162 DISCOVERIES OF 159^. 



to proceed to Japan, China, and the Moluccas, to 

 procure the riches of those islands; considering this 

 route not only much shorter, but also much safer 

 from our corsairs : and that the last attempt was 

 made in 1505, (probably 1596,) when he reached 

 eio-htv-two deo-rees north ; and although it was in 

 the middle of summer, and the day almost con- 

 tinual, as there was no night, except for about 

 two hours, ^ yet was the cold so excessive, with 

 so much sleet and snow driving down those straits, 

 that he was compelled to return. And he asserted, 

 that if he had kept close to the coast of Tartary, 

 on the right hand, and had run along it to the 

 eastward, to the opening of Anian, between the 

 land of Asia and America, he might have suc- 

 ceeded in his vmdertaking." 



" And this pilot further said, that the Dutch 

 would not abandon the attempt until they should 

 accomplish their object, on account of the great 

 importance they attached to this route." 



" And the English have already attempted to 

 discover this route towards the w est, between the 

 islands of Grotland (Greenland) and the land of 

 Labrador ; but on account of the same difficulties 



* Couto must have mistaken the Jesuits, or the Jesuits Adams, 

 in relating this part of the story, as the latter well knew there 

 ^ould be no night for upwards of four months in such a latitude. 

 From a want of making due allowance for the extraordinary 

 refraction in high latitudes, most of the old navigators have 

 carried Spitzbergen a full degree higher than it is. 



