[Purchas his Pilgrimes, vol. iii, pp. 518–520.]
I thought good to adde hither for Barents or Barentsons sake, certaine
notes which I have found (the one translated, the other written by him
(amongst Master Hakluyts Paper).
This was written by William Barentson in a loose paper,
which was lent mee by the Reuerend Peter Plantius in
Amsterdam, March the seuen and twentieth, 1609. [1621]
The foure and twentieth of August, stilo nouo, 1595, wee spake with the
Samoieds, and asked them how the land and sea did lye to the east of
Way-gates. They sayd, after fiue dayes iourney going north-east, wee
should come to a great sea, going south-east. This sea to the east of
Way-gats they sayd was called Marmoria, that is to say, a calme sea.
[1622] And they of Ward-house haue told vs the same. I asked them if at
any time of the yeere it was frozen ouer? They sayd it was. And that
sometimes they passed it with sleds. And the first of September 1595,
stilo nouo, the Russes of the lodie or barke affirmed the same; saying,
that the sea is sometimes so frozen, that the lodies or barkes going
sometimes to Gielhsidi from Pechora, are forced there to winter; which
Gielhsidi was wonne from the Tartars three yeeres past.
For the ebbe and flood there, I can finde none; but with the winde so
runneth the streame. The third of September, stilo nouo, the winde was
south-west, and then I found the water higher then with the winde at
north north-east. Mine opinion is grounded on experience: that if there
bee a passage, it is small, or else the sea could not rise with a
southerly winde. And for the better proofe to know if there were a
flood and ebbe, the ninth of September, stilo nouo, I went on shoare on
the south end of the States Iland, where the crosse standeth, and layd
a stone on the brinke of the water to proue whether there were a tide,
and went round about the iland to shoote at a hare; and returning, I
found the stone as I left it, and the water neither higher nor lowere:
which prooueth, as afore, that there is no flood nor ebbe.