THE NORTHEAST PASSAGE
Amsterdam, the capital of the new Dutch commonwealth, the rich city
which alone counted more people within her wide walls than all of the
country provinces put together, had ever been the leader in all matters
which offered the chance of an honest penny. Her intellectual glory was
a reflected one, her artistic fame was imported from elsewhere; but her
exchange dictated its own terms to the rest of the country and to the
rest of the world. When the Estates of the Republic gave up the hope of
finding the route to India through the frozen Arctic Ocean, Amsterdam
had the courage of her nautical convictions, and at her own expense
she equipped a last expedition to proceed northward and discover this
famous route, which had the advantage of being short and safe.
Out of this expedition grew the famous voyage of Barendsz and Heemskerk
to Nova Zembla, the first polar expedition of which we possess a
precise account. There were two ships. They were small vessels, for no
one wished to risk a large investment on an expedition to the dangerous
region of ice and snow. Fewer than fifty men took part, and all had
been selected with great care. Married men were not taken; for this
expedition might last many years, and it must not be spoiled by the
homesick discontent of fathers of families.
Jan Corneliszoon de Ryp was captain of the smaller vessel. The other
one was commanded by Jacob van Heemskerk, a remarkable man, an able
sailor who belonged to an excellent family and entered the merchant
marine at a time when the sea was reserved for those who left shore
for the benefit of civic peace and sobriety. He had enjoyed a good
education, knew something about scientific matters, and had been in
the Arctic a year before with the last and unfortunate expedition of
Linschoten. The real leader of this expedition, however, was a very
simple fellow, a pilot by the name of Willem, the son of Barend
(Barendsz, as it is written in Dutch). He was born on the island of
Terschelling and had been familiar with winds and tides since early
childhood. Barendsz had two Northern expeditions to his credit, and had
seen as much of the coast of Siberia as anybody in the country. A man
of great resource and personal courage, combined with a weird ability
to guess his approximate whereabouts, he guided the expedition safely
through its worst perils. He died in a small open boat in the Arctic
Sea. Without his devoted services none of the men who were with him
would ever have seen his country again.
There was one other member of the ship's staff who must be mentioned
before the story of the trip itself is told. That was the ship's
doctor. Officially he was known as the ship's barber, for the
professions of cutting whiskers and bleeding people were combined in
those happy days. De Veer was a versatile character. He played the
flute, organized amateur theatrical performances, kept everybody happy,
and finally he wrote the itinerary of the trip, of which we shall
translate the most important part.
From former expeditions the sailors had learned what to take with
them and what to leave at home. Unfortunately, contractors, then as
now, were apt to be scoundrels, and the provisions were not up to the
specifications. During the long night of the Arctic winter men's lives
depended upon the biscuits that had been ordered in Amsterdam, and
these were found to be lacking in both quality and quantity. There were
more complaints of the same nature. As the leaders of the expedition
fully expected to reach China, they took a fair-sized cargo of trading
material, so that the Hollanders might have something to offer the
heathen Chinee in exchange for the riches of paradise which this
distant and mysterious land was said to possess. On the eighteenth of
May everything was ready. Without any difficulty the Arctic Circle was
soon reached and passed. Then the trouble began. When two Dutch sailors
of great ability and equal stubbornness disagree about points of the
compass there is little chance for an agreement. The astronomical
instruments of that day allowed certain calculations, but in a rather
restricted field. As long as land was near it was possible to sail with
a certain degree of precision, but when they were far away from any
solid indications of charted islands and continent the captains of that
day were often completely at a loss as to their exact whereabouts.
[Illustration]
The reason why two of the previous expeditions had failed was known:
the ships had been driven into a blind alley called the Kara Sea. In
order to avoid a repetition of that occurrence it was deemed necessary
to try a more northern course. Barendsz, however, wanted to go due
northeast, while De Ryp favored a course more to the west. For the
moment the two captains compromised and stayed together. On the fifth
of June the sailor on watch in the crow's-nest called out that he saw a
lot of swans. The swans were soon found to be ice, the first that was
seen that year.
Four days later a new island was discovered. Barendsz thought it must
be part of Greenland. After all, he argued, he had been right; the
ships had been driven too far westward. De Ryp denied this, and his
calculation proved to be true. The ships were still far away from
Greenland. The islands belonged to the Spitzbergen Archipelago. On
the nineteenth of June they discovered Spitzbergen. The name (steep
mountains) describes the island. An expedition was sent ashore, after
which we get the first recital of one of the endless fights with bears
that greatly frightened the good people in those days of blunderbusses.
Nowadays polar bears, while still far removed from harmless kittens,
offer no grave danger to modern guns. But the bullets of the small
cannon which four centuries ago did service as a rifle refused to
penetrate the thick hide of a polar bear. The pictures of De Veer's
book indicate that these hungry mammals were not destroyed until they
had been attacked by half a dozen men with gunpowder, axes, spears, and
meat-choppers.
A very interesting discovery was made on this new island. Every winter
wild geese came to the Dutch island of the North Sea. Four centuries
ago they were the subject of vague ornithological speculations, for,
according to the best authorities of the day, these geese did not
behave like chickens and other fowl, which brought up their families
out of a corresponding number of eggs. No, their chicks grew upon
regular trees in the form of wild nuts. After a while these nuts
tumbled into the sea and then became geese. Barendsz killed some of the
birds and he also opened their eggs. There were the young chicks! The
old myth was destroyed. "But," as he pleasantly remarked, "it is not
our fault that we have not known this before, when these birds insist
upon breeding so far northward."
[Illustration]
On the twenty-fifth of June, Spitzbergen was left behind, and once more
a dispute broke out between the two skippers over the old question of
the course which was to be taken. Like good Dutchmen, they decided that
each should go his own way. De Ryp preferred to try his luck farther to
the north. Barendsz and Heemskerk decided to go southward. They said
farewell to their comrades, and on the seventeenth of July reached
the coast of Nova Zembla. The coast of the island was still little
known; therefore the usual expediency of that day was followed. They
kept close to the land and sailed until at last they should find some
channel that would allow them to pass through into the next sea. They
discovered no channel, but on the sixth of August the northern point of
Nova Zembla, Cape Nassau, was reached. There was a great deal of ice,
but after a few days open water appeared.
The voyage was then continued. Their course then seemed easy. Following
the eastern coast downward they were bound to reach the Strait of
Kara. Avoiding the Kara Sea, they made for the river Obi and hoped
that all would be well. But before the ship had gone many days the
cold weather of winter set in, and before the end of August the ship
was solidly frozen into the ice. Many attempts were made to dig it out
and push it into the open water. The men worked desperately; but the
moment they had sawed a channel through the heavy ice to the open sea
more ice-fields appeared, and they had to begin all over again. On
the thirtieth of August a particularly heavy frost finally lifted the
little wooden ship clear out of the ice. Then came a few days of thaw,
during which they hoped to get the vessel back into shape and into
the water. But the next night there was a repetition of the terrible
creakings. The ship groaned as if it were in great agony, and all the
men rushed on shore.
The prospect of spending the winter in this desolate spot began to be
more than an unspoken fear. Any night the vessel might be destroyed by
the violent pressure of the ice. An experienced captain knew what to
do in such circumstances. All provisions were taken on shore, and the
lifeboats were safely placed on the dry land. They would be necessary
the next summer to reach the continent. Another week passed, and the
situation was as uncertain as before. By the middle of September,
however, all hope had to be given up. The expedition was condemned to
spend the winter in the Arctic. The ship's carpenter became a man of
importance. Near the small bay into which the vessel had been driven
he found a favorable spot for a house. A little river near by provided
fresh water. On the whole it was an advantageous spot for shipwrecked
sailors, for a short distance towards the north there was a low
promontory. The western winds had carried heavy trees and pieces of
wood from the Siberian coast, and this promontory had caught them.
They were neatly frozen in the ice. All the men needed to do was to
take these trees out of their cold storage and drag them ashore which,
however, did not prove to be so easy a task as it sounds. There were
only seventeen men on the ship, and two of them were too ill to do any
work. The others were not familiar with the problem of how to saw and
plane water-soaked and frozen logs into planks. Even when this had
been done the wood must be hauled a considerable distance on home-made
sleighs, clumsy affairs, and very heavy on the soft snow of the early
winter.
[Illustration]
Unfortunately, after two weeks the carpenter of the expedition suddenly
died. It was not easy to give him decent Christian burial. The ground
was frozen so hard that spades and axes could not dig a grave; so the
carpenter was reverently laid away in a small hollow cut in the solid
ice and covered with snow.
When their house was finished it did not offer many of the comforts
of home, but it was a shelter against the ever-increasing cold. The
roof offered the greatest difficulty to the inexperienced builders. At
last they hit upon a scheme that proved successful: they made a wooden
framework across which they stretched one of the ship's sails. This
they covered with a layer of sand. Then the good Lord deposited a thick
coat of snow, which gradually froze and finally made an excellent cover
for the small wooden cabin which was solemnly baptized "Safe Haven."
There were no windows--fresh air had not yet been invented--and what
was the use of windows after the sun had once disappeared? There was
one door, and a hole in the roof served as a chimney. To make a better
draft for the fire of driftwood which was kept burning day and night
in the middle of the cabin floor, a large empty barrel was used for a
smoke-stack. Even then the room was full of smoke during all the many
months of involuntary imprisonment, and upon one occasion the lack of
ventilation almost killed the entire expedition.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
While they were at work upon the house the men still spent the night
on board their ship. When morning came, with their axes and saws and
planes they walked over to the house. But hardly a day went by without
a disturbing visit from the much-dreaded polar bears. After some of
the provisions had been removed from the ship to the house the bears
became more insistent than ever. Upon one occasion when the bears had
gone after a barrel of pickled meat, as shown with touching accuracy
in the picture, the concerted action of three sailors was necessary to
save the food from the savage beasts. Another time, when Heemskerk, De
Veer, and one of the sailors were loading provisions upon a sleigh they
were suddenly attacked by three huge bears. They had not brought their
guns, but they had two halberds, with which they hit the foremost bear
upon the snout; and then they fled to the ship and climbed on board.
The bears followed, sat down patiently, and laid siege to the ship.
The three men on board were helpless. Finally one of them hit upon
the idea of throwing a stick of kindling-wood at the bears. Like a
well-trained dog, the animal that was struck chased the stick, played
with it, and then came back to ask for further entertainment. At last
all the kindling-wood laid strewn across the ice, and the bears had had
enough of this sport. They made ready to storm the ship, but a lucky
stroke with a halberd hit one of them so severely upon the sensitive
tip of his nose that he turned around and fled. The others followed,
and Heemskerk and his companions were saved.
When the month of November came and the sun had disappeared, the bears
also took their departure, rolled themselves up under some comfortable
shelter, and went to sleep for the rest of the winter. Now the sailors
could wander about in peace, for the only other animal that kept awake
all through the year was the polar fox. He was a shy beastie and never
came near a human being. The sailors, however, hunted him as best they
could. Not only did they need the skins for their winter garments,
but stewed fox tasted remarkably like the domestic rabbit and was an
agreeable change from the dreary diet of salt-flesh. In Holland before
the introduction of firearms rabbits were caught with a net. The same
method was tried on Nova Zembla with the more subtle fox. Unfamiliar
with the wiles of man, he actually allowed himself to be caught quite
easily. Later on traps were also built. But the method with the net was
more popular, for the men had the greatest aversion to the fresh air
of the freezing polar night and never left the house unless they were
ordered to do some work. When they went hunting with the net they could
pass the string that dropped the mechanism right under the door and
stay inside, where it was warm and cheerful, and yet catch their fox.
On the sixth of November the sun was seen for the last time. On the
seventh, when it was quite dark, the clock stopped suddenly in the
middle of the night, and when the men got up in the morning they had
lost the exact time. For the rest of the winter they were obliged to
guess at the approximate hour; not that it mattered so very much, for
life had become an endless night: one went to bed and got up through
the force of habit acquired by thousands of previous generations. If
the men had not been obliged to, they never would have left their
comfortable beds. They had but one idea, to keep warm. The complaint
about the insufferable cold is the main motive in this Arctic symphony.
Lack of regular exercise was chiefly to blame for this "freezing
feeling"--lack of exercise and the proper underwear. It is true
that the men dressed in many layers of heavy skins, but their lower
garments, which nowadays play a great part in the life of modern
explorers, were sadly neglected. In the beginning they washed their
shirts regularly, but they found it impossible to dry them; for just
as soon as the shirt was taken out of the hot water it froze stiff.
When they carried the frozen garment into the house to thaw it out
before the fire it was either singed and burned in spots or it refused
absolutely to melt back into the shape and aspect of a proper shirt.
Finally the washing was given up, as it has been on many an expedition,
for cleanliness is a costly and complicated luxury when one is away
from the beaten track of civilization.
[Illustration]
The walls of the house had been tarred and calked like a ship. All the
same, when the first blizzards occurred, the snow blew through many
cracks, and every morning the men were covered with a coat of snow
and ice. Hot-water bottles had not yet been invented, but at night
large stones were roasted in the fire until they were hot, and then
were placed in the bunks between the fur covers. They helped to keep
the men warm, and incidentally they burned their toes before they knew
it. Not only did the men suffer in this way. That same clock which I
have already mentioned at last succumbed to the strain of alternating
spells of heat and cold. It began to go slower and slower. To keep
it going at all, the weight was increased every few days. At last,
however, a millstone could not have coaxed another second out of the
poor mechanism. From that moment on an hour-glass was used. One of the
men had to watch it, and turn it over every sixty minutes.
All this time, while the men never ceased their complaint about
feeling cold, the heating problem had been solved by fires made of
such kindling-wood as the thoughtful ocean had carried across from
the Siberian coast and deposited upon the shore. Finally, however, in
despair at ever feeling really warm again, if only for a short while,
it was decided, as an extra treat, to have a coal fire. There was some
coal on board the ship, but it had been saved for use upon the homeward
trip in the spring, when the men would be obliged to travel in open
boats. The coal was brought to the house. The worst cracks in the walls
were carefully filled with tar and rope, and somebody climbed to the
roof and closed the chimney; not an ounce of the valuable heat must be
lost. As a result the men felt comfortable for the first time in many
months; they also came very near losing their lives. Having dozed off
in the pleasant heat they had not noticed that their cabin was filling
with coal-gas until finally some of them, feeling uncomfortable, tried
to get up, grew dizzy, and fainted. Our friend the barber, possessed of
more strength than any of the others, managed to creep to the door. He
kicked it open and let in the fresh air. The men were soon revived, and
the captain treated them all to a glass of wine to celebrate the happy
escape. No further experiments with coal were made during that year.
December was a month of steady blizzards. The snow outside piled up in
huge drifts which soon reached to the roof. The hungry foxes, attracted
by the smell of cookery wafted abroad through the barrel-chimney, used
to gallop across the roof, and at night their dismal and mean little
bark kept the men in their bunks awake. At the same time their close
proximity made trapping easier, and the skins were now doubly welcome;
for the shoes, bought in Holland, had been frozen so often and had been
thawed out too near the fire so frequently that they were leaking like
sieves and could no longer be worn. New shoes were cut out of wood
and covered with fox-fur. They provided comfortable, though far from
elegant, footwear.
New Year's day was a dreary feast, for all the men thought of home
and were melancholy and sad. Outside a terrible snow-storm raged. It
continued for an entire week. No one dared to go outside to gather
wood, fearing the wind and cold would kill them. In this extremity they
were obliged to burn some of their home-made furniture. On the fifth
of January the blizzard stopped. The door was opened, the cabin was
put in order, wood was brought from the woodpile, and then one of the
men suddenly remembered the date and how at home the feast of the Magi
was being celebrated with many happy and innocent pastimes. The barber
decided to organize a little feast. The first officer was elected to
be "King of Nova Zembla." He was crowned with due solemnity. A special
dinner of hot pancakes and rusks soaked in wine was served, and the
evening was such a success that many imagined themselves safely home in
their beloved fatherland. A new blizzard reminded them that they were
still citizens of an Arctic island.
[Illustration]
On the sixteenth of January, however, the men who had been sent out
to look after the traps and bring in wood suddenly noticed a glimmer
of red on the horizon. It was a sign of the returning sun. The dreary
months of imprisonment were almost over. From that moment the heating
problem became less difficult. On the contrary, the roof and the walls
now began to leak, and the expedition had its first taste of the thaw
which would be even more fatal than the cold weather had proved to be.
As has been remarked, these men had been leading a very unhealthy life.
While it was still light outside they had sometimes played ball with
the wooden knob of the flagpole of the ship, but since early November
they had taken no exercise of any sort. A few minutes spent out of
doors just long enough to kill the foxes in the traps was all the fresh
air they ever got. Out of a barrel they had made themselves a bath-tub,
and once a week every man in turn had climbed through the little
square opening into that barrel (see the picture) to get steamed out.
But this mode of living, combined with bad food, brought half a year
before from Holland, together with the large quantity of fox-meat, now
caused a great deal of scurvy, and the scurvy caused more dangerous
illness. Barendsz, the man upon whom they depended to find the way
home, was already so weak that he could not move. He was kept near the
fire on a pile of bearskins. On the twenty-sixth of January another man
who had been ill for some time suddenly died. His comrades had done all
they could to save him. They had cheered him with stories of home, but
shortly after midnight of that day he gave up the ghost. Early the next
morning he was buried near the carpenter. A chapter of the Bible was
read, a psalm was sung, and his sorrowful companions went home to eat
breakfast.
None of the men were quite as strong as they had been. Among other
things, they hated the eternal bother of keeping the entrance to the
door clear of snow. Why should they not abolish the door, and like good
Eskimos enter and leave their dwelling-place through the chimney?
Heemskerk wanted to try this new scheme and he got ready to push
himself through the narrow barrel. At the same time one of the men
rushed to the door to go out into the open and welcome the skipper when
he should stick his head through the barrel; but before he espied the
eminent leader of the expedition he was struck by another sight: the
sun had appeared above the horizon. Apparently Barendsz, who had tried
to figure out the day and week of the year after they had lost count
of the calendar, had been wrong in his calculation. According to him,
there were to be two weeks more of darkness. And now, behold! there was
the shining orb, speedily followed by a matutinal bear. The lean animal
was at once killed and used to replenish the oil of the odorous little
lamp which for more than three months had provided the only light
inside the cabin.
February came and went, but as yet there were no signs of the breaking
up of the ice. During the first day of March a little open water was
seen in the distance, but it was too far away to be of any value to
the ship. An attempt was made to push the ship out of its heavy coat of
ice, but the men at once complained that they were too weak to do much
work. Some of them had had their toes frozen and could not walk. Others
suffered from frost-bite on their hands and fingers and were unable
to hold an ax. When they went outside only incessant vigilance saved
them from the claws of the skinny bears that were ready to make up for
the long winter's fast. Once a bear almost ate the commander, who was
just able to jump inside the house and slam the door on bruin's nose.
Another time a bear climbed on the roof, and when he could not get into
the chimney, he got hold of the barrel and rocked that architectural
contrivance until he almost ruined the entire house. It was very
spooky, for the attack took place in the middle of the night, and it
was impossible to go out and shoot the monster.
March passed, and the ship, which had been seventy yards away from the
water when it was deserted in the autumn of 1595, was now more than
five hundred yards away from the open sea. The intervening distance
was a huge mass of broken ice and snow-drifts. It seemed impossible to
drag the boats quite so far. When on the first of May the last morsel
of salt meat had been eaten, the men appeared to be as far away from
salvation as ever. There was a general demand that something be done.
They had had enough of one winter in the Arctic, and would rather
risk a voyage in an open boat than another six months of cold bunks
and tough fox-stew, and reading their Bible by the light of a single
oil-lamp.
[Illustration]
Fortunately--and this is a great compliment to a dozen men who have
been cooped up in a small cabin for six months of dark and cold--the
spirit of the sailors had been excellent, and discipline had been well
maintained. They did not make any direct demands upon the captain.
The question of going or staying they discussed first of all with the
sick Barendsz, and he in turn mentioned it to Heemskerk. Heemskerk
himself was in favor of waiting a short while. He reasoned that the
ice might melt soon, and then the ship could be saved. He, as captain,
was responsible for his craft. He asked that they wait two weeks more.
If the condition of the ice was still unsatisfactory at the end of
that time, they would give up the ship and try to reach home in the
boats. Meanwhile the men could get ready for the trip. They set to
work at once cleaning and repairing their fur coats, sharpening their
tools, and covering their shoes with new skins to keep their feet from
freezing during the long weeks in the open boats.
An eastern storm on the last day of May filled their little harbor with
more ice, and all hope of saving the ship was given up. The return
trip must be made in the open boats. There were two, a large and a
small one. They had been left on land in the autumn, and were now
covered with many feet of frozen snow. A first attempt to dig them out
failed. The men were so weak that they could not handle their axes and
spades. The inevitable bear attacked them, drove them post-haste back
to the safe shelter of the house, and so put an end to the first day's
work.
The next morning the men went back to their work. Regular exercise and
fresh air soon gave them greater strength, while the dire warning of
Heemskerk that, unless they succeeded, they would be obliged to end
their days as citizens of Nova Zembla provided an excellent spur to
their digging enthusiasm. The two boats were at last dragged to the
house to be repaired. They were in very bad condition, but since there
was no further reason for saving the ship there was sufficient wood
with which to make good the damage. From early to late the men worked,
the only interruptions being the dinner-hour and the visits of the
bears. "But," as De Veer remarked in his pleasant way, "these animals
probably knew that we were to leave very soon, and they wanted to have
a taste of us before we should have gone for good." Before that happy
hour arrived the expedition was threatened with a novel, but painful,
visitation. To vary the monotonous diet of bearsteak, the men had fried
the liver. Three of them had eaten of this dish and fell so ill that
all hope was given up of saving their lives. The others, who knew that
they could not handle the boats if three more sailors were to die,
waited in great anxiety. Fortunately on the fourth day the patients
showed signs of improvement and finally recovered. There were no
further experiments with scrambled bear's liver.
After that the work on the two boats proceeded with speed, and by
the twelfth of June everything was ready. The boats, now reinforced
for the long trip across the open water of the Arctic Ocean, had to
be hauled to the sea, and the ever-shifting wind had once more put a
high ice-bank between the open water and the shore. A channel was cut
through the ice with great difficulty, for there were no tools for this
work. After two days more the survivors of this memorable shipwreck
were ready for the last part of their voyage. Before they left the
house Barendsz wrote three letters in which he recounted the adventures
of the expedition. One of these letters was placed in a powder-horn
which was left hanging in the chimney, where it was found two hundred
and fifty years later.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
On the morning of the fourteenth, Barendsz and another sick sailor who
could no longer walk were carried to the boats. With a favorable wind
from the south they set sail for the northern cape of Nova Zembla,
which was soon reached. Then they turned westward, and followed the
coast until they should reach the Siberian continent. The voyage along
the coast was both difficult and dangerous. The two boats were not
quite as large as the life-boats of a modern liner. Being still too
weak to row, the men were obliged to sail between huge icebergs, often
being caught for hours in the midst of large ice-fields. Sometimes
they had to drag the boats upon the ice while they hacked a channel
to open water. After a week the condition of the ice forced them to
pull the boats on shore and wait for several days before they could
go any farther. Great and tender care was taken of the sick pilot and
the dying sailor, but those nights spent in the open were hard on the
sufferers. On the morning of the twentieth of June the sailor, whose
name was Claes Andriesz, felt that his end was near. Barendsz, too,
said he feared that he would not last much longer. His active mind kept
at work until the last. De Veer, the barber, had drawn a map of the
coast, and Barendsz offered suggestions. Capes and small islands off
the coast were definitely located, placed in their correct geographical
positions, and baptized with sound Dutch names.
The end of Barendsz came very suddenly. Without a word of warning he
turned his eyes toward heaven, sighed, and fell back dead. A few hours
later he was followed by the faithful Claes. They were buried together.
Sad at heart, the survivors now risked their lives upon the open sea.
They had all the adventures not uncommon to such an expedition. The
boats were in a rotten condition; several times the masts broke, and
most of the time the smaller boat was half full of water. The moment
they reached land and tried to get some rest, there was a general
attack by wild bears. And once a sudden break in a field of ice
separated the boats from the provisions, which had just been unloaded.
In their attempt to get these back several men broke through the ice.
They caught cold, and on the fifth of July another sailor, a relative
of Claes, who had died with Barendsz, had to be buried on shore.
During all this misery we read of a fine example of faithful
performance of duty and of devotion to the interest of one's employers.
You will remember that this expedition had been sent out to reach China
by the Northeast Passage and to establish commercial relations with the
merchants of the great heathen kingdom. For this purpose rich velvets
and other materials agreeable to the eyes of Chinamen had been loaded
onto the ship when they left Amsterdam. Heemskerk felt it his duty to
save these goods, and he had managed to keep them in safety. Now that
the sun shone with some warmth, the packages were opened and their
contents dried. When Heemskerk came back to Amsterdam the materials
were returned to their owners in good condition.
On the eleventh of June of the year 1597 the boats were approaching
the spot where upon previous voyages large colonies of geese had been
found. They went ashore and found so many eggs that they did not know
how to take them all back to the boats. So two men took down their
breeches, tied the lower part together with a piece of string, filled
them with eggs, and carried their loot in triumph back to the others on
board.
That was almost their last adventure with polar fauna, except for an
attack by infuriated seals whose quiet they had disturbed. The seals
almost upset one of the boats. The men had no further difficulties,
however. On the contrary, from now on everything was plain sailing; and
it actually seemed to them that the good Lord himself had taken pity
upon them after their long and patient suffering, for whenever they
came to a large ice-field it would suddenly separate and make a clear
channel for their boats; and when they were hungry they found that
the small islands were covered with birds that were so tame that they
waited to be caught and killed.
[Illustration]
At last, on the twenty-seventh of July, they arrived in open water
where they discovered a strong eastern current. They decided that they
must be near Kara Strait. The next morning they hoped to find out for
certain. When the next morning came they suddenly beheld two strange
vessels near their own boats. They were fishing-smacks, to judge by
their shape and size, but nothing was known about their nationality,
for they flew no flags, and it was well to be careful in the year of
grace 1597. Therefore a careful approach was made. To Heemskerk's
great joy, the ships were manned by Russians who had seen the fleet of
Linschoten several years before and remembered some of the Hollanders.
There were familiar faces on both sides, and this first glimpse of
human beings did more to revive the courage of the men than the
doubtful food which the Russians forced with great hospitality upon
their unexpected guests. The following day the two fishing-boats set
sail for the west, and Heemskerk followed in their wake. But in the
afternoon they sailed into a heavy fog and when it lifted no further
trace of the Russians could be found. Once more the two small boats
were alone, with lots of water around them and little hope before them.
By this time all of the men had been attacked by scurvy and they could
no longer eat hard-tack, which was the only food left on board. Divine
interference again saved them. They found a small island covered with
scurvy-grass (_Cochlearia officinalis_) the traditional remedy for this
painful affliction. Within a few days they all recovered, and could
row across the current of the straits which separated them from the
continent. Here they found another Russian ship. Then they discovered
that their compass, on account of the proximity of heavy chests and
boxes covered with iron rings, had lost all track of the magnetic pole
and that they were much farther toward the east than they had supposed.
They deliberated whether they should continue their voyage on land or
on sea. Finally they decided to stick to their boats and their cargo.
Once more they closely followed the coast until they came to the mouth
of the White Sea. That meant a vast stretch of dangerous open water,
which must be crossed at great risk. The first attempt to reach the
other shore failed. The two boats lost sight of each other, and they
all worried about the fate of their comrades. On the eighteenth of
August the second boat managed to reach the Kola peninsula after rowing
for more than thirty hours.
That virtually ends the adventures of the men who had gone out with
Barendsz and Heemskerk to discover the Northeast Passage, and who quite
involuntarily acted as the first polar explorers. After a few days the
boats found each other, and together they reached the first Russian
settlement, where they found houses and warm rooms and a chance to get
a decent bath and eat from a table. Their misery was at once forgotten.
At heart they were healthy-minded, simple fellows, and when for the
first time after many months they saw some women they were quite happy,
although these women were Laplanders and proverbially lacking in those
attributes which we usually connect with the idea of lovely womanhood.
[Illustration]
News traveled fast even in the dominion of the Lapp. In less than
eighty hours a Laplander came running to the Russian settlement with
a letter which had been written by De Ryp, who, half a year before,
had been blown into the White Sea and was now waiting for a favorable
wind to sail home. He was still in Kola, and was delighted at the
safe return of his colleague from whom he had separated over a point
of nautical difference. He invited the men to go home with him. The
two small boats of Heemskerk's ship were left in the town of Kola as
a small souvenir for the kind-hearted Russians, the Arctic costumes
were carefully packed away, to be shown to the family at home, and
on the sixth of October they all said farewell to the Russian coast.
Twenty-three days later they entered the Maas. By way of Maassluis,
Delft, The Hague, and Haarlem they made their triumphant entry into
Amsterdam. Dressed in their fox-skins and their home-made wooden
shoes, they paraded through the streets of the city. Their High and
Mightinesses the mayors received them at the town hall, and the world
was full of the fame of this first Arctic expedition. As for the
practical results, there were none, unless we except the negative
information about the impossibility of the Northeastern Passage. But
nobody cared any longer about this route, for just two months before
the first Dutch fleet which had tried to reach the Indies by way of
the Cape had safely returned to the roads of Texel. The Portuguese,
after all, had proved to be not so dangerous as had been expected.
The Indian native was quite willing to welcome the Dutch trader.
And the Northeastern route, after the wonderful failures of a number
of conscientious expeditions, was given up for the well-worn and
well-known route along the African coast. The Arctic was all right for
the purpose of hunting of the profitable whale, but as a short cut to
the Indies it had proved an absolute disappointment.
[Illustration]