Henry Hudson | Page 5

certain knowledge of Hudson's
life begins.
St. Ethelburga's, a restful pause in the bustle of Bishopsgate Street, still
stands--the worse, to be sure, for the clutter of little shops that has been
built in front of it, and for incongruous interior renovation--and I am
very grateful to Purchas for having preserved the scrap of information
that links Hudson's 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