KOLGUEV AND THE NAVIGATORS 
WiTH us the name of Kolguev had hitherto been familiar only to 
students of old Arctic literature, where indeed it fills a very small place. 
Nor is this strange. A harbourless island with a dangerous coast, it 
was wisely avoided by any who had a more distant mission on those 
seas. 
1553. Willoughby's Land (?)—-Sir Hugh Willoughby this year sailed 
from the Thames to try and find a passage by the North to the treasures 
of the East (though afterwards he died on the Murman Coast) with 
three ships, Bona Esperanza, Edward Bonaventure, and Bona Confi- 
dentia. The Edward Bonaventure was commanded by Chancelor, and 
Stephen Burrough was among the crew. This ship became separated 
from her consorts, the other two, after being compelled to return west- 
ward, sailing about and trying to make Vardéhuus. And then we read, 
on August 14th, ‘ Early in the morning descried land, which land we bare 
with all, hoising out our boat to discover what land it might be, but 
the boat could not come to land, the water was so shoale, where was 
very much ice also, but there was no similitude of habitation, and the 
land lyeth from Seynam East and by North 160 leagues, being in latitude 
72 degrees.’ 1 
Where was this ‘ Willoughby’s Land’? -Later writers have thought it 
was Novaya Zemblya, and geographers have put it there. Nordenskiold 
believed it to be Kolguev, and this better agrees with the data given, 
in spite of the difference of 2°. ; 
1556.—And in this year Stephen Burrough, the future chief pilot of 
England, sighted Kolguev as he went eastward on that eventful voyage 
during which he discovered and passed the Kara gates. 
The account is entitled, ‘The navigation and discoverie toward the 
1 Hakluyt, vol. i. p. 236. 
