n
on shore, when she was broken up, her ironwork and planking being
distributed among the ships, the latter to be used as fuel and other
purposes.

While the crews were thus employed, the natives made their appearance on
the top of a hill, leaping, dancing, and holding up their hands, and
crying out in a curious fashion. With the exception of a skin of fur
cast about their shoulders, they were naked. Their bodies were painted,
and the chiefs wore feathers in their hair, which looked at a distance
like horns.

The Admiral on this sent a boat on shore with knives, bells, beads, and
other things, which he thought would please them. Seeing the strangers,
two of the natives came rushing down at a great rate, but stopped short
when still at some distance. On the English retiring, they, however,
advanced and took the articles which had been placed on sticks so that
they could be seen, leaving instead plumes of feathers, and bones shaped
like large toothpicks.

Their confidence was soon gained, and numbers coming down, mixed freely
among their visitors. They appeared to be a mild, well-disposed people,
and learned to place implicit confidence in the Admiral, who won the
affection of the chief by bestowing upon him the cap he usually wore.
The savage, as a curious mark of his affection, wounded himself with an
arrow in the leg, letting the blood stream on the ground.

These natives were well-made, good-looking, and remarkably active and
swift of foot. They obtained from the birds and seals frequenting the
shore an abundance of food, which, it appeared, they ate raw. They were
all armed with short bows, and arrows of reed headed with flints. The
English here killed large numbers of birds, which were so tame that they
perched on the men's heads and shoulders, and in a bay near at hand they
took upwards of two hundred seals in the space of an hour.

Having repaired and provisioned the ships, on the 3rd of June they set
sail, steering southward, but anchored again in two days in a bay, where
the caunter _Christopher_ was run on shore and her cargo removed.

Again they proceeded, after anchoring a short time, until they brought
up once more in another bay in 15 degrees 20 minutes, short only one
degree off the mouth of the straits.

Here the Admiral, anxious to find the long-missing _Mary_, which had on
board their chief store of wine, determined to sail back again until
they reached the latitude where she had been lo