5G 
THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 
[chap. 
called Motka, resembling a peninsula. At tlie end of this 
there was a castle, Barthus, which means valdhus, watch-house, 
for there the King of Norway keeps a guard to protect his 
frontiers. The interpreter said that this promontory was so 
long that it could scarcely be sailed round in eight days, on 
which account, in order not to be delayed in this way, they 
carried their boats and baggage with great labour on their 
shoulders over land for the distance of about half a mile. They 
then sailed on along the land of the Dikilopps or wild Lapps 
to a place which is called Dront (Trondhjem) and lies 200 
miles north of ^ the Dwina. And they said that the prince of 
Moscow used to receive tribute as far as to this place.” 
The narrative is of interest, because it gives us an idea 
of the way in which men travelled along the north coast of 
Norway, four hundred years ago. It may possibly have had an 
indirect influence on the sending of Sir Hugh Willoughby’s 
expedition, as the edition of Herbertstein’s work printed 
at Venice in 1550 probably soon became known to the 
Venetian, Cabot, who, at that time, as Grand Pilot of England, 
superintended with great care the fitting out of the first 
English expedition to the north-east. 
There is still greater probability that the map of Scandinavia 
by Olaus Magnus, already mentioned, was known in England 
before 1553. This map is an expression of a view which before 
that time had taken root in the north, which, in opposition to 
the maps of the South-European cosmographers, assumed the 
existence of an open sea-communication in the north, between 
the Chinese Sea and the Atlantic, and which even induced 
Gustaf Vasa to attempt to bring about a north-east expedition. 
This unfortunately did not come to completion, and all that 
we know of it is contained in a letter to the Elector August of 
Saxony, from the Frenchman Hubert Languet, who visited 
Sweden in 1554. In this letter, dated 1st April 1576, Languet 
^ Instead of “ north of,” the true reading probabl}^ is “ beyond ” the 
Dwina. 
