stead three monstrous white bears. The animals rushed on, fearless and furious, till being received with several balls, they retreated, apparently not much hurt, but were followed and at last killed. There appeared no symptoms of their having fed on any thing except grass; but it was necessary to clear away a very large quantity of fat before the flesh could be eaten.

"Davis, after coasting about for some days, again found himself at the cape which he had at first reached on his crossing from the opposite shore of Greenland. This promontory, which he called God's Mercy, he now turned, when he found himself in a sound stretching north-westward, twenty or thirty leagues broad, free from ice, and its waters having the colour and quality of the main ocean. After ascending it sixty leagues, he found an island in the mid-channel, which still, however, afforded an open passage, so that his hopes daily increased. About the end of August, however, being involved in fogs and contrary winds, he determined to suspend operations for this season, and return to England.

"On one of the islands in this sound the seamen heard dogs howling, and saw twenty approach, of wolf-like appearance, but in most peaceful guise. Impressed, however, with the idea that only animals of prey could be found on these shores, they fired and killed two, round one of whose necks they found a collar, and soon after discovered the sledge to which he had been yoked."

Good treatment did not prevent these savages from taking the property of the English. A spear,

FORBEARANCE OF DAVIS.

159

a gun, and a sword were carried off, and Davis's crew would have taken sore vengeance upon the depredators, but the good-natured commander restrained them. He only fired a gun over their heads, which frightened them.

He, however, bade his men "be vigilant, and take care of their goods, and not deal hardly with the natives, who could not," he said, "be expected to know right and wrong so well as they who were better taught." This amiable lesson of charity and forbearance deserves to be remembered.

he

gave

Davis ascertained the fact, that the strait to which his name contained abundance of codfish and whales, and that a profitable fishery might there be carried on; and he hoped, after having three times vainly sought the passage to India, that he might at length find it; but his employers declined spending more money in the pursuit.

Other navigators attempted to find the passage, with no better success than Frobisher; but the adventures of one of these, Henry Hudson, are connected with important interests of our own country, and therefore may be read with profit and pleasure.

The early history of Hudson is not accurately recorded that we know of, but he was an Englishman, and is known as one of the most intrepid and unfortunate of the early navigators. His first known voyage, undertaken at the expense of the London merchants, was in search of a north-east passage, and he penetrated to 75° of north latitude. Nova Zembla, seen by him in arctic midsummer was a pleasant land, with no snow on it, looking in some places green, and deer feeding thereon" (1607)

Whether the English were dissatisfied with Hudson or not, he quitted their service, and entered into that of the Dutch, 1609. Of all the states of Europe, itself one of the smallest, none is more distinguished for honourable industry and the spirit of enterprise than the United Provinces, as Holland and the Netherlands, the present Belgium and Holland, were then called.

A populous country, with a small territory, could only look to the sea for the supply of its wants and the augmentation of its wealth. The country of the Dutch is surrounded and penetrated by the sea, and it seems to invite them to remote and more favoured lands. India trade was then monopolized by Spain and Portugal, and the Dutch had not ships mighty enough to dispute with those maritime

powers.

But though Dutch commerce, which since has compassed the whole earth, was then restricted by the ascendency of Spain and Portugal, whale-catching, the Greenland fishery, and that of the Arctic Ocean west of Europe, was to them a source of prosperity. However, this did not satisfy them, and they employed Henry Hudson, in 1609, to open some new path for them in the western world.

Hudson designed to proceed across the Atlantic to Asia, but taking a more southerly course than the navigators his predecessors had done, he came to the shores which Cabot had seen, and Verazzano explored; but which, except in one unsuccessful attempt of settlement upon the coast of Carolina, had since their time been neglected.

A minute account of this voyage of Hudson is not in my power to give; but its importance con

ALBANY MANHATTAN ISLAND.

161

sists in this, that he discovered the Delaware Bay, Long Island, Manhattan Island, so called by the natives, on which New-York city now stands, and that great and most beautiful river, called after the discoverer, the Hudson.

Hudson proceeded up this river nearly to the site of the present city of Albany, and, after trafficking with the natives, and examining the shores of the river, returned to Europe. The next year, 1619, the Dutch sent ships to the same river, to open a trade with the natives of the country; and they gave the territory, of which they took possession, the name of New-Netherlands.

The history of the Dutch colony belongs to that of the United States of America. Hudson's subsequent discoveries relate to that of the continent,

This territory, now belonging to the State of New-York, is one of the most beautiful in the world; and the little island of Manhattan, at the entrance of the Hudson, is the site of the city of New-York, now (1833) the largest, most populous, and prosperous in the United States of America.

Mr. Irving, in his very amusing work, Knickerbocker's History of New-York, has given a beautiful description of the appearance of the island as it must have struck the Europeans who first saw it.

"The island of Manhattan spread before them like some sweet vision of fancy. Its hills of smiling green swelled gently one above another, crowned with lofty trees of luxuriant growth; some pointing their taper foliage towards the clouds, which were gloriously transparent, and others loaded with a verdant burden of clambering vines, bowing their branches to the earth, that was covered with flowers.

“On the gentle declivities of the hills were scattered in gay profusion the dogwood, the sumach, and the wild brier, whose scarlet berries and white blossoms glowed brightly among the deep green of the surrounding foliage; and here and there a curling column of smoke, rising from the little glens that opened along the shore, seemed to promise the weary voyagers a welcome at the hands of their fellow-creatures.

"As they stood gazing with entranced attention on the scene before them, a red man, crowned with feathers, issued from one of these glens; and after contemplating in silent wonder the gallant ship, as she sat like a stately swan swimming on a silver lake, sounded the war-hoop, and bounded into the woods like a wild deer."

Entranced attention.-Perhaps this is a difficult phrase to a young reader. A trance is a state like dreaming, in which the entranced person is not conscious of objects which surround him, but in imagination sees, and hears, and communicates with totally different beings from those actually present.

The entire newness of American scenery to Europeans made them forget the ship in which they were and their companions, and see and think only of the beautiful country and the "red man," which they beheld for the first time. They appeared like men in a trance, so perfectly were they engaged in looking at these new objects.

War-hoop.-A frightful and far-reaching cry, which the American Indians utter when they commence a warlike engagement, and which they send forth as an alarm to give notice that an enemy is near.