A.D. 



1556. 



230 CHANCELLOR AND BURROUGH. 



for the melancholy fate of poor Sir Hugh 

 Willoughby, and was a sufficient encourage- 

 ment for the merchants to fit out another expe- 

 dition to Archangel, to improve the opening 

 that had been thus propitiously begun. This 

 expedition was under the command of Chancellor. 

 But at the same time, it was determined to 

 follow up the attempt to discover the -much- 

 desired northern passage to Cathay ; and, accord- 

 ingly, the next year, 1556, Stephen Burrough 

 was directed to take command of the Serchthrift 

 pinnace, and to endeavour to navigate as far as the 

 river Obe. He quitted the Thames in April 1556, 

 and touching at Cola, Pechora, and other places 

 on the coast of Russia, on the 25th July (St. 

 James's day) he discovered Nova Zembla, and 

 shortly after the Waigatz, were he had communi- 

 cation with some Russians, who were there for 

 the purpose of taking sea-horses. He had here also 

 some interesting interviews with the Samoyeds, 

 of whose customs Richard Johnson, a companion 

 of Burrough, gives a very amusing description 

 in Hakluyt's, vol. i. p. 317. On the 22nd 

 August, Burrough, "being out of all hope to 

 discover any more to the eastward this yeere," 

 thought it desirable to return ; partly on account 

 of the strong northeast winds, which had set 

 in, and partly because of the " great and terrible 



