[200] On this day De Veer says that they measured the sun’s azimuth (de son peijlden), which they found to be “in the eleventh degree and 48 minutes of Scorpio”, that is to say, in 221° 48′. It would seem, however, that there are here two mistakes. The first is a clerical or typographical error. Instead of 221° 48′, it should be 221° 18′, which was the sun’s longitude at Venice on the 3rd of November. And the second error is, that no account is taken of the difference of longitude between Venice and Novaya Zemlya, which is about four hours in time. The sun’s true longitude was 221° 7′,6. [↑]
[201] Namely, that of Captain Parry. [↑]
[202] “The 25th of January it was darke clowdy weather”; the 26th there was “a fog-bank or a dark cloud”; the 29th, “it was foule weather, with great store of snow”; the 30th, “it was darke weather with an east wind,” and “as soone as they saw what weather it was, they had no desire to goe abroad”; the 1st of February, “the house was closed up againe with snow”; the 2nd, “it was still the same foule weather”; the 3rd, it was “very misty, whereby they could not see the sun”; and from the 4th till the 7th inclusive, “it was still foule weather”. [↑]
[203] Some valuable remarks on this phenomenon are contained in Lütke’s Viermalige Reise, pp. 39–41. [↑]
[204] De Veer’s work has seen three editions—1598, 1599, and 1605, at the same press. The text, as well as the plates of the edition of 1599, are reprinted, whilst the pages are better numbered. (Mémoire Bibliographique [[clx]]sur les Journaux des Navigateurs Neerlandais 1867, par P. A. Fiele.) [↑]
[205] One further curious instance has only recently come to our knowledge. Captain Beechey, when speaking (p. 257) of the bears which were killed by the Dutch while in their winter quarters, says that on opening one of them “there was found in its stomach ‘part of a buck, with the hair and skinne and all, which not long before she had torne [[clxxiii]]and devoured,’ a fact (he adds) which I mention only to rectify an error in supposing deer did not frequent Nova Zembla.”
Did the fact of the existence of deer in Novaya Zemlya rest upon this statement alone, it would have but a weak foundation; for, as is shown in page 182, note 3, the original Dutch is “stucken van robben, met huijt ende hayr”—“pieces of seals, with the skin and hair.” But, in truth, the existence of deer in that country is established by the incontrovertible evidence adduced in the notes to pages 5, 83, and 104; to which has to be added the fact recorded in the Appendix, p. 269, that when Hudson and his crew were on the coast of Novaya Zemlya in 1608, they saw there numerous signs of deer, and on one occasion “a herd of white deere of ten in a companie;” so that they actually gave to the place the name of Deere Point. [↑]
[206] 1.—“The Description of a Voyage made by certain Ships of Holland into the East Indies … who set forth on the 2nd Aprill 1595, and returned on the 14th of August 1597. Printed by John Woolfe, 1598, 4to.”
In his dedication to this work, of which the original was written by Bernard Langhenes, Phillip announces a translation of Linschoten’s voyages; and in the same year there appeared—
2.—“John Huighen van Linschoten, his discours of voyages into ye Easte and West Indies. Devided into foure books. Printed at London by John Woolfe;” on the title-pages of the second, third, and fourth books of which work the initials W. P. are given as those of the translator.