62 
THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 
[chap. 
from Senjen, in 72° N. L.^ Hence they sailed first to the north, 
then to the south-east. Thus they reached the coast of Russian 
Lapland, where, on the -llth September they found a good 
harbour, in which Sir Hugh determined to pass the winter. 
The harbour was situated at the mouth of the river Arzina 
near Kegor.” Of the further fate of Sir Hugh Willoughby and 
his sixty-two companions, we know only that during the course 
of the winter they all perished, doubtless of scurvy. The journal 
of the commander ends with the statement that immediately 
after the arrival of the vessels three men were sent south-south 
west, three west, and three south-east to search if they could 
find people, but that they all returned “ without finding of 
people or any similitude of habitation.” The following 
year Russian fishermen found at the wintering station the ships 
and dead bodies of those who had thus perished, together with 
the journal from which the extract given above is taken, and a 
will witnessed by Willoughby,^ from which it appeared that he 
himself and most of the company of the two ships were alive 
in January, 1554.^ The two vessels, together with Willoughby’s 
^ At the time when the whale-lishing at Spitsbergen commenced, 
Thomas Edge, a captain of one of the Muscovy Company’s vessels, endea¬ 
voured to show that the land which Willoughby discovered while sailing 
about after parting company with Chancelor was Spitzbergen (PwcAus, 
iii. p. 462). The statement, which was evidently called forth by the wish 
to monopolise the Spitzbergen whale-fishing for England, can be shown 
to be incorrect. It has also for a long time back been looked upon as 
groundless. Later inquirers have instead supposed that the land which 
Willoughby saw was Gooseland, on Novaya Zemlya. For reasons which 
want of space prevents me from stating here, this also does not appear to 
me to be possible. On the other hand, I consider it highly probable that 
“Willoughby’s Land” was Kolgujev Island, which is surrounded b}^ 
shallow sand-banks. Its latitude has indeed in that case been stated 2° 
too high, but such errors are not impossible in the determinations of the 
oldest explorers. 
2 The testator was Gabriel Willoughby, who, as merchant, sailed in the 
commander’s vessel. 
^ Hahluyt, p. 500; Purchas, iii, p. 249, and in the margin of p. 463. 
