1 Of men noch ten derdemael van slandts wegen wederom eenige toerustinge soude doen—whether any expedition should again for the third time be fitted out at the expense of the country. ↑
4 Als schipper ende comis van de comanschappe, Jacob Heemskerck Heijndricksz.—as captain and supercargo of the merchandize. ↑
9 Aen de oost zyde vant Vlie-landt—on the east side of Vlielandt: the island at the entrance of the Vlie, between it and Texel. ↑
10 De eylanden van Hitlandt ende Feyeril. Hitlandt is the Dutch name for the Islands of Shetland, anciently called Hialtland. Feyeril is Fair Isle, between Shetland and Orkney. ↑
19 Hielt de loef van ons, ende quam niet af tot ons, maer wy ghinghen hem een streeck int ghemoet—kept to windward of us, and would not fall off towards us; but we altered our course one point to go to him. ↑
23 As henceforward the omissions in the translation become more numerous, it is thought better to insert the omitted passage or words in the text between brackets [ ], instead of placing them in the foot-notes. ↑
31 The accuracy of William Barentszoon’s observations is worthy of remark. According to the observations of Fabure in the “Recherche”, the west point of Bear Island is in 74° 30′ 52″ N. lat., being virtually the same as Barentsz., with his rude instruments, had made it two centuries and a half previously. The longitude of the same point is 16° 19′ 10″ east of Paris, or 18° 39′ 32″ E. of Greenwich. ↑
33 Een steylen sneebergh—A steep mountain of snow. This was not a glacier, but merely an accumulation of snow. The land of Bear Island appears to be not sufficiently elevated for the formation of glaciers. See Von Buch’s Memoir “über Spirifer Keilhavii”, in Abhandl. d. K. Acad. d. Wissensch. zu Berlin, 1846, p. 69; and its transl., in Journ. Geol. Soc. Lond., vol. iii, part ii, p. 51. ↑
40 Het Beyren Eylandt. The Russian walrus-hunters call this island simply Medvyed, “the Bear”. By the English it has been usually called Cherry Island. This name was given to it in 1604 by Stephen Bennet, who went thither in a ship belonging to Sir Francis Cherry, a rich merchant of London, to kill walruses for their oil, and who named the island after his patron. ↑
45 There is an error in the calculation here, which may be best explained by repeating the calculation itself, as it was doubtless made:—
| 33° 37′ | Elevation of the sun. | |
| 23° 26′ | Declination of the sun. | |
| ——— | { | Elevation of the equator, which being the complement of the elevation of the Pole, had to be deducted from 90°. |
| 10° 11′ | ||
| 90° 0′ | ||
| ——— | ||
| 80° 11′ | ||
| ——— | ||
But in making the deduction, the 11′ were carried down instead of being subtracted from 60′; and then, of course, 90° - 10° = 80°. The true difference is 79° 49′, which is, consequently, the latitude observed. ↑
46 The country thus visited for the first time was supposed by its discoverers to be a part of Greenland; but it is now known to be Spitzbergen. ↑
47 Bock. It is impossible to say what is the correct English name for this smaller boat: probably “yawl”. Bock (or pont) is properly a “punt”, which is clearly not intended. ↑
52 Rotgansen—brent geese or “barnacle” geese, as they were called, owing to the absurd idea which formerly prevailed as to their origin. ↑
53 Rot, rot, rot. It is certainly singular that the translator should have attempted to render into English what is intended to represent the natural cry of these birds. But even in this strange attempt he made a mistake; for “red” is in Dutch rood, while rot means a rout, crowd, flock, rabble; so that, in the opinion of some, these geese are called rotgansen in Dutch, on account of their flocking together. ↑
54 Dit waren oprechte rotgansen—these were true brent geese. Apart from Phillip’s very curious “translation”, it is difficult to imagine how he could have supposed these geese to be of “a perfit red coulor”. And it is scarcely less incomprehensible how Barrow, in his Chronological History, etc., p. 147, should have reproduced this and other errors of Phillip without the slightest comment. By a contemporary writer, in the passage cited in the next page, the brent goose is well described as “a fowle bigger than a mallard, and lesser than a goose, having blacke legs and bill or beake, and feathers blacke and white, spotted in such manner as is our mag-pie”. It is figured and also described in the fifth volume of Gould’s Birds of Europe. ↑
57 Ende de tacken die overt water hangen ende haer vruchten int water vallen—and those branches which hang over the water, and the fruit of which falls into the water. ↑
59 Comen te niet—come to nothing. This extraordinary fable concerning the origin of these geese, which was prevalent in the sixteenth century, and was credited by the best informed naturalists and most learned scholars, is, at the present day, retained in our memory principally by Izaak Walton’s quotation from Divine Weekes and Workes of Du Bartas:—
“So, slowe Boötes vnderneath him sees,
In th’ ycy iles, those goslings hatcht of trees;
Whose fruitfull leaues, falling into the water,
Are turn’d (they say) to liuing fowls soon after.
So, rotten sides of broken ships do change
To barnacles; O transformation strange!
’Twas first a greene tree, then a gallant hull,
Lately a mushrom, now a flying gull.”
For the reason which will appear in the sequel, it is deemed advisable to reproduce here the elaborate description of “the goose tree, barnacle tree, or the tree bearing geese”, given by the learned John Gerard, in his Herball or Generall Historie of Plantes, of which the first edition was published in 1597:—
“There are found in the north parts of Scotland and the islands adiacent, called Orchades, certain trees, whereon do grow certaine shells of a white colour tending to russet, wherein are contained little liuing creatures: which shells in time of maturitie do open, and out of them grow those little liuing things, which falling into the water do become fowles, which we call barnakles; in the north of England, brant geese; and in Lancashire, tree geese: but the other that do fall vpon the land perish and come to nothing. Thus much by the writings of others, and also from the mouths of people of those parts, which may very well accord with truth.
“But what our eyes haue seene, and hands haue touched, we shall [81]declare. There is a small island in Lancashire called the Pile of Foulders, wherein are found the broken pieces of old and bruised ships, some whereof haue been cast thither by shipwracke, and also the trunks and bodies with the branches of old and rotten trees, cast vp there likewise; whereon is found a certaine spume or froth that in time breedeth vnto certaine shels, in shape like those of the muskle, but sharper pointed, and of a whitish colour; wherein is contained a thing in forme like a lace of silke finely wouen as it were together, of a whitish colour, one end whereof is fastned vnto the inside of the shell, euen as the fish of oisters and muskles are; the other end is made fast vnto the belly of a rude masse or lumpe, which in time commeth to the shape and forme of a bird: when it is perfectly formed the shell gapeth open, and the first thing that appeareth is the foresaid lace or string; next come the legs of the bird hanging out, and as it groweth greater it openeth the shell by degrees, til at length it is all come forth, and hangeth onely by the bill; in short space after it commeth to full maturitie, and falleth into the sea, where it gathereth feathers, and groweth to a fowle bigger than a mallard, and lesser than a goose, hauing blacke legs and bill or beake, and feathers blacke and white, spotted in such manner as is our mag-pie, called in some places a pie-annet, which the people of Lancashire call by no other name than a tree-goose: which place aforesaid, and all those parts adioyning, do so much abound therewith, that one of the best is bought for three pence. For the truth hereof, if any doubt, may it please them to repaire vnto me, and I shall satisfie them by the testimonie of good witnesses.
“Moreouer, it should seeme that there is another sort hereof; the historie of which is true, and of mine owne knowledge: for trauelling vpon the shore of our English coast betweene Douer and Rumney, I found the trunke of an old rotten tree, which (with some helpe that I procured by fishermens wiues that were there attending their husbands returne from the sea) we drew out of the water vpon dry land: vpon this rotten tree I found growing many thousands of long crimson bladders, in shape like vnto puddings newly filled, before they be sodden, which were [82]very cleere and shining; at the nether end whereof did grow a shell fish, fashioned somewhat like a small muskle, but much whiter, resembling a shell fish that groweth vpon the rocks about Garnsey and Garsey, called a lympit: many of these shells I brought with me to London, which after I had opened I found in them liuing things without forme or shape; in others which were neerer come to ripenes I found liuing things that were very naked, in shape like a bird: in others, the birds couered with soft downe, the shell halfe open, and the bird ready to fall out, which no doubt were the fowles called barnakles. I dare not absolutely auouch euery circumstance of the first part of this history, concerning the tree that beareth those buds aforesaid, but will leaue it to a further consideration; howbeit that which I haue seene with mine eyes, and handled with mine hands, I dare confidently auouch, and boldly put downe for veritie. Now if any will obiect, that this tree which I saw might be one of those before mentioned, which either by the waues of the sea or some violent wind had been ouerturned, as many other trees are; or that any trees falling into those seas about the Orchades, will of themselves beare the like fowles, by reason of those seas and waters, these being so probable coniectures, and likely to be true, I may not without preiudice gainesay, or indeauor to confute.”—(2nd edit.) p. 1588.
Difficult as it is to understand how a man of Gerard’s genius and information could have been thus deceived, the perfect sincerity of his belief is not to be doubted. Seeing, then, how deep rooted this popular error must have been, it was no small merit of William Barentz and his companions that they should have been mainly instrumental in disabusing the public mind on the subject. That they were so, and that at the time they enjoyed the credit of being so, is manifest from the following note on the foregoing passage, made by Thomas Johnson, the editor of the second edition of the Herball, published in 1633:—
“The barnakles, whose fabulous breed my author here sets downe, and diuers others haue also deliuered, were found by some Hollanders to haue another originall, and that by egges, as other birds haue: for they in their third voyage to find out the north-east passage to China and the Molucco’s, about the eightieth degree and eleuen minutes of northerly latitude, found two little islands, in the one of which they found aboundance of these geese sitting vpon their egges, of which they got one goose, and tooke away sixty egges, etc. Vide Pontani, Rerum et vrb. Amstelodam. Hist., lib. 2, cap. 22.”
Parkinson, too, in his Theatrum Botanicum, published in 1640 (p. 1306), gives our Dutch navigators full credit for having confuted “this admirable tale of untruth”. ↑
61 Chart. The original has, however, nothing about any “card”, but says noch noyt dat land op die plaets bekent is geweest—nor was that land ever known on the spot (that is to say, from personal observation). ↑
62 This remark, which has previously been made by the author in page 5, is not founded on fact, inasmuch as reindeer do exist in Novaya Zemlya, as is there shown in note 2. In addition to the authorities cited in that place, may be given that of Rosmuislov, who passed the winter of 1768–9 to the northward of 73° N. lat., and saw there large herds of wild reindeer.—Lütke, p. 77. ↑
64 De selfde getogen van de genomen hooghde. This is erroneous. It should be “from which subtracted the height aforesaid”. ↑
70 That is to say, the sun’s declination 23° 20′, being taken from his elevation 38° 20′, leaves 15°, the complement of the elevation of the Pole, which latter is consequently 75°. ↑
74 In Phillips’ translation, “sun” is omitted, and the words “and then” substituted, whereby the sense is completely altered. ↑