All along the coast of Britain, from John o' Groat's to Beachey Head,
from Saint Michael's Mount to Cape Wrath, twinkled the bonfires on the
headlands. Henry Hudson, returning from a voyage among icebergs, guessed
at once what this chain of lights meant. The son of Mary Queen of Scots
had been crowned in London.[1]
Hudson's keen eyes were unusually grave and thoughtful as the _Muscovy
Duck_ sailed up to London Pool on the incoming tide. The sailors looked
even more sober, for most of them were English Protestants, with a few
Flemings, and John Williams the pilot was an Anabaptist. It was he who
asked the question of which all were thinking.
"Master Hudson, d'ye think the new King will light them other fires--the
ones at Smithfield?"
Hudson shook his head. "That's a thing no man can say for certain, John.
But there's the Low Countries and the Americas to run to. 'T is not as
it was in Queen Mary's day."
"Aye, but Spain has got all of America, pretty near, and the French are
nabbing the rest," said the pilot doubtfully.
"Nay, that's a bigger place than you guess, over yonder. Ever see the
map that Doctor Dee made for Queen Bess near thirty years ago? I
remember him showing it to my grandsire with the ink scarce dry on it.
The country Ralegh's people saw has got room for the whole of France and
England, and plenty timber and corn-land. Sir Walter he knew that."
There was plague in London when they landed, and all sought their
families in fear and trembling, not knowing what might have come and
gone in their absence. Hudson's house was at Mortlake on the Thames
above London, and there he was rejoiced to find all well. Young John
Hudson was brimful of Mr. Brereton's new Relacion of the Voyage of
Captain Bartholomew Gosnold and Captain Bartholomew Gilbert to the North
part of Virginia by permission of the honorable Knight Sir Walter
Ralegh. Strawberries bigger than those of England, and cherries in
clusters like grapes, blackbirds with carnation-colored wings, Indians
who painted their eyebrows white and made faces over mustard, were mixed
higgledy-piggledy in his bubbling talk. Hudson, turning the pages of the
new book, saw at once that on this voyage around Cape Cod the little
ship _Concord_ had sailed seas unknown to him.
"Why won't the Company send you to the Americas, Dad?" the boy asked
eagerly. "When will I be old enough to go to sea?"
"Wait till ye're fourteen at least, Jack," his father answered. "There's
much to learn before ye're a master mariner."
In the next few years things were not so well with English mariners as
they had been. Cecil and Howard, picking a quarrel with Ralegh, had him
shut up in the Tower. The Dutch were trading everywhere, seizing the
chances King James missed. But Hudson was in the employ of the Muscovy
Company like his father and grandfather, and the Russian fur trade was
making that Company rich.
Captain John Smith, a shrewd-faced soldier with merry eyes, appeared at
the house one day and told entertaining stories of his campaigns under
Prince Sigismund of Bohemia. He and the boy John drove the neighbors
nearly distracted with curiosity, one winter evening, signalling with
torches from the house to the river.[2] To anxious souls who surmised a
new Guy Fawkes conspiracy Captain Smith showed how he had once conveyed
a message to the garrison of a beleaguered city in this way. Here was
the code. The first half of the alphabet was represented by single
lights, the second half by pairs. To secure attention three torches were
shown at equal distances from one another, until a single light flashed
in response to show that the signal was understood. For any letter from
A to L a single light was shown and hidden one or more times according
to the number of the letter from the beginning; thus, three flashes
meant C; four meant D, and so on. For a letter between M and Z the same
plan was followed using two torches. The end of a word was signified by
three lights. In this way Smith had spelled out the message, "On
Thursday night I will charge on the east; at the alarum, sally you." He
had, however, translated it into Latin, to make it short.
John Hudson found new interest in Latin.
When Captain Smith began to talk of joining a new colony to go to
Virginia the boy begged hard to be allowed to go. But just at this time
the Muscovy Company was sending Henry Hudson to look for a way round
through northern seas to the Spice Islands. The Dutch were already
trading in the Portuguese Indies. If England could reach them by a
shorter route, it would be a very pleasant discovery for the Muscovy
Company.
Even in 1607 geographers believed in an open polar sea north of Asia.
Hudson tried the Greenland route. Sailing east of Greenland he found
himself between that country and the islands named "Nieuwland" by
William Barents the Dutch navigator in 1596. Their pointed icy mountains
seemed to push up through the sea. Icebergs crowded the waters like
miniature peaks of a submerged range. Hudson returned to report to the
company "no open sea."
In 1608 he was again sent out on the same errand. This time he steered
further east, between those islands and another group named by Barents
Nova Zembla. He sailed nearer to the pole than any man had been before
him, and found whales bigger, finer and more numerous than anywhere
else. Rounding the North Cape on his way home he made the first recorded
observation of a sun-spot. In August, when he returned and made his
report, there was a sensation in the seafaring world.
The Dutch promptly sent whaling ships into the arctic seas, and
suggested, through Van Meteren the Dutch consul in London, a friend of
Hudson, that the English navigator should come to Amsterdam and talk of
entering their service. While there, he received an offer from the
French Ambassador, suggesting that his services would be welcome to a
proposed French East India Company. Hearing this, the Dutch hastened to
secure him, and on April 4, 1609, he sailed from Amsterdam in a yacht of
eighty tons called the _Half Moon_ and shaped rather like one, manned by
a crew of twenty, half English and half Netherlanders, and John as
cabin-boy.
John was in such a state of bliss as a boy can know when sailing on the
venture of his dreams. His father had told him in confidence that as his
sailing orders were almost the same as the year before, he did not
expect to find the northern route to India in that direction. Failing
this the _Half Moon_ would look for it in the western seas. Of this plan
he had said nothing in Holland.
He found, as he had expected, that the arctic waters were choked with
ice, and turning southward he headed for the Faroe Isles. While in
Holland he had had a letter from Captain John Smith, who had explored
the regions about Chesapeake Bay. No straits leading to the western
ocean had been discovered there, and no Sea of Verrazzano. Captain
Smith's opinion was that if such a passage existed it would be somewhere
about the fortieth parallel. Explorations had already been made farther
north. Davis Strait had been discovered some years before by John Davis,
now dead. Martin Frobisher had found another strait leading northwest.
Both of these were so far north that they were likely to be ice-bound by
the time the little _Half Moon_ could reach them. Hudson meant to look
along the coast further south, and see what could be found there.
The _Half Moon_ took in water at the Faroes and anchored some seven
weeks later, on July 18, in Penobscot Bay. Her foremast was gone and her
sails ripped and rent by the gales of the North Atlantic, and the
carpenter with a selected crew rowed ashore and chose a pine tree for a
new mast. While this was a-making and the sails were patched up, the
crew not otherwise engaged went fishing.
"I say," presently observed John Hudson, who knew Brereton's Relacion by
heart, "this must ha' been the place where they caught so many fish
that they were 'pestered with Cod' and threw numbers of 'em overboard.
This makes twenty-seven, Dad, so far."
During that week they caught fifty cod, a hundred lobsters and a halibut
which John declared to be half as big as the ship. Two French boats
appeared, full of Indians ready to trade beaver skins for red cloth. The
strawberry season was past, but John found wild cherries, small, deep
red, in heavy bunches. When he tried to eat them, however, they were so
sour that he nearly choked. Cautiously he tasted the big blue
whortleberries that grew on high bushes; near water, and found them
delicious. He had been eating them by the handful for some time when he
became aware that there was a feaster on the other side of the thicket.
Receiving no reply to his challenge he went to investigate and saw a
brown bear standing on his hind legs and raking the berries off the
twigs with both forepaws, into his mouth. At sight of John he dropped on
all fours and cantered off.
Leaving the bay they cruised along the coast past Cape Cod, and then
steered southwest for the fortieth parallel. Wind and rain came on in
the middle of August, and they were blown toward an inlet which Hudson
decided to be the James. Not knowing how the English governor of
Jamestown might regard an intrusion by a Dutch ship, he turned north
again, and on the twenty-eighth of August entered a large bay and took
soundings. More than once the _Half Moon_, light as she rode, grounded
on sand-banks, and Hudson shook his head in rueful doubt.
"D' you think the straits are here, Dad?" asked John when he had a
chance to speak with his father alone.
"Hardly. This is fresh water. It's the mouth of a river."[3]
"Yes, but might there be an isthmus--or the like?"
"A big river with as strong a current as this would not rise on a
narrow, level strip of land, son. It's bringing down tons of sand to
make these banks we run into. There's a great wide country inland
there."
The chanteys of the sailors were heard at daybreak in the lonely sea, as
the _Half Moon_ went on her way northward. On September 3 the little
ship edged into another and bigger bay to the north. Whether it was a
bay or a lake Hudson was at first rather doubtful. The shores were
inhabited, for little plumes of smoke arose everywhere, and soon from
all sides log canoes came paddling toward the ship. These Indians were
evidently not unused to trading, for they brought green tobacco, hemp,
corn and furs to sell, and some of them knew a few words of French. By
this, and by signs, they gave Hudson to understand that three rivers, or
inlets, came into this island-encircled sea, the largest being toward
the north. Hudson determined to follow this north river and see where it
led.
As he sailed cautiously into the channel, taking soundings and observing
the shores, he was puzzled. The tide rose and fell as if this were an
inlet of the sea, and it was far deeper than an ordinary river. In fact
it was more like a Norwegian fiord.[4] It might possibly lead to a lake,
and this lake might have an outlet to the western ocean. That it was a
strait he did not believe. Even in the English Channel the meeting tides
of the North Sea and the Atlantic made rough water, and the _Half Moon_
was drifting as easily as if she were slipping down stream. In any
event, nothing else had been found, either north or south of this point,
which could possibly be a strait, and Hudson meant to discover exactly
what this was before he set sail for Amsterdam.
They passed an Indian village in the woods to the right, and according
to the Indians who had come on board the place was called
Sapokanican,[5] and was famous for the making of wampum or shell beads.
A brook of clear sweet water flowed close by. Presently Hudson anchored
and sent five men ashore in a boat to explore the right-hand bank of the
channel. Night came on, and it began to rain, but the boat had not
returned. Hudson slept but little. In the morning the missing men
appeared with a tale of disaster. After about two leagues' travel they
had come to a bay full of islands. Here they had been attacked by two
canoes carrying twenty-six Indians, and their arrows had killed John
Colman and wounded two other men. It grew so dark when the rain began
that they dared not seek the ship, and the current was so strong that
their grapnel would not hold, so that they had had to row all night.
Sailing only in the day time and anchoring at night the little Dutch
ship went on to the north, looking between the steep rocky banks like a
boat carved out of a walnut-shell, in the wooden jaws of a nutcracker.
After dark, fires twinkled upon the heights, and the lapping waters
about the quiet keel were all shining with broken stars. The flame
appeared and vanished like a signal, and John Hudson wondered if the
Indians knew John Smith's trick of sending a message as far as a beacon
light could be seen.
One night he climbed up on the poop with the ship's great lantern and
tried the flashing signals he remembered. Before many minutes two of the
wild men had drawn near to watch, and although John could not make out
the meaning of the light that came and went upon the cliffs, it was
quite clear that they could. One of them waved his mantle in front of
the lantern, and turning to the boy nodded and grinned good-naturedly.
The signal fires must have talked to some purpose, for the next day a
delegation paddled out from the shore to invite the great captain, his
son and his chief officers to a feast.
When the party arrived at the house of the chief, which was a round
building, or pavilion, of saplings sheathed with oak bark, mats were
spread for them to sit upon, and food was served in polished red wooden
bowls. Two hunters were sent out to bring in game, and returned almost
at once with pigeons which were immediately dressed and cooked by the
women. One of the hunters gave John one of the arrowheads used for
shooting small birds; it was no bigger than his least fingernail and
made of a red stone like jasper. A fat dog had also been killed, skinned
and dressed with shell knives, and served as the dish of honor. Hudson
hastily explained in English to his companions that whether they
relished dog or not, it would never do to refuse it, as this was a
special dish for great occasions.
"Dad," said John that night, "do you think any ship with white men ever
came up here before?"
"No," said Hudson.
"I hope they'll call this the Hudson."
The water was now hardly more than seven feet deep, and the tide rose
only a few inches. Hudson came reluctantly to the conclusion that there
was no proceeding further in a ship. He sent a boatload of men several
leagues up-stream, but they came back with the report that the river was
much the same so far as they had gone.
During the voyage they had often seen parties of the savages, usually
friendly but sometimes hostile. Flights of arrows occasionally were
aimed at the _Half Moon_, and the crew replied with musket-shots which
sometimes but not always hit the mark. The painted warriors had a way of
disappearing into the woods like elves. Once, in spite of all endeavors
to shake him off, a solitary Indian in a small canoe followed along
under the stern till he saw the chance of climbing up the rudder to the
cabin window. He stole the pillow off the commander's bed, two shirts,
and two bandoliers (ammunition-belts), the tinkle of which betrayed him.
The mate saw him making off with his plunder and shot him, whereupon the
other Indians paddled off at top speed, some even leaping from their
canoes to swim ashore. A boat put out and recovered the stolen property,
and when a swimming Indian caught the side of it to overturn it the cook
valiantly beat him off with a sword. These with many other adventures
were duly written down by Robert Juet the mate.
To John Hudson the voyage was a journey of enchantment. Nothing he had
ever seen was in the least like the glory of the autumn forests,
mantling the mountains in scarlet, gold, malachite, russet, orange and
purple. He had been in the gardens at Lambeth where Tradescant the
famous gardener ruled, but there was more color in a single vivid maple
standing blood-red in a bit of lowland than in all his Lancaster roses.
And the great river had its flowers as well. A tall plant like an elfin
elm covered with thick-set tiny blossoms yellow as broom, grew wild over
the pastures, and interspersed with this fairy forest were thickets of
deep lavender daisies with golden centers. In lowland glades were tall
spikes of cardinal blossoms, and clusters of deep blue flowers like buds
that never opened. Vines loaded with bunches of scarlet and orange
berries like waxwork, and others bearing fluffy bunches of silky gray
down curly as an old man's beard, climbed the trees that overhung the
stream. The mountains in the upper river came right down to the water
like the glacis of a giant fort, and fitful winds pounced upon the _Half
Moon_ and rocked her like a cradle. Once there was a late
thunder-shower, and the noise of the thunder among the humped ranges was
for all the world like balls rolling in a great game of bowls played by
goblins of the mountains.
On the fourth of October, the _Half Moon_ left the island which the
Indians called Manahatta, passed through the Narrows and sailed for
Europe. Looking back at those green shores with their bronze
feather-crowned people watching to see the flight of their strange
guest, John Hudson felt that when he was a man, he would like nothing
better than to have an estate on the shores of the noble river, which no
white boy had ever before set eyes on. Where a great terrace rose, some
fifty miles above Manahatta, walled around by mountains and almost two
hundred feet above the river, there should be a fort, of which Captain
John Smith should be the commander; and in the broadening of the river
below to form an inland sea, his father's squadron should ride, while
the Indians of all the upper reaches of the river should come to pay
tribute and bring wampum, furs and tobacco in exchange for trinkets. And
on the island at the mouth of the river there would be a great city,
greater than Antwerp, to which all the ships of the world should come as
they came now to Antwerp and to London. So dreaming, John Hudson saw
the shores of this new world vanish in the blue line, where earth and
sky are one.