Henry Hudson | Page 5

living body with that church which still is alive: into which may pass by the very doorway that he passed through those who venerate his memory; and there may stand within the very walls and beneath the very roof that sheltered him when he and his ship's company partook of the Sacrament together three hundred years ago. Purchas, no doubt, could have told all that we so gladly would know of Hudson's early history. But he did not tell it--and we must rest content, I think well content, with that poetic beginning at the chancel rail of St. Ethelburga's of the strong life that less than four years later came to its epic ending.
The voyage made in the year 1607, for which Hudson and his crew prepared by making their peace with God in St. Ethelburga's, had nothing to do with America; nor did his voyage of the year following have anything to do with this continent. Both of those adventures were set forth by the Muscovy Company in search of a northeast passage to the Indies; and, while they failed in their main purpose, they added important facts concerning the coasts of Spitzbergen and of Nova Zembla to the existing stock of geographical knowledge, and yielded practical results in that they extended England's Russian trade.
The most notable scientific accomplishment of the first voyage was the high northing made. By observation (July 23, 1607) Hudson was in 80�� 23'. By reckoning, two days later, he was in 81��. His reckoning, because of his ignorance of the currents, always has been considered doubtful. His observed position recently has been questioned by Sir Martin Conway, who has arrived at the conclusion: "It is demonstrably probable that for 80�� 23' we should read 79�� 23'."[1] But even with this reduction accepted, the fact remains that until the year 1773, when Captain Phipps reached 80�� 48', Hudson held the record for "farthest north."
[Footnote 1: "Hudson's Voyage to Spitzbergen in 1607," by Sir Martin Conway. The Geographical Journal, February, 1900.]
To the second voyage belongs the often-quoted incident of the mermaid. The log of that voyage that has come down to us was kept by Hudson himself; and this is what he wrote in it (June 15, 1608) with his own hand: "All day and night cleere sunshine. The wind at east. The latitude at noone 75 degrees 7 minutes. We held westward by our account 13 leagues. In the afternoon, the sea was asswaged, and the wind being at east we set sayle, and stood south and by east, and south southeast as we could. This morning one of our companie looking over boord saw a mermaid, and calling up some of the companie to see her, one more came up and by that time shee was come close to the ships side, looking earnestly on the men. A little after a sea came and overturned her. From the navill upward her backe and breasts were like a womans, as they say that saw her, but her body as big as one of us. Her skin very white, and long haire hanging downe behinde of colour blacke. In her going downe they saw her tayle, which was like the tayle of a porposse, and speckled like a macrell. Their names that saw her were Thomas Hilles and Robert Rayner."
[Illustration: FROM DE BREY. EDITION 1619]
I am sorry to say that the too-conscientious Doctor Asher, in editing this log, felt called upon to add, in a foot-note: "Probably a seal"; and to quote, in support of his prosaic suggestion, various unnecessary facts about seals observed a few centuries later in the same waters by Doctor Kane. For my own part, I much prefer to believe in the mermaid--and, by so believing, to create in my own heart somewhat of the feeling which was in the hearts of those old seafarers in a time when sea-prodigies and sea-mysteries were to be counted with as among the perils of every ocean voyage.
This belief of mine is not a mere whimsical fancy. Unless we take as real what the shipmen of Hudson's time took as real, we not only miss the strong romance which was so large a part of their life, but we go wide of understanding the brave spirit in which their exploring work was done. Adventuring into tempests in their cockle-shell ships they took as a matter of course--and were brave in that way without any thought of their bravery. As a part of the day's work, also, they took their wretched quarters aboard ship and their wretched, and usually insufficient, food. Their highest courage was reserved for facing the fearsome dangers which existed only in their imaginations--but which were as real to them as were the dangers of wreck and of starvation and of battlings with