No portrait of Hudson is known to be in existence. What has passed
with the uncritical for his portrait--a dapper-looking man wearing
a ruffed collar--frequently has been, and continues to be,
reproduced. Who that man was is unknown. That he was not Hudson is
certain.
Lacking Hudson's portrait, I have used for a frontispiece a
photograph, especially taken for this purpose, of the interior of
the Church of Saint Ethelburga: the sole remaining material link,
of which we have sure knowledge, between Hudson and ourselves. The
drawing on the cover represents what is very near to being another
material link--the replica, lately built in Holland, of the "Half
Moon," the ship in which Hudson made his most famous voyage.
The other illustrations have been selected with a strict regard to
the meaning of that word. In order to throw light on the text, I
have preferred--to the ventures of fancy--reproductions of
title-pages of works on navigation that Hudson probably used;
pictures of the few and crude instruments of navigation that he
certainly used; and pictures of ships virtually identical with
those in which he sailed.
The copy of Wright's famous work on navigation that Hudson may have
had, and probably did have, with him was of an earlier date than
that (1610) of which the title-page here is reproduced. This
reproduction is of interest in that it shows at a glance all of the
nautical instruments that Hudson had at his command; and of a still
greater interest in that the map which is a part of it exhibits
what at that time, by exploration or by conjecture, was the known
world. To the making of that map Hudson himself contributed: on it,
with a previously unknown assurance, his River clearly is marked.
The inadequate indication of his Bay probably is taken from
Weymouth's chart--the chart that Hudson had with him on his voyage.
A curious feature of this map is its marking--in defiance of known
facts--of two straits, to the north and to the south of a large
island, where should be the Isthmus of Panama.
The one seemingly fanciful picture, that of the mermaids, is not
fanciful--a point that I have enlarged upon elsewhere--by the
standard of Hudson's times. Hudson himself believed in the
existence of mermaids: as is proved by his matter-of-fact entry in
his log that a mermaid had been seen by two of his crew.