
was heard along the shore; but when two of these animals were killed
they were seen to be dogs like mastiffs with sharp ears and bushy
tails. A little farther on sleds were found, one made of wood and sawn
boards, the other of whalebone. Presently the coast-line was broken
into a network of barren islands with great sounds between. When Davis
sailed southward he reached and passed the strait that had been the
scene of Frobisher's adventures and, like Frobisher himself, also
passed by the opening of Hudson Strait. Davis was convinced that
somewhere on this route was the passage that he sought. But the winds
blew hard from the west, rendering it difficult to prosecute his
search. The short season was already closing in, and it was dangerous
to {28} linger. Reluctantly the ships were turned homeward, and,
though separated at sea, the _Sunshine_ and the _Moonshine_ arrived
safely at Dartmouth within two hours of each other.

While this first expedition had met with no conspicuous material
success, Davis was yet able to make two other voyages to the same
region in the two following seasons. In his second voyage, that of
1586, he sailed along the edge of the continent from above the Arctic
Circle to the coast of Labrador, a distance of several hundred miles.
His search convinced him that if a passage existed at all it must lie
somewhere among the great sounds that opened into the coast, one of
which, of course, proved later on to be the entrance to Hudson Bay.
Moreover, Davis began to see that, owing to the great quantity of
whales in the northern waters, and the ease with which seal-skins and
furs could be bought from the natives, these ventures might be made a
source of profit whether the Western Passage was found or not. In his
second voyage alone he bought from the Eskimos five hundred sealskins.
The natives seem especially to have interested him, and he himself
wrote an account of his dealings with them. They were found to be
people of good stature, well proportioned in body, {29} with broad
faces and small eyes, wide mouths, for the most part unbearded, and
with great lips. They were, so