Part 32

[16] Faire Forelaud, still known in the Dutch charts as Vogelhoek (Cape Bird)?

[17] Ice Sound?

[18] Bell Sound?

[19] The south point of Spitsbergen?

[20] Mr. De Jonge, Novaya Zemlya, p. 24.

[21] See “Notes on the Ice between Greenland and Novaya Zemlya”, by Captain M. H. Jansen, of the Dutch Navy (Proceedings of the R.G.S., vol. ix, No. IV, p. 170).

[22] Mr. de Jonge, Novaya Zemlya, p. 25.

[23] The second volume of the work “Die Cronycke van Hollant, Zeeland ende Vrieslant”, etc., was written by Ellert de Veer, the brother of Gerrit de Veer, and published by Lawrens Jacobsz at Amsterdam in 1591.

[24] Mr. Biddle, in his Memoir of Sebastian Cabot (8vo, London, 1831), has almost exhausted the subject of the exploits of this English worthy.

[25] Hakluyt, vol. i, p. 243.

[26] Ibid., p. 245.

[27] Lütke, Viermalige Reise durch das nördliche Eismeer, German translation by Erman (forming vol. ii of Berghaus’s Kabinets-Bibliothek der neuesten Reisen), 8vo, Berlin, 1835; pp. 12, 196.

[28] The island of Senyen, on the coast of Norway, in 69° N. lat.

[29] Hakluyt, vol. i, p. 236.

[30] Narratives of Voyages towards the North-West, Introduction, p. i, et seq.

[31] See Beechy, Voyage of Discovery towards the North Pole, p. 227.

[32] Page 312.

[33] Introduction, p. ix.

[34] Viermalige Reise, etc., p. 1.

[35] Hakluyt, vol. i, p. 274.

[36] Ibid., p. 277.

[37] Hakluyt, vol. i, p. 280.

[38] Page 14.

[39] Bolschoi Kamen (Lütke, p. 14), signifying “the great rock”, lit. “stone”.

[40] Hakluyt, vol. i, p. 280.

[41] Hakluyt, vol. i, p. 280.

[42] Page 14.

[43] Page 29.

[44] Hakluyt, vol. i, p. 283. See also pp. 284, 417, 464, 465.

[45] See page lxxv of the present Introduction.

[46] Principal Navigations, vol. i, pp. 382–3.

[47] He arrived at the monastery of St. Nicholas, at the western mouth of the Dwina, on July 23rd, 1568.—Hakluyt, vol. i, p. 376.

[48] He embarked at St. Nicholas about the end of July, 1569, and arrived safely at London in the month of September following.—Hakluyt, vol. i, p. 378.

[49] Hakluyt, vol. i, p. 473.

[50] This supposed interval between Novaya Zemlya and “Willoughby’s Land”, arose from Willoughby’s erroneous estimate of the distance of the coast reached by him from Senyen, which distance, “instead of 160 leagues, would be 230 leagues; an error, however, not much to be wondered at, considering the bad weather the fleet encountered between those places”.—Beechey, p. 228.

[51] Ere; before.

[52] Vol. i, pp. 433–5.

[53] Hakluyt, vol. i, pp. 433–4.

[54] Ibid., p. 435.

[55] Ibid., p. 446.

[56] See the note in page 28 of the present volume.

[57] Ibid.

[58] Hakluyt. vol. i, p. 446. [59] Ibid., p. 447.

[60] Hakluyt, vol. i, p. 448.

[61] Hakluyt, vol. i, p. 448.

[62] Ibid., p. 449.

[63] Ibid., p. 450.

[64] Ibid., p. 451.

[65] Ibid.

[66] Barrow, Chronological History of Voyages into the Arctic Regions, p. 99.

[67] Hakluyt, vol. i, p. 453.

[68] See page 64 of the present volume.

[69] Voyage towards the North Pole, p. 202.

[70] Hakluyt, vol. i, p. 233.

[71] Ibid., p. 308.

[72] Ibid., p. 435.

[73] Ibid., p. 437.

[74] Ibid., p. 437. These “notes” were also published by Hakluyt in his Divers Voyages touching the Discovery of America, under the title of “Notes in writing, besides more priuie by mouth, that were giuen by a gentleman,” etc. See Mr. J. Winter Jones’s edition of that work, p. 116.

[75] Hakluyt, vol. i, p. 443.

[76] Rundall, Narratives of Voyages to the North-West, pp. 15, 17.

[77] Pilgrimes, vol. iii, pp. 804–806.

[78] This may perhaps be an erroneous translation of the Russian word kotschmare, which, according to Lütke (p. 71), “is understood at Archangel to mean a three-masted vessel, of the burthen of about 500 poods,” or eight tons.

[79] We have here a proof that this document was translated out of Russian into English through either the Dutch or the German language, in which Trost does certainly mean “comfort”, but never “trust”. The translator of De Veer’s work commits the like mistake. See page 20 of the present volume.

[80] These several descriptions of fish are thus identified by Dr. Hamel, in his Tradescant der aeltere (St. Petersburg and Leipzig, 1847, 4to.), p. 323. Acipenser sturio, Salmo nasutus (Tschir), Salmo pelet (Pelet?), Salmo nelma (Nelma), Salmo muksun (Muksun), Salmo lavaretus (Sigi), Acipenser ruthenus, Salmo solar.

[81] Byeloi ostrov, or White Island. See Lütke, p. 68.

[82] Namely, Byeloi ostrov.

[83] See Lütke, pp. 71–79.

[84] Tradescant der aeltere, p. 323.

[85] Page 230.

[86] Page 231.

[87] Descriptio ac Delineatio geographica Detectionis Freti, sive Transitus ad Occasum supra Terras Americanas ... recens investigati ab Henrico Hudsono Anglo ... unà cum descriptione Terræ Samoiedarum et Tingoesiorum in Tartaria ad Ortum Freti Waygats sitæ, etc. Amsterodami, ex officina Hesselij Gerardi, anno 1612. Small 4to.

The full title of this work is given by Camus, in his Mémoire sur la Collection des grands et petits Voyages, p. 254, in which, however, he has “transitus ad Oceanum”, instead of “transitus ad Occasum”.

[88] In the tenth part of De Bry’s India Orientalis, which was published at Frankfort in 1613, an absurd blunder occurs with respect to this name. Massa’s map of 1612 is there reproduced, somewhat reduced in size, and with the Dutch names of places, etc., Latinized. And the of in “Matsei of tsar” being imagined to be the Dutch disjunctive conjunction (Engl. or), that name is accordingly done into Latin, and appears as “Matsei vel tsar”. In this map “Costintsarch” is not inserted.

It may not be uninteresting to add, that Gerard’s work, together with its maps, is inserted bodily in De Bry’s Collection, and on the title-page, which alone is altered, are the words, “Auctore M. Gotardo Arthusio, Dantiscano, tabulas in æs artificiosè incisas addente Johanne-Theodoro de Bry.” The artist has, indeed, the conscience to give Isaac Massa the credit of his map; but the name of the author of the work, “Hesselius Gerardus, Assumensis, philogeographicus,” signed at the foot of his Prolegomena, is left out, and there is nothing whatever to show that the entire work is not the original composition of G. Arthus.

[89] See the note in page 31 of the present volume.

[90] See page 30, note 4, and page 202, notes 6 and 7. Yet one more form has to be added to the list. It is Casting Sarch, which is employed by Captain Beechey in page 277 of his work already cited.

[91] See page 222 of the present work.

[92] “Tabula Russiæ ex autographo quod delineandum curavit Feodor filius Tsaris Boris desumpta, et ad fluvios Dwinam, Zuchanum, aliaque loca, quantum ex tabulis et notitiis ad nos delatis fieri potuit, amplificata ... ab Hesselo Gerardo, M.DC.XIII” (the last I was subsequently added). In Blaeu’s Grand Atlas, vol. ii, 1667.

[93] Page 952.

[94] Page 93.

[95] Vol. i, pp. 509–512.

[96] See page 261.

[97] Or Oliuer—Note by Hakluyt.

[98] Or Naramsay and Cara Reca.—Note by Hakluyt. And see page lxxiii, ante.

[99] These are seemingly the river Yenisei and lake Baikal.

[100] On the subject of Cathay, see Hakluyt’s Divers Voyages, etc., by J. Winter Jones, pp. 24, 117; and Major’s Notes upon Russia, vol. ii, pp. 42, 187. Carrah Colmak would appear to be intended for Black Kalmucks.

[101] Is not this a sign of the existence there of the Tibetan religion?

[102] Purchas, vol. iii, p. 579.

[103] See page 265.

[104] Vol. iii, p. 545.

[105] See page lxxxviii, ante.

[106] Page lxxxvii.

[107] The members of the Hakluyt Society are referred to their last published volume, namely, the second of Mr. Major’s translation of Herberstein’s celebrated work (Notes upon Russia, vol. ii, pp. 40, 41), for this description of the “golden old woman” and the other wonderful inhabitants of the regions beyond the Ob.

[108] F. Adelung, in his memoir “über die aeltern ausländischen Karten von Russland, bis 1700”, in Baer and Helmersen’s Beiträge zur Kenntniss des Russischen Reiches, vol. iv (1841), p. 18, when describing this map, says that it must have been very rare, since few appear to have been acquainted with it except Ortelius and Witsen; referring to the latter writer’s preface to his Noord en Oost Tartarye, where mention is made of it. But from a comparison of Gerard’s description of this map with that of Witsen, it is manifest that the latter merely repeated the former’s statement respecting it; so that there is no reason for supposing it to have been seen even by Witsen.

[109] Pilgrimes, vol. iii, p. 473.

[110] Prolegomena ad Hudsoni Detect., edit. Amstelodami per Hes. Gerard, 1611.—Marginal note by Purchas.

The date here attributed to Gerard’s work must be a misprint, as Camus makes no mention of any editions except that of 1612 and one of the following year. In this second edition of 1613, the far greater part of the Prolegomena is omitted, and what little remains is much altered. Camus remarks (p. 255), “l’avertissement est absolument changé; il est beaucoup plus court”. The title of the work is also slightly varied.

[111] Page 946.

[112] Engl. edit., p. 415.

[113] Chronological History, etc., p. 159.

[114] Ibid., p. 141, note.

[115] Tradescant, etc., pp. 232–235.

[116] Purchas, vol. iii, p. 464.

[117] Hakluyt, vol. i, p. 468.

[118] Linschoten, Voyagie, ofte Schip-vaert, van by Norden om, etc., fol. 3.

[119] Bennet and Van Wijk, in Nieuwe Verhandelingen van het Provinciaal Utrechtsche Genootschap, etc., vol. v, part 6 (1830), p. 26, call this vessel the Swallow (Zwaluw).

[120] Linschoten, fol. 3.

[121] J. R. Forster (Engl. edit., p. 411) says that the Amsterdam vessel was called “the Boot, or Messenger”. The original German work (Frankfort, 1784, 8vo) is not in the British Museum, nor is it known whether a copy of it is to be found in this country; so that there are no means of reference. But it may be suspected that there is some confusion here between Boot, “a boat”, and Bote, “a messenger”. Most modern writers have followed Forster in calling Barents’s vessel the Messenger. This name, translated into Russian by Lütke, and then rendered back into German by Erman (p. 17), has become der Gesandte, the Envoy or Ambassador!

[122] Bennett and Van Wijk, p. 26. [123] Linschoten, fol. 3.

[124] See the Appendix, page 273.

[125] “Ghelijck als t’selfde, uyt de beschrijvinghe ofte t’verbael des voorseyden Willem Barentsz. ghenoechsaem (met lief overcomende) verthoont sal worden, tot welckes ick my refereere.”—Voyagie, etc., fol. 18 verso.

[126] Te samen Admiraelschap ende een vast verbondt ghemaeckt.—Linschoten, fol. 3.

[127] De Veer, p. 6.

[128] Page 27.

[129] De Veer, pp. 11–16.

[130] Ibid., p. 20.

[131] De Veer, p. 27.

[132] De Veer, p. 36.

[133] Page 40.

[134] Al hoe wel dat die van Plancius opinie zijn, in haer Tractaet te verstaen gheven, dat ick da sake breeder aenghedient hadde, als sy in effect was, t’welck ick den discreten leser t’oordeelen gheve.— Voyagie, fol. 24.

[135] De Veer, p. 64. [136] De Veer, p. 42.

[137] The expressions vlyboot and yacht seem to have been used, like “cutter” and “clipper” in modern times, to designate quick-sailing vessels.

[138] Linschoten, fol. 24 verso.

[139] See De Veer, p. 50, and the note there.

[140] Linschoten, fol. 27 verso.

[141] De Veer, p. 53.

[142] Linschoten, fol. 27 verso.

[143] De Veer, p. 53.

[144] Ibid., p. 54.

[145] See pages lxxi-ii, ante.

[146] De Veer, p. 57.

[147] Linschoten, fol. 29 verso.

[148] De Veer, p. 60.

[149] De Veer, p. 60.

[150] Ibid., p. 61.

[151] Ibid., p. 62; Linschoten, fol. 32.

[152] Om immers aen ons devoir niet te ontbreken.—Linschoten, fol. 32.

[153] Linschoten, fol. 32.

[154] Linschoten, fol. 32.

[155] De Veer, p. 62; Linschoten, fol. 32.

[156] Waer over een groot debat ghevallen is.—Linschoten, fol. 32 verso.

[157] Linschoten, fol. 32 verso.

[158] See Appendix, p. 274.

[159] Linschoten, fol. 33; De Veer, p. 56.

[160] Ibid., fol. 33 verso. And see De Veer, p. 65.

[161] De Veer, p. 66.

[162] Linschoten, fol. 32 verso.

[163] Lütke says (p. 34) that it was signed by all except Barents. But it will be seen that his signature stands in its proper rank, the third, among the others. Lütke’s mistake appears to have arisen from his having followed Adelung, who copied from the Recueil de Voyages au Nord, where, in the list of names, that of Barents is certainly omitted, though from what cause except inadvertency cannot be imagined.

[164] De Veer, p. 70.

[165] See particularly pp. 175–178 and 188–193 of the present volume.

[166] De Veer, p. 125.

[167] Ibid., p. 193.

[168] De Veer, p. 73.

[169] Ibid., p. 76.

[170] Voyage towards the North Pole, p. 35.

[171] Purchas, vol. iii, p. 464.

[172] De Veer, p. 77, and the note there.

[173] De Veer, p. 85.

[174] Ibid., p. 78.

[175] Ibid., p. 83.

[176] Ibid., p. 84.

[177] Ibid., p. 84.

[178] De Veer, p. 85.

[179] Ibid.

[180] De Bry, India Orientalis, part ix, p. 51. In Scoresby’s Account of the Arctic Regions, vol. i, p. 80, the spot reached by Rijp is called “the Bay of Birds”, De Bry being referred to as the authority. But that writer’s words are—“Sub gr. 80 circa Volucrium Promontorium, a quo postmodum animo ad Guilhelmum redeundi discessit.”

Just as this sheet was going to press, we have found that the article in De Bry, from which the above extract is taken, is a translation of the following work:—“Histoire du Pays nommé Spitsberghe. Comme il a esté descouvert, sa situation et de ses Animauls. Avec le Discours des empeschemens que les Navires esquippes pour la peche des Baleines tant Basques, Hollandois, que Flamens, ont soufferts de la part des Anglois, en l’Année presente 1613. Escript par H. G. A. Et une Protestation contre les Anglois, & annullation de tous leurs frivolz argumens, par lesquelz ils pensent avoir droit de se faire seuls Maistres du dit Pays. A Amsterdam, chez Hessel Gerard A. a l’ensiegne de la Carte Nautiq. MD.C.XIII.”

This appears to be the work to which Purchas (vol. iii, p. 464) makes the following allusion:—“I have by me a French Storie of Spitsbergh, published 1613 by a Dutchman, which writeth against this English allegation, &c., but hotter arguments then I am willing to answer.” It gives an account of the voyage of Rijp and Barents, which, though agreeing generally with that of De Veer, differs from it in some important particulars. What is most remarkable is, that it is said to have been written by Barents himself:—“Mais pour sçavoir deuvement ce qu’ils ont trouvé en ceste descouvrāce, i’ay trouvé bon de mettre icy un petit extraict du Journal, escrit de la main propre de Guillaume Bernard”.

Want of time and space prevents us from giving the subject any lengthened consideration. But from what we have been able to make out, our impression decidedly is, that it was never written by Barents, but was attributed to him solely for the purpose of giving to it an authority which it might otherwise not have possessed. For, in the first place, Barents never returned to Holland subsequently to the discovery of Spitzbergen, but died off the coast of Novaya Zemlya, on the 20th of June, 1597; so that, even assuming him to have written a journal with his own hand, that journal must have passed into the possession of Gerrit de Veer, the historian of the voyage, and would assuredly have formed the basis of his narrative; and hence the discrepancies which exist between the two could never have arisen. And, in the second place, this journal states, under date of the 24th of June, 1596, “la terre (au lōg du quel prenions nostre route) estoit la plus part rompue, bien hault, et non autre que monts et montaignes agues, parquoy l’appellions Spitzbergen”. Yet, so far was Barents from having given this name to the newly-discovered country, that we find it expressly stated by De Veer (p. 82), under date of the 22nd of June, that they “esteemed this land to be Greene-land”. And not merely so, but after the latter’s return to Holland, where he had the opportunity of consulting with Plantius and other geographers, he still retained that opinion; for in the dedication to his work, which is dated “Amsterdam, April 29th, 1598”, he says that “the eastern part of Greenland (as we call it) in 80°, is now ascertained, where it was formerly thought there was only water and no land”; clearly proving that even at that time there was no idea of calling the newly-discovered country by the name of Spitzbergen, or of considering it anything but “the eastern part of Greenland”.

But, not long afterwards, the western coast of Spitzbergen having been visited by the vessels of other nations, and its importance as a station for the whale fishery having been ascertained, the Dutch were naturally anxious to establish their claim to its first discovery. This was the object of Hessel Gerard’s tract: a most legitimate one in itself, though, unfortunately, carried out in a very unscrupulous manner. For, not only did he attribute the authorship of this journal to Barents, and in it make him first use the name of Spitzbergen; but as, from the then prevailing ignorance respecting the geography of that country, it was not possible to trace that navigator’s true course along its eastern coast, round about its northern end, and so down the western coast, he did not scruple to falsify Barents’s track, and make him sail from Bear Island on the 13th of June sixteen Dutch miles west-north-west and fifteen miles north-west, where De Veer (p. 76) has sixteen miles north and somewhat easterly; and then again on the 14th, twenty-two miles north by west, where De Veer (p. 77) has twenty miles north and north and by east, and on the 16th thirty miles north and by east. By thus altering the direction of Barents’ course, Gerard certainly brought him to the western coast of Spitzbergen; but he thereby rendered the remaining portion of the voyage, which was westward along the northern side of the land, an impossible course in the sea between Spitzbergen and Greenland! The fact of Gerard’s tract having been republished in De Bry’s Collection, which work is well known to literary men, while De Veer’s original journal has rarely, if ever, been consulted by them, is doubtless the reason why the circumnavigation of Spitzbergen by Barents and Rijp has hitherto remained unknown.

[181] Pages 248, 251.

[182] De Veer, p. 89, and the note there.

[183] De Veer, p. 99.

[184] Third Series, vol. v (1837–8), pp. 289–330.

[185] Pages 200–203.

[186] Page 147.

[187] Pages 147, 160, 298, etc.

[188] Page 266.

[189] De Veer, p. 11.

[190] Page 305.

[191] Page 12.

[192] Page 21.

[193] Page 306.

[194] Page 12.

[195] See page xc, ante.

[196] De Veer, page 13, note 1.

[197] Page 236.

[198] De Veer, p. 13.

[199] Ibid., p. 14.

[200] Ibid., p. 14.

[201] Ibid., p. 16.

[202] Page 306.

[203] Page 302.

[204] Pages 302–306.

[205] See pages 145–149 of the present work, and the notes there.

[206] It was not thought necessary to reproduce these charts for the present edition.

[207] De Veer, p. 20.

[208] Page 360.

[209] De Veer, p. 70.

[210] Ibid., p. 111.

[211] Ibid., p. 112.

[212] De Veer, p. 175.

[213] Ibid., p. 176.

[214] Ibid., p. 176.

[215] Page 37.

[216] Page 150.

[217] Page 152.

[218] Page 224.

[219] See Lütke, p. 39.

[220] This observation of Robert le Canu is anything but ingenuous. De Veer’s work, the body of which is in German characters, contains several other portions printed with Roman letters, for the sake of distinction on account of their importance; such as the Dedication, the story of the barnacles, etc.

[221] This sacristan was not quite so flexible as the “Clerke of the Bow bell”, immortalized in Stow’s Survey of London (edit. 1633, p. 269). His duty it was to ring the curfew-bell nightly at nine o’clock; and “this Bel being usually rung somewhat late, as seemed to the young men Prentises, and other in Cheape, they made and set up a rime against the Clerke, as followeth:

“Clarke of the Bow-Bell, with the yellow locks, For thy late ringing, thy head shall have knockes.

“Whereunto the Clerke replying, wrote:

“Children of Cheape, hold you all still, For you shall have the Bow-bell rung at your will.”

[222] Blaeu, Grand Atlas, part i, fol. 34, b.

[223] On this day De Veer says that they measured the sun’s azimuth (de son peijlden), which they found to be “in the eleventh degree and 48 minutes of Scorpio”, that is to say, in 221° 48′. It would seem, however, that there are here two mistakes. The first is a clerical or typographical error. Instead of 221° 48′, it should be 221° 18′, which was the sun’s longitude at Venice on the 3rd of November. And the second error is, that no account is taken of the difference of longitude between Venice and Novaya Zemlya, which is about four hours in time. The sun’s true longitude was 221° 7′,6.

[224] Namely, that of Captain Parry.

[225] “The 25th of January it was darke clowdy weather”; the 26th there was “a fog-bank or a dark cloud”; the 29th, “it was foule weather, with great store of snow”; the 30th, “it was darke weather with an east wind,” and “as soone as they saw what weather it was, they had no desire to goe abroad”; the 1st of February, “the house was closed up againe with snow”; the 2nd, “it was still the same foule weather”; the 3rd, it was “very misty, whereby they could not see the sun”; and from the 4th till the 7th inclusive, “it was still foule weather”.

[226] Some valuable remarks on this phenomenon are contained in Lütke’s Viermalige Reise, pp. 39–41.

[227] De Veer’s work has seen three editions—1598, 1599, and 1605, at the same press. The text, as well as the plates of the edition of 1599, are reprinted, whilst the pages are better numbered. (Mémoire Bibliographique sur les Journaux des Navigateurs Neerlandais 1867, par P. A. Fiele.)

[228] One further curious instance has only recently come to our knowledge. Captain Beechey, when speaking (p. 257) of the bears which were killed by the Dutch while in their winter quarters, says that on opening one of them “there was found in its stomach ‘part of a buck, with the hair and skinne and all, which not long before she had torne and devoured,’ a fact (he adds) which I mention only to rectify an error in supposing deer did not frequent Nova Zembla.”

Did the fact of the existence of deer in Novaya Zemlya rest upon this statement alone, it would have but a weak foundation; for, as is shown in page 182, note 3, the original Dutch is “stucken van robben, met huijt ende hayr”—“pieces of seals, with the skin and hair.” But, in truth, the existence of deer in that country is established by the incontrovertible evidence adduced in the notes to pages 5, 83, and 104; to which has to be added the fact recorded in the Appendix, p. 269, that when Hudson and his crew were on the coast of Novaya Zemlya in 1608, they saw there numerous signs of deer, and on one occasion “a herd of white deere of ten in a companie;” so that they actually gave to the place the name of Deere Point.

[229] 1.—“The Description of a Voyage made by certain Ships of Holland into the East Indies ... who set forth on the 2nd Aprill 1595, and returned on the 14th of August 1597. Printed by John Woolfe, 1598, 4to.”

In his dedication to this work, of which the original was written by Bernard Langhenes, Phillip announces a translation of Linschoten’s voyages; and in the same year there appeared—

2.—“John Huighen van Linschoten, his discours of voyages into ye Easte and West Indies. Devided into foure books. Printed at London by John Woolfe;” on the title-pages of the second, third, and fourth books of which work the initials W. P. are given as those of the translator.