76 THE FOREST LANDS OF NORTHERN RUSSIA. 



' The merchants of Amsterdam/ writes the author of 

 The Arctic World: its Plants, Animals, and Natural 

 Phenomena* ' having fitted out a ship the Mercurius, of 

 one hundred tons to attempt a passage round the northern 

 end of Novaia Zemlaia, the command was given to William 

 Barents ; who accordingly sailed from the Texel on the 4th 

 of June 1594. 



'He sighted Novaia Zemlaia, in lat. 73 25' N, on the 

 4th July, sailed along its grim, gaunt coast, doubled Cape 

 Nassau on the 10th, and struck the edge of the northern 

 ice on the 13th. For several days he skirted this formid- 

 able barrier, vainly seeking for an opening ; and in quest 

 of a channel into the further sea he sailed perseveringly 

 from Cape Nassau to the Orange Islands. He went over no 

 fewer than seventeen hundred miles of ground in his assi- 

 duous search, and put his ship about on e-and-eighty times. 

 He discovered also the long line of coast between the two 

 points we have named, laying it down with an exactness 

 which has been acknowledged by later explorers. His men 

 wearying of labour which seemed to yield no positive 

 results, Barents was under the necessity of returning home. 



'In 1596 the Amsterdammers fitted out another expe- 

 dition, consisting of two strongly-built ships, under Jacob 

 van Heemskerch and Jan Cornelizoon Rijp, with Barents 

 as pilot, though really in command. 



'In this voyage the adventurers kept away from the 

 land in order to avoid the pack-ice, and sailing to the 

 westward, discovered Bear Island on the 9th of June. 

 Then they steered to the northward, and hove in sight of 

 Spitzbergen exactly ten days later. They supposed, how- 

 ever, that it was only a part of Greenland, and were led to 

 bear away to the north-west a course which was speedily 

 arrested by the eternal icy barrier. Barents then coasted 

 along the western side of Spitzbergen ; and the north- 

 western headland being frequented by an immense number 

 of birds, he called it Vogelsang. 



* T. Nelson & Sons, London, Edinburgh, and New York. 



