_ At first the ship bore the name of _Pelican_, but
at Cape Virgins, at the entrance to the Straits of Magellan, Drake
changed it to the _Golden Hind_, in honour of his patron Sir
Christopher Hatton, on whose coat of arms was a Golden Hind. Not
without interest do we follow the fortunes of this ship. When finally
she was moored in her English port after her voyages, and was put out
of commission as unseaworthy, and fell into decay, though guarded with
care, John Davis, the English navigator, had a chair made out of her
timbers, which he presented to the University of Oxford, still guarded
sacredly in the Bodleian Library. No wonder that Cowley, while sitting
in it, wrote his stirring lines, and apostrophised it as "Great
Relic!" How noble this thought.
"The straits of time too narrow are for thee--
Launch forth into an undiscovered sea,
And steer the endless course of vast eternity;
Take for thy sail, this verse, and for thy pilot, me!"
Had we stood on these lofty shores by the Golden Gate in the early
summer of 1579 we would have descried the _Golden Hind_ ploughing
the waters of the Pacific northward.
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