Davis said, 'very simple in their
conversation, but marvellous thievish.' They made off with a boat that
lay astern of the _Moonshine_, cut off pieces from clothes that were
spread out to dry, and stole oars, spears, swords, and indeed anything
within their reach. Articles made of iron seemed to offer an
irresistible temptation: in spite of all pledges of friendship and of
the lifting up of hands towards the sun which the Eskimos renewed every
morning, they no sooner saw iron than they must perforce seize upon it.
To stop their pilfering, Davis was compelled to fire off a cannon among
them, whereat the savages made off in wild terror. But in a few hours
they came flocking back again, holding up their hands to the sun and
begging to be friends. 'When I perceived this,' said Davis, 'it did
but minister unto me an occasion of laughter to see their simplicity
and I willed that in no case should they be any more hardly used, but
that our own company should be more vigilant to keep their things,
supposing it to be very hard in so short a time to make them know their
own evils.'

The natives ate all their meat raw, lived {30} mostly on fish and 'ate
grass and ice with delight.' They were rarely out of the water, but
lived in the nature of fishes except when 'dead sleep took them,' and
they lay down exhausted in a warm hollow of the rocks. Davis found
among them copper ore and black and red copper. But Frobisher's
experience seems to have made him loath to hunt for mineral treasure.

On his last voyage (1587) Davis made a desperate attempt to find the
desired passage by striking boldly towards the Far North. He skirted
the west shore of Greenland and with favourable winds ran as far north
as 72 deg. 12', thus coming into the great sheet of polar water now called
Baffin Bay. This was at the end of the month of June. In these
regions there was perpetual day, the sun sweeping in a great circle
about the heavens and standing five degrees above the horizon even at
midnight. To the northward and westward, as far as could be seen,
there was nothing but open sea. Davis thought himself almost in sight
of the goal. Then the wind turned and blew fiercely out of the north.
Unable to advance, Davis drove westward across the path of the gale.
At forty leagues from Greenland, he came upon a sheet of ice that
forced him to turn back {31} towards the south. 'There was no ice
towards the north,' he wrote, in relating his experienc