v.] DISCOVERY OF BEAR ISLAND AND SPITZBERGEN. 183 



this offer the merchants of Amsterdam sent out two vessels, 

 one under the command of Willem Barents and Jacob van 

 Heemskerk, the other under Jan Cornelisz. Rijp. The crew 

 were chosen with care, unmarried men being preferred, with 

 the idea that wife and children would detract from the 

 bravery of the members of the expedition and lead them to 

 return home prematurely. 



On the J-^th May these vessels left Amsterdam. On the "th 

 June they saw in lat. 71° North some beautiful parhelia, which 

 are found delineated in De Veer's work, and Blavii Atlas 

 Major. 



On the '|th June one of the crew cried out from the deck 

 that he saw white swans, but on a closer examination it appeared 

 that they consisted of large pieces of ice, which drifted along 

 the edge of the pack,^ On the '|th they discovered, north of 

 North Cape, a new island, situated in latitude 7-i° 30' North. 

 A large bear was killed here, and on this account the island 

 was called Bear Island. On the ^^th they came in the 80th 

 degree of latitude to another formerly unknown land, which 

 they believed to be connected with Greenland. It was in fact 

 the large group of islands, which afterwards obtained the name 

 Spitzbergen. There were found here on a small island the 

 eggs of a species of goose — rotgansen,'^ which comes yearly 

 to Holland in great flocks, but whose breeding place was 

 before unknown. With reference to this, De Veer says that 

 it is finally proved that this goose is not, as has been hitherto 

 supposed, propagated in Scotland by the goose laying her eggs 

 from the branches of trees overhanging the water, the eggs 



schepen ende tgelt van den laude, zonde begeren te verzoeken, dat men 

 dezelve aventuriers de reijse gevonden ende gedaen hebbende, daervan 

 brengende goet ende geloofflijck beschijt, tot liaer luijder wedercomste, 

 zal vereeren mette soniine van vijff en twintich duysent gulden eens. 

 Item daar enboven accorderen den vrijdom voor twee jaren van convoyen 

 der goederen die zij uit dese landen naer China ofii Japan zullen transpor- 

 teren, ende noch vrijdom veer den tyd van acht jaren van te goederen die 

 zij uit China ofte .japan in dese landen sullen bringen. Waerop gead- 

 viseert wesende hebben de Gedeputeerde van d'andere provincien hen 

 daarmede geconformeert, die van Seelant opt welbehagen van heure 

 principalen, maer die van Utrecht hebben verclart niet te consenteren 

 in de vereeringe van XXV^' £. 



1 Every Polar traveller has at one time or other made the same or a 

 similar mistake. In 1861, for instance, a boat party, of whom I was one, 

 thought that they saw clearly sailors in sou'-westers and with white shirt- 

 sleeves building a cairn on a point which appeared to be at no great 

 distance. But the cairn was found to be a very distant mountain, the 

 shirt-sleeves were formed of snow-fields, the sou'-westers of pointed cliffs, 

 and the motion arose from oscillatory changes in the atmospheric strata. 



- Undoubtedly Anser bernicla, which is common on the west coast of 

 Spitzbergen. The Dutch name ought neither to be translated red goose, as 

 some Englishmen have done, nor confounded with rotrjes. 



