Queen's hand gladdened his heart as he sailed
past the palace of Greenwich, where the Court resided, and he was soon
sailing northward harassed and battered by many storms. His little
ten-ton pinnace was lost, and the same storm that overtook the little
fleet to the north of Scotland so terrified the captain of the _Michael_
that he deserted and turned home with the news that Frobisher had
perished with all hands.

Meanwhile Frobisher, resolute in his undertaking, was nearing the
coast of Greenland--alone in the little _Gabriel_ with a mere handful
of men all inexperienced in the art of navigating the Polar seas.

"And now there came both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold"

as Frobisher sailed his storm-beaten ship across the wintry seas. But
"I will sacrifice my life to God rather than return home without
discovering a north-west passage to Cathay," he told his eighteen men
with sublime courage. Passing Cape Farewell, he sailed north-west with
the Greenland current, which brought him to the icebound shores near
Hudson's Bay. He did not see the straits afterwards discovered by
Hudson, but, finding an inlet farther north, he sailed some hundred
miles, in the firm belief that this was the passage for which he was
searching, that America lay on his left and Asia on his right. Magellan
had discovered straits in the extreme south; Frobisher made sure that
he had found corresponding straits to the extreme north, and
Frobisher's Straits they were accordingly named, and as such they
appeared on the maps of the day till they had to be renamed Lumley's
Inlet. The snow and ice made further navigation impossible for this
year, and full of their great news they returned home accompanied by
an Eskimo. These natives had been taken for porpoises by our English
explorers, but later they were reported to be "strange infidels whose
like was never seen, read, or heard of before."

[Illustration: GREENLANDERS AS SEEN BY MARTIN FROBISHER. From Captain
Beste's account of Frobisher's voyages, 1578.]

Martin Frobisher was received with enthusiasm and "highly commended
of all men for his great and notable attempt, but specially famous
for the great hope he brought of the passage to Cathay." Besides the
Eskimo the explorers carried home a black stone, which, when thrown
on the fire by one of the sailor's wives, glittered like gold. The
gold refiners of London were hastily called in, and they reported that
it contained a quanti