54 
THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 
[chap. 
Herberstein 1 gives, in his famous book on Eussia, of the 
voyage of Gregory Istoma and the envoy David from the 
White Sea to Trondhjem in the year 1496. 
The voyage is inserted under the distinctive title Navigcdio 
per Mare Glaciate and the narrative begins with an explanation 
that Herbertstein got it from Istoma himself, who, when a youth, 
had learned Latin in Denmark. As the reasons for choosing the 
unusual, long, but safe ” circuitous route over the North Sea in 
preference to the shorter way that was usually taken, Istoma 
gives the disputes between Sweden and Eussia, and the revolt 
of Sweden against Denmark, at the time when the voyage was 
undertaken (1496). After giving an account of his journey 
from Moscow to the mouth of the Dwina, he continues thus :— 
“ After having gone on board of four boats, they kept first 
along the right bank of the ocean, where they saw very high 
mountain peaks; ^ and after having in this way travelled six- 
^ The first edition, entitled Rerum Moscoviticarum Commentarii^ 
Vienna, 1549, has three plates, and a map of great value for the former 
geography of Russia. It is, however, to judge by the copy in the Royal 
Library at Stockholm, partly drawn by hand, and much inferior to the 
map in the Italian edition of the following year (Comentari della Moscovia 
et parimente della Russia, (&c., per il Signor Sigismondo libero Barone in 
Herhetstain, Neiperg and Guetnhag, tradotti nuaomente di Latino in lingua 
nostra volgare Italiana, Venetia, 1550, with two plates and a map, with the 
inscription “ per Giacomo Gastaldo cosmographo in Venetia, MDL ”). Von 
Herbertstein visited Russia as ambassador from the Roman Emperor on 
two occasions, the first time in 1517, the second in 1525, and on the ground 
of these two journeys published a sketch of the country, by which it 
first became known to West-Europeans, and even for Russians themselves 
it forms an important original source of information regarding the state 
of civilisation of the empire of the Czar in former times. Von Adelung 
enumerates in Kritisch-literdrisclie Ubersicht der Reisenden in Russland bis 
1700, St. Petersburg and Leipzig, 1846, eleven Latin, two Italian, nine 
German, and one Bohemian translation of this work. An English trans¬ 
lation has since been published by the Hakluyt Society. 
2 Von Herbertstein, first edition, leaf xxviii., in the second of the three 
separately-paged portions of the work. 
^ An erroneous transposition of mountains seen in Norway, the north¬ 
eastern shore of the White Sea being low land. 
