History of the United Netherlands, 1598-99 | Page 7

1st of August, resolving to repeat his experiment
early in the following year.
Meantime Linschoten, with the ships Swan and Mercury, had entered
the passage which they called the Straits of Nassau, but which are now
known to all the world as the Waigats. They were informed by the
Samoyedes of the coast that, after penetrating the narrow channel, they
would find themselves in a broad and open sea. Subsequent discoveries
showed the correctness of the statement, but it was not permitted to the
adventurers on this occasion to proceed so far. The strait was already
filled with ice-drift, and their vessels were brought to a standstill, after
about a hundred and fifty English miles of progress beyond the Waigats;
for the whole sea of Tartary, converted into a mass of ice- mountains
and islands, and lashed into violent agitation by a north easterly storm,

seemed driving down upon the doomed voyagers. It was obvious that
the sunny clime of Cathay was not thus to be reached, at least upon that
occasion. With difficulty they succeeded in extricating themselves from
the dangers surrounding them, and emerged at last from the Waigats.
On the 15th of August, in latitude 69 deg. 15', they met the ship of
Barendz and returned in company to Holland, reaching Amsterdam on
the 16th of September. Barendz had found the seas and coasts visited
by him destitute of human inhabitants, but swarming with polar bears,
with seals, with a terrible kind of monsters, then seen for the first time,
as large as oxen, with almost human faces and with two long tusks
protruding from each grim and grotesque visage. These mighty beasts,
subsequently known as walrusses or sea-horses, were found sometimes
in swarms of two hundred at a time, basking in the arctic sun, and
seemed equally at home on land, in the sea, and on icebergs. When
aware of the approach of their human visitors, they would slide off an
iceblock into the water, holding their cubs in their arms, and ducking
up and down in the sea as if in sport. Then tossing the young ones away,
they would rush upon the boats, and endeavour to sink the strangers,
whom they instinctively recognised as their natural enemies. Many
were the severe combats recorded by the diarist of that voyage of
Barendz with the walrusses and the bears.
The chief result of this first expedition was the geographical
investigation made, and, with unquestionable right; these earliest arctic
pilgrims bestowed the names of their choice upon the regions first
visited by themselves. According to the unfailing and universal impulse
on such occasions, the names dear to the fatherland were naturally
selected. The straits were called Nassau, the island at its mouth became
States or Staten Island; the northern coasts of Tartary received the
familiar appellations of New Holland, New Friesland, New Walcheren;
while the two rivers, beyond which Linschoten did not advance, were
designated Swan and Mercury respectively, after his two ships.
Barendz, on his part, had duly baptized every creek, bay, islet, and
headland of Nova Zembla, and assuredly Christian mariner had never
taken the latitude of 77 deg. before. Yet the antiquary, who compares
the maps soon afterwards published by William Blaeuw with the charts
now in familiar use, will observe with indignation the injustice with
which the early geographical records have been defaced, and the names

rightfully bestowed upon those terrible deserts by their earliest
discoverers rudely torn away. The islands of Orange can still be
recognized, and this is almost the only vestige left of the whole
nomenclature. But where are Cape Nassau, William's Island, Admiralty
Island, Cape Plancius, Black-hook, Cross- hook, Bear's-hook, Ice-hook,
Consolation-hook, Cape Desire, the Straits of Nassau, Maurice Island,
Staten Island, Enkhuizen Island, and many other similar appellations.
The sanguine Linschoten, on his return, gave so glowing an account of
the expedition that Prince Maurice and Olden-Barneveld, and
prominent members of the States-General, were infected with his
enthusiasm. He considered the north-east passage to China discovered
and the problem solved. It would only be necessary to fit out another
expedition on a larger scale the next year, provide it with a cargo of
merchandize suitable for the China market, and initiate the direct
polar-oriental trade without further delay. It seems amazing that so
incomplete an attempt to overcome such formidable obstacles should
have been considered a decided success. Yet there is no doubt of the
genuineness of the conviction by which Linschoten was actuated. The
calmer Barendz, and his friend and comrade Gerrit de Veer, were of
opinion that the philosopher had made "rather a free representation" of
the enterprise of 1594 and of the prospects for the future.
Nevertheless, the general Government, acting on Linschoten's
suggestion, furnished a fleet of seven ships: two from Enkhuizen, two
from Zeeland, two