I.] GUSTAF VASA AND THE NORTH-EAST PASSAGE. 47 



there was a castle, Barthus, which means vakfhus, watch-house, 

 for there the Kmg of Norway keeps a guard to protect his 

 frontiers. The interpreter said that this promontory was so 

 long that it could scarcely be sailed round in eight days, on 

 which account, in order not to be delayed in this way, they 

 carried their boats and baggage with great labour on their 

 shoulders over land for the distance of about half a mile. They 

 then sailed on along the land of the Dikilopps or wild Lapps 

 to a place which is called Dront (Trondhjem) and lies 200 

 miles north of ^ the Dwina. And they said that the prince of 

 Moscow used to receive tribute as far as to this jilace." 



The narrative is of interest, because it gives us an idea 

 of the way in which men travelled along the north coast of 

 Norway, four hundred years ago. It may possibly have had an 

 indirect influence on the sending of Sir Hugh Willoughby's 

 expedition, as the edition of Herbertstein's work printed 

 at Venice in 1550 probably soon became known to the 

 Venetian, Cabot, who, at that time, as Grand Pilot of England, 

 superintended with great care the fitting out of the first 

 English expedition to the north-east. 



There is still greater probability that the map of Scandinavia 

 by Olaus Magnus, already mentioned, was known in England 

 before 1553. This map is an expression of a view which before 

 that time had taken root in the north, which, in opposition to 

 the maps of the South-European cosmographers, assumed the 

 existence of an open sea-communication in the north, between 

 the Chinese Sea and the Atlantic, and which even induced 

 GusTAF Vasa to attempt to bring about a north-east expedition. 

 This unfortunately did not come to completion, and all that 

 we know of it is contained in a letter to the Elector August of 

 Saxony, from the Frenchman Hubert Jj.\nguet, who visited 

 Sweden in 1554. In this letter, dated Isc April 1576, Lansuet 

 says: — "When I was in Sweden twenty -two years ago, King 

 Gustaf often talked with me about this sea route. At last he 

 urged me to undertake a voyage in this direction, and promised 

 to fit out two vessels with all that was necessary for a protracted 

 voyage, and to man them with the most skilful seamen, who 

 should do what I ordered. But I replied that I preferred 

 journeys in inhabitated regions to the search for new unsettled 

 lands." - If Gustaf Vasa had found a man fit to carry out 

 his great plans, it might readily have happened that Sweden 



1 Instead of "north of," the true leading probnhly is "beyond" the 

 Dwina. 



'^ Hubert! Langueti Epistolce Secretce, Halse, 1699, i. 171. Compare also 

 a paper by A. G. Ahlquist, in Ny Illustrerad Tidmnrj for 1875, p. 270. 



