No portrait of Hudson is known to be in existence. What has passed with the uncritical for his portrait—a dapper-looking man wearing a ruffed collar—frequently has been, and continues to be, reproduced. Who that man was is unknown. That he was not Hudson is certain.
Lacking Hudson's portrait, I have used for a frontispiece a photograph, especially taken for this purpose, of the interior of the Church of Saint Ethelburga: the sole remaining material link, of which we have sure knowledge, between Hudson and ourselves. The drawing on the cover represents what is very near to being another material link—the replica, lately built in Holland, of the "Half Moon," the ship in which Hudson made his most famous voyage.
The other illustrations have been selected with a strict regard to the meaning of that word. In order to throw light on the text, I have preferred—to the ventures of fancy—reproductions of title-pages of works on navigation that Hudson probably used; pictures of the few and crude instruments of navigation that he certainly used; and pictures of ships virtually identical with those in which he sailed.
The copy of Wright's famous work on navigation that Hudson may have had, and probably did have, with him was of an earlier date than that (1610) of which the title-page here is reproduced. This reproduction is of interest in that it shows at a glance all of the nautical instruments that Hudson had at his command; and of a still greater interest in that the map which is a part of it exhibits what at that time, by exploration or by conjecture, was the known world. To the making of that map Hudson himself contributed: on it, with a previously unknown assurance, his River clearly is marked. The inadequate indication of his Bay probably is taken from Weymouth's chart—the chart that Hudson had with him on his voyage. A curious feature of this map is its marking—in defiance of known facts—of two straits, to the north and to the south of a large island, where should be the Isthmus of Panama.
The one seemingly fanciful picture, that of the mermaids, is not fanciful—a point that I have enlarged upon elsewhere—by the standard of Hudson's times. Hudson himself believed in the existence of mermaids: as is proved by his matter-of-fact entry in his log that a mermaid had been seen by two of his crew.