1595. WILLIAM BARENTZ. 143 



the nevv^ expedition, six of which were laden with 

 divers kinds of wares, merchandizes, and money, 

 and factors appointed to dispose of the said wares; 

 of these Jacob Van Heemskerke was the chief; and 

 William Barentz was constituted pilot-major-— 

 the seventh vessel was a small pinnace, which, on 

 reaching Cape Tabin, was to proceed to examine 

 the remainder of the passage, and bring back news 

 thereof. These immense preparations were alto- 

 gether rendered nugatory by the tardy movement 

 of the machine. It was the 2d July before the 

 expedition left the Texel, and it did not reach the 

 coast of Nova Zembla before the 17th August, 

 a period of the year at which it ought, if suc- 

 cessful, to have been at least the length of the 

 Aleutian islands in the Pacific. They now found, 

 as might have been anticipated, the coast of Nova 

 Zembla unapproachable on account of the ice. 

 Turning therefore to the southward, they passed 

 Waigatz, and landed on the northern shore, but 

 could find neither men nor houses ; but on the 

 23d, they fell in with a Russian lodgie or boat 

 of Petchora, sewed together with ropes, in quest 

 of sea-horses' teeth, train oil, and geese. Their 

 ships, they said, to which their boat belonged, were 

 to come out from the coast of Russia to fetch them, 

 then to sail by the river Obe, to a place called 

 Ugoleta, inTartary; that it would be nine or ten 

 weeks before it began to freeze, but when it once 

 began it would freeze so hard that men might pass 

 over the ice to Tartary. 



