NOVA ZEMBLA AND LANDS BEYOND. 79 



to repair their two boats, for their ship was so crippled and 

 strained by the ice that she was injured beyond their ability 

 to repair. 



' On the 14th of June they quitted the place of their 

 long captivity ; Barents, before they set out, drawing up 

 in writing a list of their names, with a brief record of their 

 experiences, and depositing it in the wooden hut. He 

 himself was so reduced with' sickness, want, and anxiety 

 that he was unable to stand, and had to be carried into 

 the boat. On the 16th, the captain, hailing from the other 

 boat, inquired how the pilot fared. " Quite well, mate," 

 Barents replied ; " I still hope to mend before we get to 

 Wardhouse," Wardhouse being an island on the coast of 

 Lapland. But he died on the 19th (or, as some authorities 

 say, on the 20th), to the great grief of his comrades, who 

 appreciated his manly character, and placed great reliance 

 on his experience and skill. 



' The adventurers met with many difficulties from the 

 ice, sometimes being carried out far from the ice-belt, 

 and at others being compelled to haul the boats for long 

 distances over the rough surface of the floes to reach open 

 water. It has been well observed that there are many 

 instances on record of long ocean-voyages performed in 

 open boats, but that, perhaps, not one is of so extraordinary 

 a character as that which we are describing, when two 

 small and crazy craft ventured to cross the seas for eleven 

 hundred miles, continually endangered by huge floating 

 ice-masses, threatened by bears, and exposed for forty 

 days to the combined trials of sickness, famine, cold, and 

 fatigue. 



' At length they arrived at Kola, in Lapland, towards 

 the end of August ; and, strangely enough, were taken on 

 board a Dutch vessel commanded by the very Cornelizoon 

 Rijp, who had commanded the sister discovery ship in the 

 previous year. They reached the Maas in safety in 

 October 1597. 



'No voyager appears to have sailed in the track of 



