Hudson's voyage toward the pole.         89
days spent in repairing their ship they sailed for home.
Captain, Henry Hudson, a Londoner, of whose early life very little is known, was employed, as he says, " by certaine worshipfull merchants of London, for to discover a passage by the North Pole, to Japan and China." With only ten men and his little son, he sailed in a small vessel on the first of May, 1607, with instructions to sail, if possible, directly over the North Pole. This was the first attempt to make this hazardous trip, and the first- recorded voyage of this eminent navigator.
On the 13th of June, the ship was involved in thick fog, the shrouds and sails being frozen; but when it cleared next morning, the sailors descried a high and bold headland, on Greenland coast, mostly covered with snow, behind which rose a castellated mountain, named the Mount of God's Mercy. Rain now fell, and the air felt temperate and agreeable. They steered eastward to clear this coast; but, after being for some time enveloped in fogs, again saw land, very high and bold, and without snow even on the top of the loftiest mountains. To this cape, in 73°, they gave the name of Hold-with-Hope.
Hudson now took a north-eastward direction, and on the 27th, faintly perceived, amid fogs and mist, the coast of Spitzbergen. He still pushed northward, till he passed the 79th degree of latitude, where he found the sun continually ten degrees above the horizon, yet the weather piercingly cold, and the shrouds and sails often frozen. The ice obliged him to steer in various directions; but embracing every opportunity, he pushed on, as appeared to him, to 81°, and saw land still continuously stretching as far as 6