We have now to take a rapid glance at some of the most important results of this third voyage, into the particulars of which, as they are recorded in De Veer’s journal, it is unnecessary to enter. [[cxxix]]
The experience of the two former voyages appears to have impressed Rijp, even more than Barents himself, with the expediency of giving the land to the east a wide sea room; for, notwithstanding that they at first steered their course much more to the northward than before, yet it was not long before disputes arose between them, Barents contending that they were too far to the west, while Rijp’s pilot asserted that he had no desire to sail towards Vaigats.[145] Barents gave way; and the result was, that on the 9th of June they came to a small steep island, in latitude 74° 30′, to which they gave the name of Bear Island, from the circumstance of their killing there a large white bear.[146]
Seven years later this island was visited by Stephen Bennet, who called it Cherie Island, after his patron, Master (subsequently Sir) Francis Cherie, a distinguished member of the Russian Company. This latter name has usually been inscribed in our English maps, though unjustly, inasmuch as the merit of the first discovery of the island unquestionably belongs to the Dutch. Captain Beechey says, indeed, that “a passage in Purchas seems to imply that it had been known before Barents made this voyage;”[147] but the only passage bearing on the subject which we have been able to find, is the statement of Captain Thomas Edge, in “A briefe Discouerie of the Northern Discoueries of Seas,” etc., that the Dutch came “to an iland in the latitude of 74 degrees, which wee call Cherie Iland, and they call Beare Iland,”[148] as if the former name had been given before the latter. It is to be hoped that in future English maps, the original and correct name will always be inserted.
From Bear Island our adventurers continued their course northwards, and on the 19th of June, when in latitude 79° 49′ N., they again saw land,[149] which was supposed by them [[cxxx]]to be a part of Greenland, but which subsequent investigation has shown to be the cluster of islands known by the name of Spitzbergen. Round this land they coasted till the 29th, when they again sailed southwards towards Bear Island.[150]
The first discovery of this country by our Dutch navigators is now universally admitted, though formerly the idea was entertained that they had been anticipated by Sir Hugh Willoughby. But that Spitzbergen was actually circumnavigated by them is a fact which, as far as we are aware, has never been adverted to by any writer on Arctic discovery. The details of this portion of Barents’ and Rijp’s voyage are neither full nor precise enough to enable us to follow them minutely in their course; added to which, the maps of Spitzbergen, especially of its eastern side, are still not sufficiently trustworthy to render us much assistance in laying down their track. There can, however, be no doubt that they sailed up its eastern shores, passed along its northern extremity, and returned by the western coast. That part of Spitzbergen which they first saw in 79° 49′ N. lat., seems to be the south-east coast of the Noord Ooster Land of the Dutch maps, along which they sailed in a westerly direction, and entered Weygatz or Hinlopen Strait. This assumption agrees with the above latitude and with those of the subsequent positions in 79° 30′[151] and 79° 42′,[152] as also with the time it took—several days—to get out of that strait. The two havens described under the date of June 24th,[153] may be the Hecla Bay and Lomme Bay of Parry. The considerable bay or inlet (gheweldigen inham) under 79°, to which they came on the following day, and “whereinto they sailed forty miles at the least, holding their course southward”,[154] can only be Weide Bay. Finding that its southern extremity “reached to the firme land”, they were forced to [[cxxxi]]work their way back against the wind, till they “gate beyonde the point that lay on the west side, where there was so great a number of birds that they flew against their sailes”.[155] This point, in consequence, received the name of Bird Cape. From thence their course is plainly to be traced along the western coast of Spitzbergen, and so back to Bear Island.
On the 1st of June, when near that island, disputes again arose between Rijp and Barents as to the course which they should take. The result was that they separated, Rijp returning northwards, while Barents proceeded southwards because of the ice.[156]
Of Rijp’s subsequent proceedings nothing is known except that he is stated to have sailed back to Bird Cape, on the west side of Spitzbergen, whence he returned with the intention of going after Barents.[157] How far he carried his [[cxxxii]]intention into effect is not said; but nothing worthy of remark can have occurred to him, or otherwise it could not have failed to be recorded. We may therefore conclude [[cxxxiii]]that he soon gave up his search after Barents and returned to Holland, and that, in the following year, he went from thence on a trading voyage to the coasts of Norway or Russia, and was on the point of sailing from Kola on his way home, when Heemskerck and the survivors of his crew arrived there, as is related by De Veer.[158]
Meanwhile Barents, having cleared the ice, held on his course to the east till he reached the western shore of Novaya Zemlya, in about latitude 73° 20′,[159] whence he coasted along the land till he had passed considerably beyond the furthest point reached by him on his first voyage, and had rounded the north-eastern extremity of that country. Here, being at length quite shut in by the ice, and unable to make his way either forwards towards the north-east, or round by the eastern side of the land, or even back again by the way he had come, he and his adventurous companions, on the evening of the 26th of August, “got to the west side of the [[cxxxiv]]Ice Haven, where they were forced, in great cold, poverty, misery, and grief, to stay all that winter.”[160]
Before adverting to the subject of the memorable wintering of the Dutch at this spot, it is necessary to make a few remarks with respect to the identification of the several points along the coast, which were reached and noted by them during the course of their first and third voyages. This is the more needful, because widely different opinions are entertained by two of the highest living authorities on the subject, Admiral Lütke and Professor von Baer.
The former, as is well known, was engaged in surveying the Northern Ocean between the years 1821 and 1825, during which period he visited many parts of the western coast of Novaya Zemlya between its southern extremity and Cape Nassau to the north, and identified most of the points visited by the Dutch, which he laid down in the map accompanying the published account of his four voyages, to the German translation of which allusion has already been made. Professor von Baer, on the other hand, who also made a scientific visit to Novaya Zemlya in the year 1837, read in the preceeding year, before the Imperial Academy of Sciences of St. Petersburg, a “Report of the latest Discoveries on the Coast of Novaya Zemlya”, an illustration of a map of that country constructed by a pilot in the Russian navy, named Zivolka; of which report a German translation is published in Berghaus’s “Annalen der Erd-Vôlker- und Staatenkunde.”[161]