The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II

by A. E. Nordenskiöld

luxuriant bushes of willow and alder. That in Siberia too, the large wood, some hundreds or thousands of years ago, went farther north than now, is shown by colossal tree-stumps found still standing in the tundra, nor is it necessary now to go far south of the extreme limit, before the river banks are to be seen crowned with high, flourishing, luxuriant trees.

The climate at Maosoe is not distinguished by any severe winter cold,[21] but the air is moist and raw nearly all the year round. The region would however be very healthy, did not scurvy, especially in humid winters, attack the population, educated and uneducated, rich and poor, old and young. According to a statement made by a lady resident on the spot, very severe attacks of scurvy are cured without fail by preserved cloudberries and rum. Several spoonfuls are given to the patient daily, and a couple of quarts of the medicine is said to be sufficient for the complete cure of children severely attacked by the disease. I mention this new method of using the cloudberry, the old well-known antidote to scurvy, because I am convinced that future Polar expeditions, if they will avail themselves of the knowledge of this cure, will find that it conduces to the health and comfort of all on board, and that the medicine is seldom refused, unless it be by too obstinate abstainers from spirituous liquors.

It enters into the plan of this work, as the Vega sails along, to give a brief account of the voyages of the men who first opened the route along which she advances, and who thus, each in his measure, contributed to prepare the way for the voyage whereby the passage round Asia and Europe has now at last been accomplished. On this account it is incumbent on me to begin by giving a narrative of the voyage of discovery during which the northernmost point of Europe was first doubled, the rather because this narrative has besides great interest for us, as containing much remarkable information regarding the condition of the former population in the north of Scandinavia.

This voyage was accomplished about a thousand years ago by a Norwegian, OTHERE, from Halogaland or Helgeland, that part of the Norwegian coast which lies between 65° and 66° N.L. Othere, who appears to have travelled far and wide, came in one of his excursions to the court of the famous English king, Alfred the Great. In presence of this king he gave, in a simple, graphic style, a sketch of a voyage which he had undertaken from his home in Norway towards the north and east. The narrative has been preserved by its having been incorporated, along with an account of the travels of another Norseman, Wulfstan, to the southern part of the Baltic, in the first chapter of Alfred's Anglo-Saxon reproduction of the history of PAULUS OROSIUS: De Miseria Mundi.[22] This work has since been the subject of translation and exposition by a great number of learned men, among whom may be named here the Scandinavians, H.G. PORTHAN of Åbo, RASMUS RASK and C-CHR. RAFN of Copenhagen.

Regarding Othere's relations to King Alfred statements differ. Some inquirers suppose that he was only on a visit at the court of the king, others that he had been sent out by King Alfred on voyages of discovery, and finally, others say that he was a prisoner of war, who incidentally narrated his experience of foreign lands. Othere's account of his travels runs as follows:—

"Othere told his lord, King Alfred, that he dwelt northmost of all the Northmen. He said that he dwelt in the land to the northward, along the West-Sea; he said, however, that that land is very long north from thence, but it is all waste, except in a few places where the Fins at times dwell, hunting in the winter, and in the summer fishing in that sea. He said that he was desirous to try, once on a time, how far that country extended due north, or whether any one lived to the north of the waste. He then went due north along the country, leaving all the way the waste land on the right, and the wide sea on the left. After three days he was as far north as the whale-hunters go at the farthest. Then he proceeded in his course due north, as far as he could sail within another three days; then the land there inclined due east, or the sea into the land, he knew not which; but he knew that he waited there for a west wind or a little north, and sailed thence eastward along that land as far as he could sail in four days. Then he had to wait for a due north wind because the land inclined there due south, or the sea in on that land, he knew not which. He then sailed along the coast due south, as far as he could sail in five days. There lay a great river up in that land; they then turned in that river, because they durst not sail on up the river on account of hostility; because all that country was inhabited on the other side of the river. He had not before met with any land that was inhabited since he left his own home; but all the way he had waste land on his right, except some fishermen, fowlers, and hunters, all of whom were Fins: and he had constantly a wide sea to the left. The Beormas had well cultivated their country, but they (Othere and his companions) did not dare to enter it. And the Terfinna[23] land was all waste, except where hunters, fishers, or fowlers had taken up their quarters.

"The Beormas told him many particulars both of their own land and of other lands lying around them; but he knew not what was true because he did not see it himself. It seemed to him that the Fins and the Beormas spoke nearly the same language. He went thither chiefly, in addition to seeing the country, on account of the walruses,[24] because they have very noble bones in their teeth, of which the travellers brought some to the king; and their hides are very good for ship-ropes. These whales are much less than other whales, not being longer than seven ells. But in his own country is the best whale-hunting. There they are eight-and-forty ells long, and the largest are fifty ells long. Of these he said he and five others had killed sixty in two days.[25] He was a very wealthy man in those possessions in which their wealth consists, that is, in wild deer. He had at the time he came to the king, six hundred unsold tame deer. These deer they call rein-deer, of which there were six decoy rein-deer, which are very valuable among the Fins, because they catch the wild rein-deer with them.

"He was one of the first men in that country, yet he had not more than twenty horned cattle, twenty sheep and twenty swine, and the little that he ploughed he ploughed with horses. But their wealth consists mostly in the rent paid them by the Fins. That rent is in skins of animals and birds' feathers, and whalebone, and in ship-ropes made of whales'[26] hides, and of seals'. Every one pays according to his birth; the best-born, it is said, pay the skins of fifteen martens, and five rein-deers, and one bear's skin, ten ambers of feathers, a bear's or otter's skin kyrtle, and two ship-ropes, each sixty ells long, made either of whale or of seal hide."

The continuation of Othere's narrative consists of a sketch of the Scandinavian peninsula, and of a journey which he undertook from his home towards the south. King Alfred then gives an account of the Dane, Wulfstan's voyage in the Baltic. This part of the introduction to Orosius, however, has too remote a connection with my subject to be quoted in this historical sketch.