Sir Hugh Willoughby
Burrough skirted the northern coast of Lapland to the eastward, discovering the strait leading to the Kara Sea, between Nova Zembla and Waigat. As a result of “the great and terrible abundance of ice that we saw with our eyes,” Burrough explored no farther, but sailing into the White Sea wintered at Colomogro, returning home the following spring.
THE CORTEREALS
As early as 1500 a Portuguese, Caspar Cortereal by name, endeavoured to reach Cathay by the Northwest Passage and reached between 50° and 60° north latitude. After making captive some fifty-seven natives, for the purpose of making them slaves, he returned to Lisbon, October 18, 1501.
The following year he set sail again with two ships and is supposed to have reached Hudson Strait, where the vessels became separated. Caspar Cortereal and his crew were never heard of again.
The other ship returned to Lisbon with the unfortunate tidings, and a brother, Miguel, set sail from Lisbon, in the spring of 1502, on a searching expedition. Upon reaching Hudson Strait the ships separated to explore the various inlets and islands of the locality. Two of the ships reached the point of rendezvous, but the third, with Miguel Cortereal on board, never appeared. Thus the two brothers shared a like fate.
A third brother, Vasco, petitioned the king to equip another expedition to send in search of the missing men, but this the king refused to do on the ground that the loss of two was greater than he could afford to sustain. No tidings were ever received that could throw any light upon the sad fate of the bold mariners.
One of the most curious productions by geographers was a map published in 1558 by one Niccolò Zeno, a Venetian noble, whose ancestor of the same name had left with notes and journals a record of certain northern journeys made by him toward the end of the fourteenth century. He had entered as pilot the service of a mariner named Zichnmi, remained many years in his service, and, joined later by a brother called Antonio, spent some time in a country he named Frislanda. Later both brothers found their way back to Venice. The young Niccolò, discovering the mutilated letters and maps of these brothers, proceeded to prepare a narrative and elaborate map which was considered a most valuable addition to knowledge and continued to be an authority for more than a century.