THE FIRST ARCTIC VOYAGES.
Early History of Arctic Discovery—The “Hardy Norseman”—Accidental
Discovery of Iceland—Colony Formed—A Fisherman Drifted to
Greenland—Eric the Red Head—Rapid Colonisation—Early Intercourse
with America—Voyages of the Zeni—Cabot’s Attempt at a North-west
Passage—Maritime Enterprise of this Epoch—Voyage of the _Dominus
Vobiscum_—Of the _Trinitie_ and _Minion_—Starvation and
Cannibalism—A High-handed Proceeding—Company of the Merchant
Adventurers—Attempts at the North-east—Fate of
Willoughby—Chancelor, and our First Intercourse with Russia.
And now, having noted the results attained by the latest expedition which
has dared to attempt the discovery of the North Pole,(19) let us glance at
the progress of northern discovery from the very beginning, and watch the
gradual steps by which such discoveries were rendered possible. We shall
have to go back to a period when no compass guided the mariner on his
watery way, when sextants and artificial horizons were undreamed of, when
navigation, in a word, was but in its second stage of infancy. And
although many of the earlier discoveries were the result of pure accident,
we shall see much to admire in the enterprise and hardihood of explorers
who ventured almost blindfold into unknown seas, abounding in special
obstacles and dangers.
With the discovery of Iceland and Greenland virtually commences our
knowledge of the northern and Arctic seas. The Romans, even as late as
Pliny’s time, had no correct knowledge of the North Sea and Baltic, and
whatever they did know seems to have been derived second-hand from the
Carthaginians. In the days of our good King Alfred our ancestors did
undoubtedly engage in the pursuit of the whale and sea-horse, but it is to
the “hardy Norseman,” whose
“House of yore
Was on the foaming wave,”
that we are indebted for the first great discoveries. Conquering and
ravaging wherever they went, spreading not merely terror and ruin, but
also population and some of the ruder forms of civilisation, these
Scandinavian pirates were the only rulers of the main in the eighth,
ninth, and tenth centuries, during which they incessantly ravaged our
coasts, penetrated the very heart of France, established settlements, and
even levied tribute on the reigning monarch. These bold Northmen ventured
in vessels which now-a-days would be regarded as unsuitable for the most
trifling sea voyages. In the year 861, Naddodr, a Norwegian Viking, bent
on a piratical trip to the Faroe Islands, was driven by an easterly gale
so far to the north-westward that he reached an utterly unknown island.
Its mountains were snow-covered, and the first name suggested by this
fact, and which he bestowed on the island, was Sneeland (Snowland).
Certain Swedes ventured there three years afterwards, and on their return
gave such a very lively account of its vegetation and soil that an
emigration followed. One of the first adventurers thither was Flokko. The
secret of the magnetic power, as applied to the compass, although known
apparently in the earliest ages to the Chinese, was entirely unknown to
the Scandinavians; and Flokko had provided himself with a raven, or, as
some accounts say, four ravens, which, Noah-like, he let loose, and which
guided him to the land of which he was in quest. He passed a winter there,
and from the large quantity of drift-ice which encumbered the northern
bays and coasts, changed its name to that which it at present
bears—Iceland. In the year 874, Ingolf and other Norwegians, sick of the
tyranny of their king, Harold, determined to settle in the new-found
island. On approaching the coast, the leader, determining to be guided by
chance in his selection of a locality, threw overboard a wooden door,
which floated into a fiord on the southern side of the island, and the
emigrants landed there. Others soon joined the little colony, bringing
with them their cattle, implements, and household goods. From very early
Icelandic records it is interesting to learn that these Norwegians found
indications that others had preceded them, as on the shore were discovered
crosses, bells, and books, and other relics of the Christian worship of
those days. It is very generally believed that these were of Irish origin.
While the new colony was yet young, one Gunbiörn, a fisherman, was drifted
in his boat far to the westward, and he may perhaps be regarded as the
real discoverer of Greenland, but, although he sighted the land, he did
not attempt to explore it. About the year 982, Eric Rauda, or Eric the Red
Head, a man who had been convicted of manslaughter in Iceland, was
banished from the island for a term of years. Sailing with some companions
to the westward, he reached Greenland, and spent three years in its
examination, returning at the end of that time to Iceland, where he spread
a somewhat high-flown account of “its green and pleasant meadows” and of
its extensive fisheries. No less than twenty-five vessels were despatched
from Iceland for the newly-discovered land, a significant proof of the
early progress of the former colony. One-half of these were lost; the
others reached Greenland in safety.
By accident or design these Scandinavians were the great explorers of
their day, and the colonisation of Greenland virtually led to the first
European intercourse with North America. An Icelandic settler, one Bjarni,
on a voyage by which he hoped to reach Greenland, encountered severe
weather, and was driven on a part of the American coast, now believed to
have been that of Nantucket Island, south of the State of Massachusetts.
The account he gave on his return inflamed the ambition of Heif, or Heifr,
the son of that Eric who had founded the colony on Greenland. He equipped
a vessel, and set sail for the New World. On approaching the coast they
observed a barren and rocky island, which they named _Helleland_, and to a
low sandy shore beyond it, which was covered with wood, they gave the name
_Markland_. “Two days after this they fell in with a new coast of land, to
the northward of which they observed a large island. They ascended a
river, the banks of which were covered with shrubs, bearing fruits of a
most agreeable and delicious flavour. The temperature of the air felt soft
and mild to the Greenland adventurers, the soil appeared to be fertile,
and the river abounded with fish, and particularly with excellent
salmon.”(20) To the island they gave the name _Vinland_, because wild
grapes, or berries resembling grapes, were found there. They had reached
some part of the coast of Newfoundland, in all probability. The
intercourse between Greenland and America was kept up to the fourteenth
century, principally for the purpose of obtaining wood, but no colony was
formed. Meantime the Greenland colonies grew and flourished. Sixteen
churches were erected, and nearly three hundred hamlets formed on the east
and west sides. That on the west had increased till it numbered four
parishes, containing one hundred villages, but being engaged in perpetual
hostility with the native Esquimaux, then known as Skrœlings, the colony
was ultimately destroyed. In 1721, when the excellent missionary, Hans
Egede, visited that country, on its being re-colonised by the Greenland
Company, the ruins of their edifices were still to be found. The fate of
the eastern colony was, if possible, still more deplorable. It had, for a
time, a greater population than that of the western side. “A succession of
sixteen bishops is recorded in the Iceland annals,” says Barrow, “but when
the seventeenth was proceeding from Norway, in 1406, to take possession of
his see, a stream of ice had fixed itself to the coast, and rendered it
completely inaccessible; and from that period to the present time no
intercourse whatever has been had with the unfortunate colonists.” It is
related in the “History of Greenland” by Thormoder Torfager, that Amand,
Bishop of Skalholt, in Iceland, in returning to Norway from that island,
about the middle of the sixteenth century, was driven by a storm near to
the east coast of Greenland, and got so close that the inhabitants could
be seen driving their cattle, but they did not attempt to land. The fate
of the East Greenland colony has been the cause of much discussion, some
contending that it never was on the eastern side, but on the western; but
that there were two distinct colonies cannot be doubted. A field of ice
has apparently blocked the eastern coast for centuries, and all attempts
made to penetrate it have failed, as we shall see in the progress of our
narrative. Up to the end of the last century, the Esquimaux of the western
side spoke of a foreign race, taller than themselves, and of whom they
were greatly afraid, regarding them as cannibals and as their natural
enemies. When they had met, the former had always fled, the latter
shooting after them with arrows. Crantz, a great authority on Greenland,
says:—“If this report can be depended upon, we might suppose that these
men were descended from the old Norwegians, had sheltered themselves from
the savages in the mountains, lived in enmity to them out of resentment
for the destruction of their ancestors, pillaged them in the spring when
sustenance failed them, and were looked upon by the savages as man-eaters,
and fabulously represented through excess of fear.”
The above introduction to our subject will pave the way for the period
when the history of Arctic and northern voyages becomes more and more
definite. We begin with those of the Zeni brothers, from which the mists
of obscurity and error have only recently been cleared, through the
patient researches of a most careful student and geographer.
The voyages of the Zeni have generally been either ignored or considered
worse than mythical. For some three centuries these noble Venetian
adventurers have indeed been subjected to an amount of contumely and abuse
sufficient to have made them turn in their graves. But a champion has
arisen in the person of R. H. Major, Esq., F.S.A., one of the secretaries
of the Royal Geographical Society, who, clearing their narratives from
subsequent interpolations, has shown that their own voyages, and those of
others recorded by them were both genuine and important. Their history, in
brief, is as follows:—Towards the close of the fourteenth century, Nicolo
Zeno, a member of a distinguished Venetian family, sailed on a voyage of
discovery in the northern seas. Wrecked on the Faroe Islands, Sinclair,
the Earl of Orkney and Caithness, a noble pirate, ambitious as any
sovereign for conquest, took him into his service as pilot, and, later,
Nicolo was joined by his brother Antonio. Many of the journals and
documents of the Zeni were subsequently lost, and their narrations were
edited by a descendant, who mixed with them much of the false geography of
the day and conjectures of his own. This was the point of trouble. The
narrative cleared of a mass of error by Mr. Major’s investigations, there
can now be no doubt that Nicolo visited Greenland, where he found a
monastery of friars, preachers, and a church of St. Thomas close by a
volcanic hill. There was also a hot-water spring, which the monks used for
heating the church and the entire monastery, and by which they cooked
their meat and baked their bread. By a judicious use of this hot water
they raised in their small covered gardens the flowers, fruits, and herbs
of more temperate climates, thereby gaining much respect from their
neighbours, who brought them presents of meat, chickens, &c. They were
indebted, the narrative says, to the volcano for the very materials of
their buildings, for by throwing water on the burning stones while still
hot they converted them into a tenacious and indestructible substance,
which they used as mortar. They had not much rain, as there was a settled
frost all through their nine months’ winter. They lived on wild fowl and
fish, which were attracted by the warmth of that part of the sea into
which the hot water fell, and which formed a commodious harbour. The
houses were built all round the hill, and were circular in form and
tapering to the top, where was a little hole for light and air, the ground
below supplying all necessary heat. In summer time they were visited by
ships from the neighbouring islands and from Trondheim, which brought them
corn, cloths, and other necessaries in exchange for fish and skins. The
narrative goes on to speak of the fishermen’s boats, in shape like a
weaver’s shuttle, and made of the skins and bones of fishes, and other
points indicating a confirmation of the facts already mentioned concerning
the early history of Greenland. On the death of Nicolo Zeno, his brother
Antonio succeeded to his property, dignities, and honours, with which
latter, it seems, he would have gladly dispensed, wishing to return to his
own country, but the earl would not hear of it. Antonio therefore remained
in his service, and has recorded the accounts of some fishermen who had
undoubtedly reached North America; as also a voyage made by the Earl
Sinclair and himself, wherein the former at least appears to have reached
Newfoundland and Labrador. A part of these voyages may with more propriety
be considered when we come to the discoveries in regard to the New World
made by Columbus and the Cabots. And here a fact little known may be
briefly recorded, on account of the absence of almost any history, that
Cristoforo Colon (Columbus), prior to those great voyages which have made
his name immortal, did undoubtedly make a northern voyage, visiting both
Greenland and Iceland. The object of this voyage is unknown; but, judging
from the ruling ambition of the navigators of those days, it was to
attempt a north-west or north-east passage to the Indies. As our next
voyage will show, it is a question to whom belongs the honour of having
first made this attempt.
Giovanni Cabota, or Cabot, a Venetian, had settled in Bristol during the
reign of Henry VII., and being a skilful pilot and navigator, the king
encouraged him to attempt discoveries by granting him a patent, in virtue
whereof he had leave to go in search of strange lands, and to conquer and
settle them. One-fifth of the profits was to be the king’s. The patent
bears date March 5th, 1496, and is granted to Cabot and his three sons,
Ludovico, Sebastian, and Sancio. There is some little difficulty in
collating the various accounts collected by Hakluyt, but the voyage
reported by Sebastian to the Pope’s legate in Spain is distinct enough. He
says in effect that the discoveries of Columbus had inflamed his desire to
attempt to reach India by the north-west. By studying the
globe—“understanding by reason of the sphere,” he terms it—he thought that
he must, theoretically at least, reach India that way, if no land
intervened. He, of course, knew nothing of the icy barriers that stopped
Franklin and M’Clure from actually taking a vessel that way. The king
favoured his ideas, “and immediately commanded two caravels to bee
furnished with all things appertayning to the voyage,” which was made, as
far as he could remember, in 1496. Sailing to the north-west, he
encountered land in latitude 56°. Then, despairing to find the passage, he
turned back, sailing down the coast of America as far as Florida, when,
his provisions failing, he returned to England. The Cabots brought home
three natives of Newfoundland, who “were clothed in beasts’ skins, and did
eate raw flesh, and, spake such speach that no man could understand them;
and in their demeanour like to bruite beastes.” The attempt of Cabot
furnishes a clue to the object of many subsequent voyages, which were
intended to have been made _viâ_ the Arctic Seas to the Pacific and Indian
Oceans. It must be remembered that it was not till 1498 that the route to
the Indies _viâ_ the Cape of Good Hope was discovered. That _viâ_ Cape
Horn, as we shall see, was discovered still later.
In Hakluyt’s collection of voyages a very curious poem is reprinted,
complaining of the neglect of the navy in the time of Henry VI., and
praising highly “the policee of keeping the see in the time of the
merveillous werriour and victorious prince, King Henry the Fift.” The fact
is that for some little time the spirit of maritime adventure seems to
have slumbered, subsequent to the voyages just recorded. It, however,
broke out in full force in the reign of Henry VIII., and flourished still
more particularly in that of Queen Elizabeth. In 1527, “King Henry VIII.
sent two faire ships, well manned and victualled, having in them divers
cunning men, to seek strange regions, and so they set forth out of the
Thames the 20th day of May, in the 19th yeere of his raigne.” This voyage
was despatched at the instance of Master Robert Thorne, of Bristol, who,
in his “exhortation” to the king, gave “very weighty and substantial
reasons to set forth a discoverie, even to the North Pole.” One of the
vessels was lost “about the great opening between the north parts of
Newfoundland and Meta incognita, or Greenland,” and the other returned,
having accomplished nought, about the beginning of October. Hakluyt tried
hard to discover the names of the vessels, and of the “cunning men” aboard
them. He could only learn that one of the ships was called the _Dominus
Vobiscum_, and that a wealthy canon of St. Paul’s, a very scientific
person, had accompanied the expedition. “This,” writes Hakluyt, evidently
in no happy frame of mind, “is all that I can hitherto learne or finde out
of this voyage, by reason of the great negligence of the writers of those
times, who should have used more care in preserving of the memories of the
worthy actes of our nation.” Master Thorne deserves, however, the credit
of having been the first distinct advocate of Polar exploration in the
full sense of the term, or, is at least, the first of whom we have any
record.
The general interest felt in the subject of the North-west Passage about
this period may be inferred from the relation of the next voyage, that of
the _Trinitie_ and _Minion_ in 1536, where several gentlemen of the Inns
of Court and Chancery, “and divers others in good worship, desirous to see
the strange things of the world,” accompanied the expedition. Of
“sixe-score persons” in the “two tall ships,” thirty were private
gentlemen. The voyage was instigated by Master Hore, of London, “a man of
goodly stature and of great courage, and given to the study of
cosmographie,” and was directly encouraged by Henry VIII. After a tedious
voyage of two months, they reached Cape Breton, and later Penguin Island
and Newfoundland, where they encountered some of “the naturall people of
the countrey,” who fled from them. The history of this voyage was given to
Hakluyt by Mr. Oliver Dawbeney, a merchant, who was one of the adventurers
on the _Minion_. Laying in a harbour of Newfoundland, their provisions
began to get very scarce, and “they found small reliefe, more than that
they had from the nest of an osprey, that brought hourely to her yong
great plentie of divers sorts of fishes. But such was the famine that
increased amongst them from day to day, that they were forced to seek to
relieve themselves off raw herbes and rootes that they sought on the main;
but the famine increasing, and the reliefe of herbes being to little
purpose to satisfie their insatiable hunger, in the fieldes and deserts
here and there, the fellow killed his mate while he stooped to take up a
roote for his reliefe, and cutting out pieces of his bodie whom he had
murthered, broyled the same on the coles and greedily devoured them.
“By this meane the company decreased, and the officers knew not what had
become of them; and it fortuned that one of the company, driven with
hunger to seeke abroade for reliefe, found out in the fieldes the savour
of broyled flesh, and fell out with one for that he would suffer him and
his fellowes to sterve, enjoying plentie as he thought; and this matter
growing to cruell speaches, he that had the broyled meate burst out into
these wordes:—‘If thou wouldest needes know, the broyled meat I had was a
piece of such a man’s buttocke.’ The report of this brought to the ship,
the captaine found what had become of those that were missing, and was
perswaded that some of them were neither devoured with wilde beastes nor
yet destroyed with savages; and hereupon he stood up and made a notable
oration, containing howe much these dealings offended the Almightie, and
vouched the Scriptures from first to last what God had, in cases of
distresse, done for them that called upon Him, and told them that the
power of the Almightie was then no lesse than in al former time it had
bene. And added, that if it had not pleased God to have holpen them in
that distresse, that it had been better to have perished in body, and to
have lived everlastingly, than to have relieved for a poore time their
mortal bodyes, and to be condemned everlastingly both body and soule to
the unquenchable fire of hell. And thus having ended to that effect, he
began to exhort to repentance, and besought all the company to pray, that
it might please God to look upon their present miserable state, and for
His owne mercie to relieve the same.” The famine increasing, it was agreed
that they should cast lots who should be killed, but fortunately, that
very night a French vessel arrived in that port, and the chronicler coolly
and amusingly adds, “such was the policie of the English that they became
masters of the same, and changing ships and vittailing them they set sayle
to come into England.” It is but just to the king to add that he
afterwards recompensed the Frenchmen.
[Illustration: SEBASTIAN CABOT.]
The return of Sebastian Cabot to England, after he had done good service
to Spain in various maritime enterprises, was very much the cause of
awakening the merchants of London to renewed efforts for discovery. This
great navigator was introduced by the Duke of Somerset to Edward VI., soon
after his succession to the throne, and the young king was so charmed by
his conversation and intelligence that he created him, by patent, Pilot
Major, and settled on him the large annual pension—for those days—of £166
13s. 4d., “in consideration of the good and acceptable services done and
to be done.” He was also constituted “Governour of the mysterie and
companie of the marchant adventurers for the discoverie of regions,
dominions, islands and places unknowen.” By his suggestion a voyage was
instituted in the year 1553, for the discovery of a _north-east_ passage
to Cathaia; and three vessels—the _Bona Esperanza_, the _Edward
Bonadventure_, and the _Bona Confidentia_—under Sir Hugh Willoughby, as
captain-general of the fleet, were made ready for their eventful voyage.
So certain were the promoters of the expedition that the vessels would
reach the Indian Seas, that they caused them to be sheathed with lead as a
protection against the worms in those waters, which they understood were
destructive of wooden bottoms, and this is believed to be the first
instance of metal sheathing being used. On May 20th the ships were towed
to Gravesend, “the mariners being all apparalled in watchet or
skie-coloured cloth,” and the shores being thick with spectators. The
expedition started with an amount of _éclat_ which contrasts sadly with
the events which followed. Sir Hugh Willoughby, with the whole of the
merchants, officers, and companies of two of the ships, perished miserably
on the coast of Lapland, from the effects of cold and starvation. Their
dead bodies were found the following year by some Russian fishermen.
Master Richard Chancelor, the second in command, whose vessel had become
separated from the others, was more fortunate. After waiting vainly at
Wardhuys, in Norway, for the rest of the squadron, he held on his course
till he reached a “very great bay,” where he learned from the fishermen
that their country was Muscovy or Russia. He made a land journey of
fifteen hundred miles to Moscow, where he was well received, and from an
abortive attempt at making the north-east passage sprung that extensive
commerce with Russia which has continued, almost uninterruptedly, ever
since.
The events which immediately followed have little bearing on arctic
history, excepting that while our merchants were fully alive to the
importance of the new commerce opening to their vision they did not
neglect exploration. Chancelor and his companions, on a second voyage to
Russia, whither they went as commissioners to arrange the treaties and
immunities which the Czar might be pleased to grant, were instructed “to
use all wayes and meanes possible to learn howe men may passe from Russia,
either by land or sea, to Cathaia.” They did not even wait the result of
his voyage, but despatched a small vessel, the _Serchthrift_, in command
of Steven Burrowe, for north-eastern discovery. On the 27th April, 1556,
the vessel being ready at Gravesend, it was visited by many distinguished
ladies and gentlemen, including old Cabot, then in his ninety-seventh
year, who “gave to the poore most liberall almes; and then, at the sign of
the Christopher, hee and his friends banketted,” and “entered into the
dance himselfe amongst the rest of the young and lusty company.” The
_Serchthrift_ reached the Cola and Petchora rivers, Nova Zembla (the New
Land), and the island of Weigats. In proceeding to the eastward they
encountered much ice, in which they became entangled, and “which,” says
the narrative, “was a fearful sight to see.” But on June 25th they met
their first whale, which seems to have inspired more terror even than the
ice. The account given of it is amusing. “On St. James his day, bolting to
the windewardes, we had the latitude at noon in seventy degrees, twentie
minutes. The same day, at a south-west sunne, there was a monstrous whale
aboord of us, so neere to our side that we might have thrust a sworde or
any other weapon in him, which we durst not doe for feare he should have
overthrowen our shippe; and then I called my company together, and all of
us shouted, and with the crie that we made he departed from us; there was
as much above water of his backe as the bredth of our pinnesse, and at his
falling downe he made such a terrible noise in the water, that a man would
greatly have marvelled, except he had known the cause of it; but, God be
thanked, we were quietly delivered of him.” Burrowe returned to England in
the autumn, having reached in an eastward direction a further point than
any of his predecessors. Meantime, Chancelor, returning to England in
company with the newly-appointed Russian ambassador, was wrecked in
Pitsligo Bay, Scotland, the former losing his life, and the latter being
saved with difficulty.