And now began the long, dreary, three months' night of the 77th degree of latitude, during which snow-drifts and impetuous winds confined them to their miserable dwelling. "We looked pitifully one upon the other," says Gerret De Veer, the simple narrator of the sufferings of that Arctic winter, "being in great fear that if the extremity of the cold grew to be more and more, we should all die there of cold; for that what fire soever we made would not warm us." The ice was now two inches thick upon the walls and even on the sides of their sleeping-cots, and the very clothes they wore were whitened with frost, so that as they sat together in their hut they "were all as white as the countrymen used to be when they came in at the gates of the towns in Holland with their sleads, and have gone all night."
Yet in the midst of all their sufferings these hardy men maintained brave and cheerful hearts, and so great was their elasticity of spirit that, remembering the 5th of January was "Twelfth Even," they determined to celebrate it as best they might. "And then," says the old chronicler, "we prayed our maister that we might be merry that night, and said that we were content to spend some of the wine that night which we had spared, and which was our share (one glass) every second day; and so that night we made merry and drew for king. And therewith we had two pounds of meale, whereof we made pancakes with oyle, and every man had a white biscuit, which we sopt in the wine. And so, supposing that we were in our own country, and amongst our friends, it comforted as well as if we had made a great banket in our owne house." Blessed Content! arising from a simple heart and a life of honest and healthful toil, never didst thou celebrate a greater triumph, or more forcibly show thy power, than in that dreary hut on Nova Zembla!
Some weeks afterwards the sun appeared once more above the horizon; and the glorious sight, though it soon vanished again into darkness, was a joyful one indeed, full of delightful images of a return to friends and home. Now, also, the furious gales and snow-storms ceased; and, though the severity of the cold continued unabated, they were able to brave the outer air and recruit their strength by exercise.
When summer came, it was found impossible to disengage the ice-bound vessel, and the only hopes of escaping from their dreary prison now rested on two small boats, in which they ventured on the capricious ocean. On the fourth day of their voyage, their fragile barks became surrounded by immense quantities of floating ice, which so crushed and injured them, that the crews, giving up all hope, took a solemn leave of each other. But in this desperate crisis they owed their lives to the presence of mind and agility of De Veer, who with a well-secured rope leaped from one fragment of ice to another till he gained a firm field, on which first the sick, then the stores, the crews, and finally the boats themselves, were safely landed. Here they were obliged to remain while the boats underwent the necessary repairs, and during this detention upon a floating ice-field the gallant Barentz closed the eventful voyage of his life. He died as he had lived, calmly and bravely, thinking less of himself than of the safety of his crew, for his last words were directions as to the course in which they were to steer. Even the joyful prospect of a return to their families and home could not console his surviving comrades for the loss of their leader, whom they loved and revered as a friend and father. After a most tedious and dangerous passage, they at length arrived at Kola in Russian Lapland, where to their glad surprise they found their old comrade, John Cornelis, who received them on board his vessel and conveyed them to Amsterdam.
During the seventeenth century the most remarkable maritime discoveries were made by the English, Dutch, and Spaniards, though by the latter only at its commencement. In the year 1605 Quiros sailed from Callao, discovered the island of Sagittaria, since so renowned under the name of Otaheite, and the archipelago of Espiritu Santo, or the New Hebrides of Cook. On this journey he was accompanied by Torres, the bold seaman who some years after gave his name to the strait which separates New Guinea from Australia.
While the declining sun of Spain was thus gilding with its last rays the northern shore of New Holland, the meridian splendour of the Batavian republic cast forth bright beams of light over the wide Pacific.
Schouten and Le Maire, penetrating through the strait which is still named after the latter, sailed in the year 1616 round Tierra del Fuego; and about the same time Hartog discovered Eendragt's Land, on the west coast of Australia. The successive voyages of Jan Edel (1619), Peter Nuyts (1627), and Peter Carpenter (1628), brought to light the northern and southern shores of the vast island, which thus began to assume a rude shape on the map of the geographer. In the year 1642, Abel Tasman, the greatest of the Dutch navigators, drew a mighty furrow through the South Sea, discovered Van Diemen's Land, which posterity desirous of perpetuating his fame has called Tasmania, saw the northern extremity of New Zealand emerge from the ocean, and finally unveiled to the world the hidden beauties of Tonga.
While the Dutch navigators were thus dissipating the darkness of Australia, Hudson and Baffin were immortalising their names in the Arctic Ocean.
In the year 1627 Henry Hudson made the first attempt to steer right on to the pole, and to cross to India over the axis of the globe. He reached the northern extremity of Spitzbergen, but all his attempts to penetrate deeper into the polar ocean were baffled by the mighty ice-fields that opposed his progress. But though he failed in his undertaking to sail through the region of eternal winter to the spicy groves of India, yet the numerous morses and seals he had seen basking on the coast of Spitzbergen opened such cheering prospects of future profit, that the "Muscovy Company," which had fitted out the expedition, was by no means discontented with the issue of his voyage.
Three years after we find the gallant Hudson once more attempting to discover the north-west passage in a vessel of fifty-five tons, provisioned for six months. The crew which he commanded was unfortunately utterly unworthy of such a leader, and quailed as soon as they had to encounter the fog and ice-fields of the Frozen Ocean.