MEMOIR OF PENNANT. 49 



these is the harp, or vctde-tcelur, which quit the 

 seas of Iceland in March, and swim through the 

 Straits of Davies, by some unknown opening, to the 

 farthest north, bring forth their young, and return 

 by the north of Greenland in May, extremely lean, 

 to the north of Iceland, continue their route, and 

 return to that island about Christmas, chiefly upon 

 the drift-ice, on which they are either shot or har- 

 pooned/' 



In describing the extreme northern coasts of 

 Norway and Finmark, Pennant makes some inci- 

 dental allusions to two of our early discoverers in 

 those regions, and mentions a circumstance which 

 appears to have given rise to the British Whale 

 Fishery in the Arctic Seas. " The most northern 

 fortress in the world, and of unknown antiquity, is 

 Wordhuys, situated in a good harbour, in the isle 

 of TVardoe at the extremity of Finmark, probably 

 built for the protection of the fishing trade, the 

 only object it could have in this remote place. A 

 little farther eastward in Muscovitish Finmark, is 

 Arzina, rioted for the sad fate of that gallant gentle- 

 man, Sir Hugh Willoughby, who, in 1553, com- 

 manded the first voyage on the discovery by sea of 

 Muscovia, by the north-east ; a country at that time 

 scarcely known to the rest of Europe. He unfor- 

 tunately lost his passage, was driven by tempests 

 into this port, where he and all his men were found 

 the following year frozen to death. His more for- 

 tunate consort, Richard Chancellor, captain and 



VOL. VII. D 



