The merchants of Amsterdam having fitted out a ship—the Mercurius, of one hundred tons—to attempt a passage round the northern end of Novaia Zemlaia, the command was given to William Barents; who accordingly sailed from the Texel on the 4th of June 1594.
He sighted Novaia Zemlaia, in lat. 73° 25’ N., on the 4th of July, sailed along its grim, gaunt coast, doubled Cape Nassau on the 10th, and struck the edge of the northern ice on the 13th. For several days he skirted this formidable barrier, vainly seeking for an opening; and in quest of a channel into the further sea, he sailed perseveringly from Cape Nassau to the Orange Islands. He went over no fewer than seventeen hundred miles of ground in his assiduous search, and put his ship about one-and-eighty times. He discovered also the long line of coast between the two points we have named, laying it down with an exactness which has been acknowledged by later explorers. His men wearying of labour which seemed to yield no positive results, Barents was under the necessity of returning home.
MATERIALS FOR THE HOUSE.
In 1596 the Amsterdammers fitted out another expedition, consisting of two strongly-built ships, under Jacob van Heemskerch and Jan Cornelizoon Rijp, with Barents as pilot, though really in command.
In this voyage the adventurers kept away from the land, in order to avoid the pack-ice, and sailing to the westward, discovered Bear Island on the 9th of June. Then they steered to the northward, and hove in sight of Spitzbergen exactly ten days later. They supposed, however, that it was only a part of Greenland, and were led to bear away to the north-west—a course which was speedily arrested by the eternal icy barrier. Barents then coasted along the western side of Spitzbergen; and the north-western headland being frequented by an immense number of birds, he called it Vogelsang.
On the 1st of July he again made Bear Island, and here he and Rijp agreed to separate. Of the latter we know only that he was unsuccessful in an attempt to find an opening in the ice on the east of Greenland, and that he returned to Holland in the same year. Of the former the narrative is painfully full and interesting.
Quitting Bear Island, he reached Novaia Zemlaia on the 17th of July, sighting the coast in lat. 74° 40’ N. Keeping along it with characteristic perseverance until the 7th of August, he passed Cape Comfort; but only to find himself once more face to face with the dreary spectacle of the far-reaching Polar ice. It so hemmed and fenced him in on every side, that he was unable to extricate his vessel from it; and being driven into a bay, which he named Ice Haven, “there they were forced, in great cold, poverty, misery, and griefe, to stay all the winter.” For the heavy pack-ice drifting into the bay closed it up, and closed around the ship until she was held fast as in iron bonds.
ATTACK ON A BEAR.