BARENTS SAILS TO SPITZBERGEN
With the third failure of John Davis to find the North-West Passage
the English search for Cathay came to an end for the present. But the
merchants of Amsterdam took up the search, and in 1594 they fitted
out an expedition under William Barents, a burgher of Amsterdam and
a practical seaman of much experience. The three voyages of Barents
form some of the most romantic reading in the history of geographical
discovery, and the preface to the old book compiled for the Dutch after
the death of Barents sums up in pathetic language the tragic story
of the "three Voyages, so strange and wonderful that the like hath
never been heard of before." They were "done and performed three
years," says the old preface, "one after the other, by the ships of
Holland, on the North sides of Norway, Muscovy, and Tartary, towards
the kingdoms of Cathay and China, showing discoveries of the Country
lying under 80 degrees: which is thought to be Greenland; where never
any man had been before, with the cruel Bears and other Monsters of
the sea and the unsupportable and extreme cold that is found to be
in these places. And how that in the last Voyage the Ship was enclosed
by the Ice, that it was left there, whereby the men were forced to
build a house in the cold and desert country of Nova Zembla, wherein
they continued ten months together and never saw nor heard of any man,
in most great cold and extreme misery; and how after that, to save
their lives, they were constrained to sail about one thousand miles
in little open boats, along and over the main Seas in most great danger
and with extreme labour, unspeakable troubles, and great hunger."
Surely no more graphic summary of disaster has ever appeared than these
words penned three hundred and fourteen years ago, which cry to us
down the long, intervening ages of privation and suffering endured
in the cause of science.
[Illustration: A SHIP OF THE LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. From Ortelius,
1598.]
In the year 1594, then, four ships were sent forth from Amsterdam with
orders to the wise and skilful pilot, William Barents, that he was
to sail into the North Seas and "discover the kingdoms of Cathay and
China." In the month of July the Dutch pilot found himself off the
south coast of Nova Zembla, whence he sailed as the wind pleased to
take him, ever making for the north and hugging the coast as close
as possible. On 9th July they found a creek very far north to which
they gave the name of Bear Creek, because here they suddenly discovered
their first Polar bear. It tried to get into their boat, so they shot
it with a musket, "but the bear showed most wonderful strength, for,
notwithstanding that she was shot into the body, yet she leapt up and
swam in the water; the men that were in the boat, rowing after her,
cast a rope about her neck and drew her at the stern of the boat, for,
not having seen the like bear before, they thought to have carried
her alive in the ship and to have showed her for a strange wonder in
Holland; but she used such force that they were glad they were rid
of her, and contented themselves with her skin only." This they brought
back to Amsterdam in great triumph--their first white Polar bear. But
they went farther north than this, until they came to a plain field
of ice and encountered very misty weather. Still they kept sailing
on, as best they might, round about the ice till they found the land
of Nova Zembla was covered with snow. From "Ice Point" they made their
way to islands which they named Orange Islands after the Dutch Prince.
Here they found two hundred walrus or sea-horses lying on the shore
and basking in the sun.
[Illustration: NOVA ZEMBLA AND THE ARCTIC REGIONS. From a map in De
Bry's _Grands Voyages_, 1598.]
"The sea-horse is a wonderful strong monster of the sea," they brought
back word, "much bigger than an ox, having a skin like a seal, with
very short hair, mouthed like a lion; it hath four feet, but no ears."
The little party of Dutchmen advanced boldly with hatchets and pikes
to kill a few of these monsters to take home, but it was harder work
than they thought. The wind suddenly rose, too, and rent the ice into
great pieces, so they had to content themselves by getting a few of
their ivory teeth, which they reported to be half an ell long. With
these and other treasures Barents was now forced to return from these
high latitudes, and he sailed safely into the Texel after three and
a half months' absence.
His reports of Nova Zembla encouraged the merchants of Amsterdam to
persevere in their search for the kingdoms of Cathay and China by the
north-east, and a second expedition was fitted out under Barents the
following year; but it started too late to accomplish much, and we
must turn to the third expedition for the discovery which has for ever
made famous the name of William Barents. It was yet early in the May
of 1596 when he sailed from Amsterdam with two ships for the third
and last time, bound once more for the frozen northern seas. By 1st
June he had reached a region where there was no night, and a few days
later a strange sight startled the whole crew, "for on each side of
the sun there was another sun and two rainbows more, the one compassing
round about the suns and the other right through the great circle,"
and they found they were "under 71 degrees of the height of the Pole."
Sighting the North Cape of Lapland, they held on a north-westerly
course till on 9th June they came upon a little island which they named
Bear Island. Here they nearly met their end, for, having ascended a
steep snow mountain on the island to look around them, they found it
too slippery to descend. "We thought we should all have broken our
necks, it was so slippery, but we sat up on the snow and slid down,
which was very dangerous for us, and break both our arms and legs for
that at the foot of the hill there were many rocks." Barents himself
seems to have sat in the boat and watched them with intense anxiety.
They were once more amid ice and Polar bears. In hazy weather they
made their way north till on the 19th they saw land, and the "land
was very great." They thought it was Greenland, but it was really
Spitzbergen, of which he was thus the discoverer.
Many things astonished the navigators here. Although they were in such
high latitudes, they saw grass and leafy trees and such animals as
bucks and harts, while several degrees to the south "there groweth
neither leaves nor grass nor any beasts that eat grass or leaves, but
only such beasts as eat flesh, as bears and foxes."
[Illustration: BARENTS IN THE ARCTIC: "HUT WHEREIN WE WINTERED." From
De Veer's account of the voyages of Barents, 1598.]
By 1st July he had explored the western shore and was sailing south
to Bear Island. He never landed on the coast of Spitzbergen: so we
have no further account of this Arctic discovery. Sailing across the
wide northern sea now known as Barents Sea, he made land again in the
north of Nova Zembla, and, hugging the western shore, came to Ice Point.
Here they were sorely harassed by Polar bears and floating ice and
bitter gales of wind. Still they coasted on till they had rounded the
northern end of Nova Zembla and unexpectedly sailed into a good harbour
where they could anchor. The wind now blew with redoubled vigour, the
"ice came mightily driving in" until the little ship was nearly
surrounded, "and withal the wind began more and more to rise and the
ice still drave harder and harder, so that our boat was broken in pieces
between the ship and the ice, and it seemed as if the ship would be
crushed in pieces too."
As the August days passed on, they tried to get out of their prison,
but it was impossible, and there was nothing for it but to winter "in
great cold, poverty, misery, and grief" in this bleak and barren spot.
The successful pilot was to explore no more, but the rest of the tragic
tale must be shortly told. With the ice heaping high, "as the salt
hills that are in Spain," and the ship in danger of going to pieces,
they collected trees and roots driven on to the desolate shores from
Tartary, "wherewith as if God had purposely sent them unto us we were
much comforted." Through the September days they drew wood across the
ice and snow to build a house for the winter. Only sixteen men could
work and they were none too strong and well.
[Illustration: BARENTS'S SHIP AMONG THE ARCTIC ICE. From a coloured
woodcut in the account of Barents's three voyages by Gerard de Veer,
published in 1598.]
Throughout October and November they were snowed up in their winter
hut, with "foul stormie weather" outside, the wind blowing ceaselessly
out of the north and snow lying deep around. They trapped a few foxes
from day to day to eat, making warm caps out of their fur; they heated
stones and took them into their cabin beds, but their sheets froze
as they washed them and at last their clock froze too.
"They looked pitifully upon one another, being in great fear that if
the extremity of the cold grew to be more and more we should all die
there with the cold." Christmas came and went and they comforted one
another by remembering that the sun was as low as it could go, and
that it must begin to come to them again; but "as the day lengthens,
so the cold strengthens," and the snow now lay deeper until it covered
the roof of their house.
The New Year found them still imprisoned, "with great cold, danger,
and disease." January, February, March, April passed and still the
little ship was stuck fast in the ice. But as the sun began to gain
power, hope revived, and they began to repair their boats, to make
new sails, and repair tackle. They were too weak and ill to do much
work, but by the middle of June the boats were fairly ready and they
could cut a way through the ice to the open sea. This was their only
hope of escape, to leave the ship behind and embark in two little open
boats for the open sea.
"Then William Barents wrote a letter, which he put into a musket's
charge and hanged it up in the chimney, showing how we came out of
Holland to sail to the kingdom of China, and how we had been forced
in our extremity to make that house and had dwelt ten months therein,
and how we were forced to put to sea in two small open boats, for that
the ship lay fast in the ice."
Barents himself was now too ill to walk, so they carried him to one
of the little boats, and on 14th June 1597 the little party put off
from their winter quarters and sailed round to Ice Point. But the pilot
was dying. "Are we about Ice Point?" he asked feebly. "If we be, then
I pray you lift me up, for I must view it once again."
Then suddenly the wind began to rise, driving the ice so fast upon
them "that it made our hair stand upright upon our heads, it was so
fearful to behold, so that we thought verily that it was a foreshadowing
of our last end."
They drew the boats up on to the ice and lifted the sick commander
out and laid him on the icy ground, where a few days later he died--"our
chief guide and only pilot on whom we reposed ourselves next under
God." The rest of the story is soon told.
On 1st November 1597 some twelve gaunt and haggard men, still wearing
caps of white fox and coats of bearskin, having guided their little
open boats all the way from Nova Zembla, arrived at Amsterdam and told
the story of their exploration to the astonished merchants, who had
long since given them up as dead.
It was not till 1871 that Barents' old winter quarters on Nova Zembla
were discovered. "There stood the cooking-pans over the fireplace,
the old clocks against the wall, the arms, the tools, the drinking
vessels, the instruments and the books that had beguiled the weary
hours of that long night, two hundred and seventy-eight years ago."
Among the relics were a pair of small shoes and a flute which had
belonged to a little cabin-boy who had died during the winter.