Part 5

“37. Iron clock-work, in which are seven cog-wheels; the cover is of iron plates, but partly rusted. The dial-plate is lost, but one of the hands is still present. There is also a circular-shaped flexible piece of iron, quite rusted, probably the spring. In the journal of Gerrit de Veer, at the date of 27th of October, he makes mention, on that day: ‘They set up the dial and made the clock strike.’ On the 3rd of December, 1596, ‘The clock was frozen and might not go, although we hung more weight on it than before’. This clock agrees in form almost perfectly with the clock drawn in the illustration of Hulsius. A similar clock is also given in the work entitled: ‘Le Moyen-âge et la Renaissance, par P. Lacroix et F. Serré, Paris, 1851’. In the article ‘Corporations de Métier, par A. Monteil et Rabutanz’, is found a drawing: ‘L’horloger, facsimilé de planche dessinée et gravée, par Jost Ammon’. This drawing represents a clock of similar construction to that found in Novaya Zemlya. This print, in ‘Le Moyen-âge’, seems to have been copied out of the work of Hartin Schopperus, entitled ‘Panoplia, Omnium illiberalium, mechanicarum aut sedentariarum artium genera continens; Cum figuris a Jost Ammon. Francofurti, 1568’. Hence we come to the conclusion that the clock, with its weight, found at Novaya Zemlya, belongs, as is proved by its construction, to work of the sixteenth century. The application of the pendulum took place later, in 1658.

“38. One of the weights belonging to the clock.

“39. A metal clock. This clock, with four perches, stood probably upon the mechanism described in No. 37.

“40. A little iron hammer, without doubt part of the striking apparatus.

“41. Three copper scales of a balance, having served for weighing medicines. According to the journal of Mr. G. de Veer, ‘a barber-surgeon joined the crew of Heemskerck and Barendsz’.

“42. A six-holed German flute, of beechwood, but without the mouth-piece. It is broken at the end.

“43. A part of an instrument, of which one end is constructed of wood. In this end is found a groove, a round opening, and a wooden tongue. To this wooden tongue is fastened a copper one, opening out in three parts, and ending in a point. It is difficult to say to what instrument this belonged; but it is not quite improbable that it has been fastened on the axis of a globe, in order to prick the chart. Globes and plain charts were used at this period for want of Mercator’s projection.

“44. A wooden compass card, with moveable wooden hand, in the centre of which is found a round opening for the point of the axis.

“45. A wooden rectangle, with three circular segments one within the other, and subtending the rectangle. The longer arm is broken in three pieces.

“46. A semi-circular copper plate, whose case is curved in such a manner as to form a parallel. Through the middle of the plate runs a meridian, having in its centre a small screw, which was formerly moveable, but now fixed by rust. On the left or on the west side of the meridian are drawn nine arcs, having their centre in the point of intersection of the meridian and parallel. On these arcs the degrees are indicated by ciphers, and between these arcs are found the Dutch words: Wassende Noordoostersche, Afgaande Noordoostersche, Wassende Noordwestersche, etc. It is difficult to say in what manner this instrument was used, but probably it is an instrument that has served for examining and determining the variations of the compass. If I dare express my opinion, I should say, that this is the instrument which Plancius, the master of Barendsz, invented to calculate the longitude at sea. Plancius was at that time much occupied with his theory of determining the longitude at sea, by means of the variation of the needle. For farther details see the work entitled: ‘Rise of the Dutch power in the East Indies,’ volume i, p. 86. According to Plancius there existed 8 meridians, under 4 of which there was no variation, and under the 4 others a maximum variation took place. Calculating upon these data Plancius imagined that the true longitude could be found. He therefore adapted a copper plate to the astrolabe employed at that period, and the object found by Carlsen is probably this very copper plate, the only one now extant.

“47. The handle of a sword beautifully formed. A similar handle is represented on drawing 61, letter B in the work of Mr. D. van der Kellen, Jr., entitled: ‘Antiquities of the Netherlands.’

“48. A sword with ditto handle.

“49. The point of a sword.

“50. A part of a spear, with iron spearhead.

“51. Ditto head without wood.

“52. The point of a halberd. A nearly equiform halberd is represented in the illustration. ‘The exact manner of the house wherein we wintered’.

“53. The barrel of a heavy musket or matchlock, with breach-pin, pan, matchstick, a sight on the fore part of the barrel. In the work ‘Le Moyen-âge et la Renaissance’, par P. Lacroix et F. Seré, Paris, 1851, T. iv. in the article ‘Armurerie, armes à feu portatives’, folio xxiii, by F. de Saulcy, is the following passage: ‘L’arquebuse à mêche resta pendant longtemps l’arme ordinaire d’une partie de l’infanterie; seulement après en avoir diminué le poids on lui donna le nom de mousquet, et le mousquet à mêche était encore en usage dans les armées de Louis XIII’. To this kind of firearm belongs the barrel spoken of under No. 53. The mechanism, with which the match was brought on the panpowder was called ‘le serpentin’. ‘Le serpentin’, says de Saulcy, ‘exigeait que le soldat eût constamment sur lui une mêche allumée, ou le moyen de faire du feu: il fallait en outre compasser la mêche, etc. Pour remédier à cet inconvénient on inventa les platines à rouet, qui furent employées d’abord en Allemagne et fabriquées, dit on, pour la première fois en 1517 à Neuremberg. Dans la platine à rouet la complication du mécanisme avait trop d’inconvénients, pour qu’on ne cherchât pas à le perfectionner. Les Espagnols y parurent les premiers. La platine espagnole, appelée souvent platine de miquelet, présentait au dehors un ressort qui pressait à l’extrémité de sa branche mobile sur un bras du chien, l’autre bras de cette pièce lorsqu’on mettait le chien au bandé appuyait contre une broche, sortant de l’intérieur et traversant le corps de la platine. On retirait cette broche et le ressort poussait le chien, qui n’était plus retenu, et la pierre frappait sur un plan d’acier cannelé, qui faisait corps avec le couvercle du bassinet. Le choc de la pierre sur les cannelures de l’acier produisait le feu’. The matchlock under No. 57 seems to be a fragment of such a platine de miquelet.

“54. The barrel of a gun of smaller calibre, with three sights.

“55. Ditto.

“56. Ditto (broken).

“57. A part of a matchlock, with cock, and flint-stones.

“58. Nineteen copper powder horns, some of them covered with leather, and some still full of powder. These horns were suspended to a shoulder belt.

“59. An iron cannon ball.

“60. A tin bracket pitcher, beautifully engraved. Style Renaissance. Probably it belonged to the merchandise of which, according to de Veer, the ship’s cargo partly consisted. The pitcher is in a perfect state of preservation.

“61. The upper half of another pitcher.

“62. Five tin candlesticks on pedestals, beautifully formed, as they were used in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Probably merchandise.

“63. Five ditto, of another form, of which three are broken. Merchandise.

“64. Thirteen ditto, but again of another and smaller form; in three of them the upper part is wanting.

“65. Two tin boxes, each divided into four compartments, of which the lower part, if you turn it, can be used as a drinking cup, the centre as a saltcellar, whilst the upper part is fit for a pepper box, the top of which unscrews.

“66. Two ditto, of which only the drinking cups and the upper part of the pepper box have been preserved.

“67. Two ditto, of which only the lower part of the drinking cups has been preserved.

“68. A tin medallion, on which is represented: ‘Time that uplifts truth from the earth’, and on which a marginal inscription is to be read: ‘Abstrusam. Tenebris. Tempus. Me Educit. Tu Auras. H. G. (Henry or Hurbert Goltzius)’. Inside the margin is found: ‘Veritas filia temporis’. Probably also an object of merchandise. A description of similar medals is found in the Dutch work of C. Leemans, in ‘de Verslagen der Koninklijke Akademie van Wetenschappen’.

“69. A ditto medallion in a small wooden frame, representing a woman seated, holding in her right hand a cross, and in her left a chalice or goblet, from which a flame like light arises. Behind her lies one of the tables of the law. A symbol of religion, or of the New Testament.

“70. Two ditto medallions, in wooden frames, representing a woman with a child in her lap, and another in her arms. A third child seeks refuge near her; this is probably a symbol of Mercy.

“71. Three copper parts of objects, the original destination of which is uncertain.

“72. Two wooden stoppers, either belaying pins, which are used on small ships to fasten ropes, or pieces of furniture. These objects have been erroneously taken by Captain Carlsen for drumsticks.

“73. Nine buttons, and the stopper of a tin bottle.

“74. The haft of a knife, and another object of carved wood. Not Dutch work, but apparently of Norwegian or Russian origin. Barendsz or one of his companions might have obtained these objects on the former expeditions. Moreover the trade with Archangel gave them opportunities of buying Russian or Norwegian articles.

“75. A great number of prints from copper engravings. These prints have been completely frozen together, and whilst in that state a beam or other part of the dwelling has fallen upon them, for they seem to have been broken whilst in congealed condition, and a thaw has reduced them to a compact mass. The prints are well executed, but the paper having become too weak, only some of the engravings have been removed, and those in a torn condition. Some of them represent Roman heroes, by Goltzius; the ‘Defenders of Harlem’, by Goltzius. 1857, subscribed Londerseel; ‘Paradise’, by Spranger, subscribed Bosscher; ‘Pallas, Juno, and Venus in presence of Paris’, with ‘Bosscher excudit’. Scenes taken from the Bible, such as ‘The meeting of Esau and Jacob’, ‘Tobias’, etc. Also representations of Asiatic or Persian horsemen, etc.; a large drawing, showing a reposing lion, with the monogram HTR. (The H and R written together, and the T interlaced in the H). The manner of engraving the names of the engravers proves that all these must have been the work of the sixteenth century. It may seem strange that Arctic navigators had prints or engravings on board, but it is not at all so, for Heemskerck and Barendsz intended to go as far as China, when they sailed to the North-East. For that purpose they had merchandise on board, and prints or engravings were often used as such. This had also been the case on the first voyage to the East Indies. On a list of goods and merchandise left at Patani, in Siam, in 1602, a great number of drawings by de Gheyn, Goltzius, Brengel, etc., are to be found, and among these, facsimiles of those discovered at Novaya Zemlya, namely, ‘The Three Goddesses’, ‘The Roman heroes’, etc.

“76. A folio book bound in leather, and with copper clasps, but half the binding has mouldered away. The beginning and the end of this book, as well as the edges, are much decayed, and the title of the first volume is quite obliterated. The book is divided into two parts; the first volume, of which the title is obliterated, has proved to be, after comparison with another specimen of this work, ‘Die Cronycke van Hollant, Zeeland ende Vrieslant, tot den jare 1517, etc., tot Delft, by Aelbert Hendricus, wonnende op ’t Meretveld, Anno 1585’. [23] The second volume, of which the title is intact, runs: ‘Short and true account of the Government, and the most remarkable facts that occurred in the country of Holland, Zeeland, and Friesland, by Albert Hendriksz, anno 1585’.

“77. A book in quarto (the edges of which are much decayed), entitled: ‘The Navigation, or the Art of Sailing, by the excellent pilote, Pieter de Medina, a Spaniard, etc.; with still another new Instruction on the Principal Points of Navigation, by Michel Coignet. ’t Hantwerpen, anno 1580’. At the bottom of the page, where the fifth chapter of the new instruction of Coignet begins, opposite to a copy of the Astrolabe (the number of the page is worn out), there is written in the old Dutch, ‘... y myn Jan Aerjanss ... Pieter Janss ... y (of 17) April ghinghen vij van ... (lyberen herte?)’. The two last words are almost illegible. Gerrit de Veer gives, at the end of his recital, the names of those who returned from Novaya Zemlya. Among these, the names of Jan Aerjanss and Pieter Janss are not to be found. These were, most likely, the names of two of the missing crew of whom the names are not mentioned. Of the seventeen persons who set out, only twelve returned safely to the Netherlands. A new translation, by Mr. Martin Everart Brug, of the work of Medina, had been published in 1598, by Cornelis Claesz, at Amsterdam, with Coignet’s new instructions. As the copy found at Novaya Zemlya is a publication of 1580, it follows, as a matter of course, that the Dutch navigators who had left this copy, dated 1580, at Novaya Zemlya, must have started before the year 1598, or they would assuredly have taken the latest edition of so important a work, especially when printed at Amsterdam, from whence they started.

“78. A little book, with parchment cover, in octavo, having the form of a pocket-book, entitled, ‘The History or Description of the great Empire of China’. This was first written in Spanish by Juan Gonzales de Mendoza, monk of the Order of St. Augustin, and then translated from the Italian into Dutch by Corn. Taemsz, and printed for Cornelis Claesz, book-seller, living at the Gilt Bible, in North Street, Hoorn, by Jacob de M——, printer, in the town of Alkmaar. The date of the edition of this copy cannot be given with exactitude, by reason of the mouldering away of the lower part of the title-page. The origin of the work can be deduced from the following facts: In the address to the Good Willing Reader, verso of the title-page, is written that ‘this little book was edited after Jan Huyghen van Linschoten had returned to the Netherlands, but somewhat before the publication of the account of his voyage’. Jan Huyghen van Linschoten returned to Holland in the autumn of 1592, and the account of his voyage was published by Cornelis Claesz in 1595. Thus the translation of Mendoza must have been published somewhere between 1592 and 1595. I even believe that we can fix the date of the publishing to be 1595; for the copy found at Novaya Zemlya is exactly similar, both in form and type, to another copy still extant, published in Amsterdam by Cornelis Claesz in 1595. The edition of Amsterdam is exactly similar to the edition of Hoorn, except the title and the first twelve pages of the preface, which in the edition of Amsterdam are of the same purport, but printed in another type. The only difference between the two works consists in the type of the preface.”

On the 17th of August, 1875, M. Gundersen, commander of the Norwegian schooner Regina, was the first after Carlsen who visited Barendsz’s Ice Harbour. In a chest, the upper part of which was quite mouldered, he found an old journal, two charts, and a grapnel with four flukes, three of which seemed to have been purposely broken off. The charts, pasted upon sail-cloth, are much injured. The words “Germania inferior” may be read on them. The journal has proved to be a manuscript Dutch translation of the narrative of the English expedition of Pet and Jackman, 1580.

For the numerous abridgements and summaries of De Veer’s work, I refer to the learned book of Mr. P. A. Fiele, at Leyden, entitled Mémoire Bibliographique sur les journaux des Navigateurs Néerlandais: Amsterdam, 1867.

INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST EDITION.

BY CHARLES J. BEKE, Phil.D.

The three voyages undertaken by the Dutch, towards the close of the sixteenth century, with a view to the discovery of a north-east passage to China, are deservedly placed among the most remarkable exploits of that enterprising nation; while the ten months’ residence of the adventurous seamen at the furthest extremity of the inhospitable region of Novaya Zemlya, within little more than fourteen degrees of the North Pole, and their homeward voyage of upwards of seventeen hundred geographical miles in two small open boats, are events full of romantic interest.

The republication by the Hakluyt Society of the narrative of these three voyages, is most appropriate at this particular juncture, when public attention is so painfully absorbed by apprehensions as to the fate of Franklin and his companions. At all times would this work be read with interest, as giving in plain and simple language, which vouches for its truth, the first account of a forced winter residence in the Arctic Regions, patiently and resolutely endured and successfully terminated; but at the present moment it acquires a far deeper importance from its representation—faint, perhaps, and wholly inadequate to the reality—of the hardships which must have been undergone by our missing countrymen; happy if some of them shall have survived, like Gerrit de Veer, to tell the tale of their sufferings and of their final deliverance from their long captivity.

In adverting to the causes which led to these three expeditions, it would be quite superfluous to enter upon the general history of Arctic discovery. All that is requisite for the proper elucidation of the present subject, is an investigation of the actual state of our knowledge respecting the precise field of the labours of our Dutch navigators, previously to the date of their adventurous undertaking.

Three centuries have now elapsed since the first attempt was made to discover a north-east passage to China and India. The circumstances under which this took place, cannot be better detailed than in the words of Clement Adams, in his account of “the newe Nauigation and discouerie of the kingdome of Muscouia, by the north-east, in the yeere 1553”, which is printed by Hakluyt in the first volume of his Principal Navigations.

“At what time our marchants perceiued the commodities and wares of England to bee in small request with the countreys and people about vs and neere vnto vs, and that those marchandizes which strangers in the time and memorie of our auncesters did earnestly seeke and desire, were nowe neglected and the price thereof abated, although by vs carried to their owne portes, and all forreine marchandises in great accompt and their prises wonderfully raised: certaine graue citizens of London, and men of great wisedome, and carefull for the good of their countrey, began to thinke with themselves howe this mischiefe might be remedied. Neither was a remedie (as it then appeared) wanting to their desires, for the auoyding of so great an inconuenience: for, seeing that the wealth of the Spaniards and Portingales, by the discouerie and search of newe trades and countreys was marueilously increased, supposing the same to be a course and meane for them also to obteine the like, they thereupon resolued upon a newe and strange nauigation. And whereas at the same time one Sebastian Cabota, [24] a man in those dayes very renowned, happened to bee in London, they began first of all to deale and consult diligently with him, and after much speech and conference together, it was at last concluded that three shippes should bee prepared and furnished out, for the search and discouerie of the northerne part of the world, to open a way and passage to our men for trauaile to newe and vnknowen kingdomes.

“And whereas many things seemed necessary to bee regarded in this so hard and difficult a matter, they first make choyse of certaine graue and wise persons, in maner of a senate or companie, which should lay their heads together and giue their iudgements, and prouide things requisite and profitable for all occasions: by this companie it was thought expedient that a certaine summe of money should publiquely bee collected, to serue for the furnishing of so many shippes. And lest any priuate man should bee too much oppressed and charged, a course was taken, that euery man willing to be of the societie should disburse the portion of twentie and five pounds a piece; so that in short time by this meanes the summe of sixe thousand pounds being gathered, the three shippes were bought, the most part whereof they prouided to be newly built and trimmed.” [25]

The three vessels thus fitted out sailed in company from Ratcliff on the 10th of May, 1553. On their arrival at Harwich, they were detained there some time; “yet at the last with a good winde they hoysed vp saile, and committed themselues to the sea, giuing their last adieu to their natiue country, which they knewe not whether they should euer returne to see againe or not. Many of them looked oftentimes backe, and could not refraine from teares, considering into what hazards they were to fall, and what vncertainties of the sea they were to make triall of.” [26]

These gloomy forebodings were not long in finding their realization. In a violent tempest off the coast of Norway, two of the vessels, the Bona Esperanza and Bona Confidentia, in the former of which was Sir Hugh Willoughby, captain-general of the fleet, were driven far out to sea, and at length put into a small haven on the coast of Lapland, near the mouth of the river Warsina, [27] where the entire crews of both vessels, amounting in all to seventy souls, miserably perished from cold and hunger.