News traveled fast even in the dominion of the Lapp. In less than eighty hours a Laplander came running to the Russian settlement with a letter which had been written by De Ryp, who, half a year before, had been blown into the White Sea and was now waiting for a favorable wind to sail home. He was still in Kola, and was delighted at the safe return of his colleague from whom he had separated over a point of nautical difference. He invited the men to go home with him. The two small boats of Heemskerk's ship were left in the town of Kola as a small souvenir for the kind-hearted Russians, the Arctic costumes were carefully packed away, to be shown to the family at home, and on the sixth of October they all said farewell to the Russian coast. Twenty-three days later they entered the Maas. By way of Maassluis, Delft, The Hague, and Haarlem they made their triumphant entry into Amsterdam. Dressed in their fox-skins and their home-made wooden shoes, they paraded through the streets of the city. Their High and Mightinesses the mayors received them at the town hall, and the world was full of the fame of this first Arctic expedition. As for the practical results, there were none, unless we except the negative information about the impossibility of the Northeastern Passage. But nobody cared any longer about this route, for just two months before the first Dutch fleet which had tried to reach the Indies by way of the Cape had safely returned to the roads of Texel. The Portuguese, after all, had proved to be not so dangerous as had been expected. The Indian native was quite willing to welcome the Dutch trader. And the Northeastern route, after the wonderful failures of a number of conscientious expeditions, was given up for the well-worn and well-known route along the African coast. The Arctic was all right for the purpose of hunting of the profitable whale, but as a short cut to the Indies it had proved an absolute disappointment.
[CHAPTER III]
THE TRAGEDY OF SPITZBERGEN
Before I tell you the story of the first voyage to India I want to give a short account of another Dutch expedition in the Arctic Sea which ended even more sadly than that of Heemskerk and Barendsz.
On their voyage to Nova Zembla the two mariners had discovered a group of islands which on account of their high mountains they had called the "Islands of the Steep Peaks," or Spitzbergen in the Dutch language. These islands provided an excellent center for the whaling fisheries. During the first half of the seventeenth century a large Dutch fleet went northward every spring to catch whales. The dead animals were brought to Spitzbergen, where the blubber was turned into whale-oil, and the rest of the huge animal was got ready for a market that was not as finicky in its taste as in our own time.
Soon a small city was built around the large furnaces and the rooming-houses for the workmen. This town was appropriately called "Greaseville" (in Dutch, Smeerenburg). It consisted of the usual gathering of saloons, eating-places, and small stores, that you might find in a Western American town during a mining boom. When the autumn came, the inhabitants moved back to Holland and left the city to the tender mercies of the bears and foxes. Unfortunately, the owners of this curious and somewhat motley settlement were not always the first to arrive upon the scene in the summer. Other sailors, Scotch or Norwegian, had often visited Greaseville before they arrived and either appropriated what they wanted or destroyed what they could not carry away. As early as 1626 a plan was discussed of leaving a guard on the island during the winter. The men could live comfortably in one of the houses and they could support themselves by hunting and fishing. It was not a bad idea, but Nova Zembla still spooked in people's heads, and nobody wanted to try a winter of darkness and cold such as had been just described by De Veer. But in the year 1630 eight English sailors were accidentally left behind from a ship, and next spring they were found little the worse for wear. As a result the experiment was at last made in the winter of the year 1633. Seven men were left on Spitzbergen and seven others on the Jan Mayen, an island somewhat to the west and farther away from the pole. The seven on Jan Mayen all died of scurvy. When next spring a fleet came to relieve them they were found frozen dead in their bunks. On Spitzbergen, however, all the men had passed a comfortable winter. They had suffered a good deal from the cold, but they had managed to keep out in the open, take a lot of exercise, and pass the long winter as cheerfully as the heavy blizzards and storms allowed. It was decided to leave a small guard upon the island every year. When in September of 1634 the fleet of whalers sailed back for Holland, seven new men, under the leadership of Adriaen Janzzoon, who came from Delft, had agreed to remain behind and keep watch over the little settlement of Smeerenburg. They were well provided with supplies, but all perished before the spring of the next year. They left a diary, and from this we copy a few items to show the quiet and resigned courage with which they went to their death.
"On the eleventh of September of the year of our Lord 1634 the whaling ships sailed for home. We wished them a happy voyage. We saw several whales and often tried to get one, but we did not succeed. We looked for fresh vegetables, foxes, and bears with great industry, but we did not find any.
"Between the twentieth and the twenty-first of October the sun left us. On the twenty-fourth of November we began to suffer from scurvy. Therefore we looked for fresh vegetables, foxes, and bears with great industry, but we did not succeed, to our great grief. Therefore we consoled each other that the good Lord would provide. On the second of December Klaes Florisz took a remedy against scurvy, and we set traps to catch foxes.