2 The Amsterdam Latin version of 1598 has “Columbus, Cortesius, et Magellanus”. But the emendation is unnecessary, since the author evidently intends Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, the discoverer of the Pacific. ↑
6 The adverb of affirmation, now written ay. A striking instance of its use occurs in Romeo and Juliet:—
“Hath Romeo slaine himself? say thou but I,
And that bare vowell I shall poyson more
Than the death-darting eye of Cockatrice;
I am not I, if there be such an I.”
7 Thus it appears that Gerrit de Veer was not on the first voyage, as has been supposed by some writers. ↑
9 Namely, between Nóvaya Zémlya and Spitzbergen, which latter was, by Barentsz and his companions, thought to be a part of Greenland. ↑
11 This country, which was discovered by the Hollanders on their third voyage, has since proved to be Spitzbergen. ↑
12 The same is repeated by Sir John Barrow (Chronological History of Voyages, etc., pp. 148, 185), who questions the fact asserted by Hudson, of his having seen reindeer in the island. But Lütke expressly declares (Viermalige Reise, etc., Erman’s Translation, pp. 43, 75, 314, 359), that these animals do exist in Nóvaya Zémlya, even beyond the 74th parallel of north latitude. See also Baer, in Berghaus’s Annalen, vol. xvii, p. 300; vol. xviii, p. 25. ↑
14 As is shown in the Introduction, the proper name of this able navigator is Willem Barentszoon, that is, William, the son of Barent or Bernard; which name, as usually contracted, was written Barentsz. ↑
16 The island of Kildin, on the coast of Russian Lapland, in 69° 18′ north latitude, and 34° 20′ longitude east of Greenwich. ↑
17 Dutch or German miles of fifteen to the degree; so that one such mile is equal to four English sea miles, or geographical miles of sixty to the degree. To assist the reader, who might not always have this in mind, the English miles will throughout be inserted between brackets. ↑
18 A rude way of determining the time by the bearing of the sun, customary among seamen of all nations in those days, for want of portable time-pieces. Were the precise azimuth of the sun observed, no method could be more exact; but as no interval between the several points of the compass (which are 11° 15′ apart) is taken into account, and as the sun’s bearing is also subject to the variation of the compass, the result must be only approximative. From the compass-bearing alone, as recorded, it would be difficult for the reader to form anything like a correct idea of the actual time—for example, when, on the 30th of June, the sun was observed to be full south, it wanted more than an hour-and-a-quarter of mid-day. It is, therefore, deemed advisable to insert, after each observation of time by the sun, the time by the clock to the nearest quarter of an hour. ↑
24 I.e., they found themselves to be in 70° 45′ north latitude, by means of an observation of the sun. ↑
26 Wendense weder noordwaert over—they again tacked to the north. Phillip uses throughout the expression “to wind” in the sense of “to tack”. ↑
33 Graedt-boogh—rendered Radius astronomicus in the Amsterdam Latin version of 1598, and Ray nautique in the French version of the same year and place—Cross-staff, Jacob’s-staff, or fore-staff; a well known instrument, no longer in use among European navigators. But the Arab seamen on the east coast of Africa still employ a primitive instrument, which is essentially the same. It consists of a small quadrangular board, through which a string, knotted at various distances, is passed; each knot being at such a distance from the board, that when the latter is held by the observer before him, with the knot between his teeth and the string extended, the board (between its upper and lower edges) shall subtend the angle at which the pole-star is known to be elevated above the horizon at some one of the ports frequented by the observer. Inartificial as such an instrument may be, yet if, instead of a knotted string, a notched stick were used, on which the board might slide backwards and forwards, it would be the cross-staff of our early navigators. ↑
37 So in the original. But the sense requires “north-east and by north”, that being the next point to N.N.E. ↑
38 Een laghe uytstekenden hoeck—a low projecting point. Through some misconception, Phillip repeatedly has “long” for “low”. ↑
40 Capo Baxo—Low Point. From the long connection of the Netherlands with Spain, the Dutch navigators appear to have employed the Spanish language for trivial names like “Low Point”, “Black Point”, as being more distinctive than the vernacular. ↑
41 Eenderley aert van voghelen—a certain kind of birds. This strange mistake of the translator has given occasion to frequent comment. It is the more unaccountable, as the original work contains a pictorial representation of these birds,—noordtsche papegagen, or northern parrots, as they are there called,—in connection with the plan of Lomsbay; and it is also expressly stated, that the bay “has its name from the birds which dwell there in great numbers. They are large in the body and small in the wing, so that it is surprising how their little wings can carry their heavy bodies. They have their nests on steep rocks, [13]in order to be secure from animals, and they sit on only one egg at a time. They were not afraid of us; and when we climbed up to any of their nests, the others round about did not fly away.”
The bird in question is the Brunnich’s Guillemot. (Alca Arra.) It is described and figured in the fifth volume of Gould’s Birds of Europe, and in Yarrell’s British Birds.
An assemblage of these birds, such as is here described by the author, “is called by the Russians a ‘bazar’. Thus this Persian word has been carried by Russian walrus-hunters to the rocks of the icy sea, and there for want of human inhabitants applied to birds.”—Baer, in Berghaus’s Annalen, vol. xviii, p. 23. ↑
42 Een laeghen slechten hoeck, ende daer leyt een cleijn Eylandeken by, van den hoeck af zeewaerts in, so was noch by oosten dien laeghen hoeck een groote wyde voert ofte inwijck—A low flat point, and by it there lyeth a small island seawards from the point, and also to the east of this low point there is a great wide creek or inlet. ↑
46 Usually written Pampus. A bar of mud and sand near Amsterdam, at the junction of the Y with the Zuyder Zee. This simile calls to mind that of Mungo Park, who, on his discovery of the Niger, described it as being “as broad as the Thames at Westminster”. Such homely comparisons, though by some they may be condemned as unscientific, often [14]speak more distinctly to the feelings of such as can appreciate them than the most elaborate descriptions. ↑
49 This is not correctly stated, since it is the sun’s zenith distance, and not its elevation above the horizon, that was 53° 5′. The observation is, however, correctly worked out, subject only to the trifling error of 1′. ↑
50 The original has 53° 5′ both here and two lines lower down. There is consequently an error of 1′ in the calculation. The correction should be made on the result, instead of on the observation itself. ↑
53 A proof, among many others, that the west coast of Nóvaya Zémlya had previously been visited by the Russians. ↑
54 Berenfort—Bear Creek. It might be better written Beren-voert; as the word voert—which is apparently either the Danish fiord, or else the old form of the modern Dutch vaart—is used by the author (see page 13, note 1) as equivalent to inwijck, a creek or inlet. ↑
64 “The existence of the land said to have been seen by the Hollanders to the eastward of Cape Nassau is exceedingly doubtful. They themselves make but slight mention of it, and not at all on the second (third) voyage. Perhaps they saw some projecting point of the land of Novaya Zemlya; or yet more probably they mistook a fog-bank for land.”—Lütke, p. 21. ↑
68 So veel als men uyten mars oversien mocht, altemael een effen velt ys. This passage is deserving of special notice, on account of the following statement in Captain Scoresby’s Account of the Arctic Regions:—“The term field was given to the largest sheets of ice by a Dutch whale fisher. It was not until a period of many years after the Spitzbergen fishery was established, that any navigator attempted to penetrate the ice, or that any of the most extensive sheets of ice were seen. One of the ships resorting to Smeerenberg for the fishery, put to sea on one occasion, when no whales were seen, persevered westward to a considerable length, and accidentally fell in with some immense flakes of ice, which, on his return to his companions, he described as truly wonderful, and as resembling fields in the extent of their surface. Hence the application of the term ‘field’ to this kind of ice. The discoverer of it was distinguished by the title of ‘field finder’.”—Vol. i, p. 243. ↑
83 Ende quamen weder by ’t landt aen de Cape des Troosts—and came again close to the land at Cape Comfort. ↑
84 This word is not in the original; and it is inconsistent, as in the next line their course is stated to have been N.N.E. ↑
87 In like manner as on the 7th July (see page 14), it is the sun’s zenith distance that is here recorded instead of its altitude. ↑
92 Most probably marcasite or iron pyrites. Frobisher’s third voyage to “Meta Incognita”, with fifteen vessels, was principally for the purpose of bringing home an immense quantity of this mineral, which he had discovered on his former voyages, and fancied to be rich in gold.—See Hakluyt’s Voyages, vol. i, pp. 74, 91; and Admiral Sir Richard Collinson’s edition of Sir Martin Frobisher’s Three Voyages. (Hakluyt Society, 1867.) ↑
98 A critical history of this animal is given in “Anatomische und Zoologische Untersuchungen über das Wallross (Trichechus Rosmarus) &c. von Dr. K. E. v. Baer”—Mémoires de l’Acad. Imp. des Sc. de St. [26]Pétersb., 6me Sér., Sciences Math., Phys. et Nat., tom. iv, 2de part., Sc. Nat. (1838), pp. 97–235.
In Scoresby’s Account of the Arctic Regions, vol. i, p. 504, it is said: “When seen at a distance, the front part of the head of the young walrus, without tusks, is not unlike the human face. As this animal is in the habit of rearing its head above water, to look at ships and other passing objects, it is not at all improbable that it may have afforded foundation for some of the stories of mermaids. I have myself seen a sea-horse in such a position, and under such circumstances, that it required little stretch of imagination to mistake it for a human being; so like indeed was it, that the surgeon of the ship actually reported to me his having seen a man with his head just appearing above the surface of the water.” ↑
100 Cortelassen—cutlasses. Plate CIII, of Dr. Meyrick’s Ancient Arms and Armour (vol. ii) contains a representation of an “Andrew Ferrara”, which is described as “a coutel-hache, coutelaxe or coutelas”. But the true original of the name is the Italian cultellaccio or coltellaccio, meaning literally a large (heavy) knife. Cultellazius, the Latinized form of this word, occurs in a list of forbidden weapons, in a statute of the city of Ferrara, A.D. 1268. See Muratori, Antiq. Italic., vol. ii, col. 515. ↑
103 Namely, those of Zeelandt and Enkhuysen, from which they had separated at Kildin on the 29th of June. ↑
104 De Weygats ofte Strafe de Nassou. This name has given occasion to much curious criticism. The Dutch, not unnaturally, have sought its explanation in their own language, in which waaien means “to blow”, “to be windy”, and gat is “a strait” or “passage”; so that waaigat would be “a passage wherein the wind blows strongly”. And it is indisputable that this name has, on various occasions, been so applied by the seamen of that nation. Thus, we find a Waaigat in Baffin’s Bay, one in Spitzbergen, and another by the Straits of Magellan; and even the roads between the Helder and Texel have, from an early period, borne the same name. See “Prize Essay on the Netherlandish Discoveries,” by R. G. Bennet and J. G. van Wijk, in Nieuwe Verhandelingen von het Provincial Utrechtsche Genootschap, etc., vol. vi (1827), p. 41.
Others, instead of the Dutch waaien, have taken the German weihen as the root, and thus made weihgat to mean the “sacred straits”.
J. R. Forster, in his Voyages and Discoveries in the North (Engl. edit.), p. 273, contends, however, that the name is of Russian origin, and explains it as follows:—“Barentz found afterwards in Nova Zembla some carved images on a head-land near the straits, in consequence of which he called it Afgoeden-hoek, the ‘Cape of Idols’. Now, in the Sclavonian tongue, wajat means ‘to carve’, ‘to make an image’. Wajati-Noss would, therefore, [28]be the ‘Carved’ or ‘Image Cape’; and this seems to me to be the true origin of the word Waigats, which properly should be called Wajatelstwoi Proliw, ‘the Image Straits’.” So convinced was Forster of the correctness of his conjecture, that in another part of his work (p. 413) he did not hesitate to assert that the Russians themselves give to the Afgoeden-hoek the name of Waijati Nos; and this strange derivation of the word Waigats has found supporters not only among foreign, but even among Russian writers. See Barrow, p. 137; Berch, p. 30.
But Lütke, who has fully investigated the subject, adduces as proof against these fanciful etymologies, first (p. 30), that the name recorded by the Dutch themselves is Waigatz [Weygats], and not Waigat, the Russian termination tsch being changed by them into tz, in the same way as in Pitzora for Petschora, etc.; secondly, that the name Waigatsch properly belongs to the island alone, and not to the straits; thirdly, that this name was known to the Englishman Burrough in 1556, nearly forty years before the first voyage of the Hollanders; and lastly (p. 31), that the Russians have never called the Cape of Idols Waiyati Nos, but always Bolwánskyi Muis, from bolwàn, a rough image.
Lütke adds that the true derivation of the name in question is as difficult to be determined as that of Kolguew, Nokuew, Kildin, Warandei, etc., which are probably the remains of the languages of tribes now extinct. But, at the same time, he directs attention to Witsen’s assertion (which appears to have been altogether overlooked by previous writers), that the island of Waigatsch received its name from one Iwan Waigatsch—“het Eiland Waigats, dat zijn naem heeft van Ivan, of Ian Waigats;”—a derivation which is very probable, and certainly far more reasonable than any of the etymologies above recited. ↑
105 De Cape des Troosts—Cape Comfort; the same which Phillip had previously translated “Cape Trust”. See page 22, note 4. ↑
107 Ende quamen by een laghen slechten hoeck te landt aen de Cape de Nassauwen—and came to a low, flat point, at Cape Nassau. ↑
111 Oliphier Brunel. A native of Brussels, properly named Oliver Bunel, who traded to the north coasts of Russia in a vessel from Enckhuysen, and was lost in the river Petchora. The process by which Bunel has been made to become an Englishman, under the name of “Bennel”, “Brunell”, or “Brownell”, is explained in the Introduction. ↑
112 Costincsarch, in the original Dutch text; Costinclarch, in the Amsterdam French version of 1598; Constint-sarch, or Constantin zaar, as it is called by Witsen in his Noord en Oost Tartarije, p. 918; Constant Search, according to Forster’s ingenious hypothesis, p. 415; Coasting Search, as suggested by Barrow, p. 159. This name, which has scarcely ever been written twice alike, and which has given occasion to so much speculation as to its origin, is properly Kostin-schar, i.e., “Kostin Straits, or Passage”; it being the channel by which the Meyduscharski Island (i.e., “the island lying between the straits”), is separated from [31]the main land of Novaya Zemlya. Lütke, from whom (p. 22) the above definition is taken, explains further (p. 245), that “among Novaya Zemlya navigators, schar is properly the name of a strait or passage, which goes directly through or across an island or country, forming a communication between two distinct seas. For one that merely separates an island from the mainland, or otherwise forms part of one sea alone, the appropriate designation is salma. Thus, Matotschkin Schar, Yugorskyi Schar, etc., are properly so called; but Kostin Schar, as a walrus hunter told me, ‘is styled a schar only through stupidity, as its correct designation would be Kostin Salma’.”
Nevertheless, in justice to those who first gave the name of Kostin Schar to this strait, it must be remarked, that it was regarded by them as actually passing through the mainland of Novaya Zemlya, and as forming a communication with the Kara Sea. It is thus shown in the early maps; and Witzen (p. 918) expressly states—“Het ys dryft door Nova Zemla heen, en comt by Constint Sarch, of Constantin Zaar, uit.”
It is the passage to the south of the island which is more especially named Kostin Schar, or Kostin Salma. That to the north is the Podryésof Passage (Podrjesow Schar). See Lütke, p. 315.
As regards the etymology of the word Schar, Lütke says (p. 245) that he was unable to satisfy himself. “The Samoyedes themselves regard it as a foreign term; and by some it is thought to come from the Finnish word Schar or Skar.” Can the shard of Spencer have any connection with it?
“Upon that shore he spyéd Atin stand
There by his maister left, when late he far’d
In Phædria’s flitt barck over that perlous shard.”
Faerie Queene, II, vi, 38. ↑
119 Schans hoeck. “Barrow (p. 141) calls this headland Sion’s Point.”—Lütke, p. 20. This is clearly a clerical or typographical error for “Sconce Point”, of a character similar to that in the first (Paris) edition of the Histoire Générale des Voyages, cited by Barrow, p. 139, whereby “Baie de Loms”—Lomsbay—is converted into “Baie de St. Louis!” ↑
126 Ende een gotelincks schoot van daer stont noch een cruijs—and a falconet-shot from thence stood another cross. Lütke (p. 20) criticises Barrow for saying (p. 141) that the Hollanders found here, among other things, “a large cannon shot”; but it is clear that the latter has merely modernized Phillip’s words “a bullet for a great piece”. ↑
127 Veel tonnen duyghen—a quantity of pipe-staves. Here is a curious double error. In the first place, as duyghen are “staves” (for casks), tonnen-duyghen are simply “cask-staves” or “pipe-staves”, and not casks (barrels) of pipe-staves. And secondly, the word pipe has been misprinted pike; so that altogether, without referring to the original Dutch, it was quite impossible to imagine what was meant. ↑
128 Daer deur wy vermoeden datter eenighen Salm-vang moeste zijn—whence we conjectured that there must be some salmon fishery here. ↑
131 Meel-haven—apparently the Strogonov Bay of Lütke, who, in his account of his third voyage (p. 316), speaks of a tradition, according to which this was formerly the residence of some natives of Novogorod of that name. These settlers are not mentioned in the chronicles, nor is anything known respecting them, or the date or cause of their emigration. [34]But assuming the remains found by Barentsz and his companions to be those of the Strogonovs, he deems it not unreasonable to place their arrival some twenty or thirty years earlier than the visit of the Hollanders; which date would correspond with the reign of John the Terrible (Yoan Grosnui), a period when the Novogoroders had the greatest reason to emigrate into the regions far distant from their native country. Indeed, it is not improbable that some of them may, at that time, have been banished to Novaya Zemlya. Lütke adds: “It is worthy of remark that our walrus-hunters give the name of Meal Cape to the western headland of Strogonov Bay; which name would seem to have originated in the six sacks of rye-meal which Barentz saw there. The remains of the dwellings of the Strogonovs lie close to Meal Cape.”—P. 317.
The same writer adverts also, but with disfavour, to the further tradition, that “the Strogonovs were visited by certain monsters with iron noses and teeth”. But when it is considered that the walrus must have been previously unknown to these natives of Novogorod, it is not unreasonable to imagine that animal to have given rise to what might otherwise well be regarded as a fable. ↑
136 The large island of Kólguev, situate between Kanin Nos (Cape Kanin) and the entrance of the River Petchora. Its north-western extremity, according to Lütke’s observations (p. 324), is in 69° 29′ 30″ N. lat., and 48° 55′ E. long. ↑
140 This note of the bearing of the sun is only approximative, since the observation of the variation of the needle made on July 3rd (p. 10), shows that the sun came to the meridian between S.S.W. and S.W. by S. ↑
141 Matvyéyeva Ostrov and Dolgoi Ostrov, that is, Matvyéyev’s Island and Long Island.—Lütke, p. 20. ↑
142 These vessels were the Swan of Der Veere in Zeelandt, commanded by Cornelis Corneliszoon Nai, and the Mercury of Enckhuysen, commanded by Brandt Ysbrandtszoon, otherwise called Brandt Tetgales. ↑
144 Omtrent de lenghte van de revier Obi—about the longitude of the river Obi. In this, however, they were in error, as they were still only on the eastern side of the Kara Sea.—See Lütke, p. 32. ↑
145 De Caep Tabijn—the northernmost extremity of Siberia, now known by the name of Cape Taimur or Taimyr. It is the Tabis of Pliny. ↑
152 Kanin Nos, or Cape Kanin, at the north-eastern extremity of the White Sea, in 68° 33′ 18″ N. lat., and 43° 16′ 30″ E long.—Lütke, p. 341. ↑