v.] 



THE DUTCH XORTH-EAST EXPEDITIONS. 



177 



MAVARCHVvS' 



HoLLAKDVi' 



a new sea route north of Asia or America to the Eastern seas. 

 If such a route had been actually found, it was clear that the 

 position of Holland would have been specially favourable for 

 undertaking this lucrative trade. In this state of things we 

 have to seek for the reason of the delight with which the Dutch 

 hailed the first proposal to force a passage by sea north of Asia 

 to China or Japan. Three successive expeditions were at great 

 expense fitted out for this purpose. These expeditions did 

 not, indeed, attain the intended goal — the discovery of a 

 north-eastern sea route to Eastern Asia, but they not only 

 gained for themselves a prominent 

 place in the history of geographical 

 discovery, but also repaid a hundred 

 fold the money that had been spent 

 on them, in part directly through 

 the whale-fishing to which they 

 gave rise, and wliich was so profit- 

 able to Holland, and in part in- 

 directly through the elevation they 

 gave to the self-respect and national 

 feeling of the people. They com- 

 pared the achievements of their 

 coar.trymen among the ice and 

 snow of the Polar lands to the voy- 

 age of the Argonauts, to Hannibal's 

 passage of the Alps, and to the 

 campaign of the Macedonians in 

 Asia and the deserts of Libya 

 (see, for instance, Blavius, Aflos 

 major, Latin edition, t. i., pp.^ 24 

 and 81.) As these voyages 

 together present the grandest 

 attempts to solve the problem 

 that lay before the Vega expedi- 

 tion, I shall here give a some- 

 what detailed account of them. 



The First Dutch Expedition, 1594. — This was fitted out 

 at the expense of private persons, mainly by the merchants 

 Balthasar Mucheron, Jacob Valcke, and Franciscus 

 Maelson. The first intention was to send out only two 

 vessels with the view of forcing a passage through the sound 

 at Vaygats towards the east, but on the famous geographer 

 Plancius representing that the route north of Novaya Zemlya 

 was that which would lead most certainly to the desired goal, 

 other two were fitted out, so that no fewer than four vessels 

 went out in the year 1594 on an exploratory expedition towards 

 the north. Of these, two, viz. a large vessel, specially equipped, 



N 



DUTCH SKIPPER. 



After G. de Veer. 



