e Pacific, and for a time it was thought that he had
found it in the very north of North America. But it was afterwards
found that the "passage," which had already been given the name of
_Frobisher's Straits_, was really only an inlet, and afterwards it
became known as _Lumley's Inlet_.

Frobisher never discovered a North-west Passage, for the ships of
those days were not fitted out in a way to enable the sailors to bear
the icy cold of these northern regions. Many brave explorers tried
later to discover it. Three times John Davis made a voyage for this
purpose but never succeeded, though _Davis Strait_ commemorates his
heroic attempts. Hudson and Baffin explored in these waters, as the
names _Hudson Bay_ and _Baffin Bay_ remind us.

It was nearly two hundred years later that Sir John Franklin sailed
with an expedition in two boats, the _Erebus_ and _Terror_, determined
to find the passage. He found it, but died in the attempt; but,
strangely enough, his name was not given to any strait, though later
it was given to all the islands of the Arctic Archipelago.

The winning of India by the British in the eighteenth century did not
give us many new English names. India was not, like the greater part
of America, a wild country inhabited by savage peoples. It had an
older civilization than the greater part of Europe, and the only
reason that it was weak enough to be conquered was that the many races
who lived there could not agree among themselves. Most of the
place-names of India are native names given by natives, for centuries
before France and England began to struggle for its possession in the
eighteenth century India had passed through a long and varied history.

When we remember that the natives of India have no name to describe
the whole continent, it helps us to understand that India is in no way
a single country. The British Government have given the continent the
name _India_, taking it from the great river Indus, which itself takes
its name from an old word, _sindhu_, meaning "river."

In the days of the early explorers, after the islands discovered by
Columbus were called the _West Indies_, some people began to call the
Indian continent the _East Indies_, to distinguish it; and some of the
papers about India drawn up for the information of Parliament about
Indian affairs still use this name, but it is not a familiar use to
most people.

The mistake which Columbus and the early explorers made in thinking
Ame