184 ENGLAND'S ATTEMPTS TO KEACH INDIA Frobisher also brought home certain pieces of stone which an Italian assayer, Agnello, declared to contain gold. Money was quickly forthcoming for a second voyage at a cost of 4500; the queen subscribing 500, afterwards raised to 1000; the lord treasurer, lord admiral, and other high officers 100 each. Even Philip Sidney caught the fever and put down for this and the PALACE OP THE GREAT KHAN. From an old print. next voyages 25, then 50: modest sums, but appar- ently beyond the young poet-courtier's purse, as he figures in 1579 among the adventurers who had not paid their subscriptions a defaulter for 77. Frobisher 's second expedition, consisting of his former two little barks with " one talle shippe of her Majestic," started on May 26, 1577. His hope was to pass into the " Mare Pacificum or Mare de Sur by which he may go into Cataya, China, the East India, and all
