[Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage by Richard Hakluyt]@TWC D-Link book
Voyages in Search of the North-West Passage

CHAPTER X
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The air was very moderate in this country.
The 8th we departed from Mount Raleigh, coasting along the shore which lieth south-south-west and east-north-east.
The 9th our men fell in dislike of their allowance because it was so small as they thought.

Whereupon we made a new proportion, every mess, being five to a mess, should have four pound of bread a day, twelve wine quarts of beer, six new land fishes, and the flesh days a gin of pease more; so we restrained them from their butter and cheese.
The 11th we came to the most southerly cape of this land, which we named the Cape of God's Mercy, as being the place of our first entrance for the discovery.

The weather being very foggy we coasted this north land; at length when it brake up we perceived that we were shot into a very fair entrance or passage, being in some places twenty leagues broad and in some thirty, altogether void of any pester of ice, the weather very tolerable, and the water of the very colour, nature, and quality of the main ocean, which gave us the greater hope of our passage.

Having sailed north-west sixty leagues in this entrance, we discovered certain islands standing in the midst thereof, having open passages on both sides.
Whereupon our ships divided themselves, the one sailing on the north side, the other on the south side of the said isles, where we stayed five days, having the wind at south-east, very foggy, and foul weather.
The 14th we went on shore and found signs of people, for we found stones laid up together like a wall, and saw the skull of a man or a woman.
The 15th we heard dogs howl on the shore, which we thought had been wolves, and therefore we went on shore to kill them.

When we came on land the dogs came presently to our boat very gently, yet we thought they came to prey upon us, and therefore we shot at them and killed two, and about the neck of one of them we found a leathern collar, whereupon we thought them to be tame dogs.


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