n seas. May found the expedition on the coast of Greenland,
with a gale of wind and great islands of ice. However, Baffin crossed
Davis Strait, and after a struggle with ice at the entrance to Hudson's
Strait he sailed along the northern side till he reached a group of
islands which he named Savage Islands. For here were Eskimos
again--very shy and fearful of the white strangers. "Among their
tents," relates Baffin, "all covered with seal skins, were running
up and down about forty dogs, most of them muzzled, about the bigness
of our mongrel mastiffs, being a brindled black colour, looking almost
like wolves. These dogs they used instead of horses, or rather as the
Lapps do their deer, to draw their sledges from place to place over
the ice, their sledges being shod or lined with bones of great fishes
to keep them from wearing out, and the dogs have furniture and collars
very fitting."

The explorers went on bravely till they were stopped by masses of ice.
They thought they must be at the mouth of a large bay, and, seeing
no prospect of a passage to the west, they turned back. When, two
hundred years later, Parry sailed in Baffin's track he named this place
Baffin Land "out of respect to the memory of that able and enterprising
navigator."

The _Discovery_ arrived in Plymouth Sound by September, _without the
loss of one man_--a great achievement in these days of salt junk and
scurvy.

"And now it may be," adds Baffin, "that some expect I should give my
opinion concerning the Passage. To these my answer must be that
doubtless there _is_ a Passage. But within this Strait, which is called
Hudson Strait, I am doubtful, supposing to the contrary."

Baffin further suggested that if there was a Passage it must now be
sought by Davis Strait.

Accordingly another expedition was fitted out and Baffin had his
instructions: "For your course, you must make all possible haste to
Cape Desolation; and from hence you, William Baffin, as pilot, keep
along the coast of Greenland and up Davis Strait, until you come toward
the height of 80 degrees, if the land will give you leave. Then shape
your course west and southerly, so far as you shall think it convenient,
till you come to the latitude of 60 degrees, then direct your course
to fall in with the land of _Yedzo_, leaving your further sailing
southward to your own discretion: although our desires be if your
voyage prove so prosperous that you may have the year before you that
you g