V.] 
THE DUTCH NORTH-EAST EXPEDITIONS. 
231 
If such a route had been actually found, it was clear that the 
position of Holland would have been specially favourable for 
undertaking this lucrative trade. In this state of things we 
have to seek for the reason of the delight with which the Dutch 
hailed the first proposal to force a passage by sea north of Asia 
to China or Japan. Three successive expeditions were at great 
expense fitted out for this purpose. 
These expeditions did not, indeed, 
attain the intended goal—-the dis¬ 
covery of a north-eastern sea route 
to Eastern Asia, but they not only 
gained for themselves a prominent 
place in the history of geographical 
discovery, but also repaid a hundred 
fold the money that had been spent 
on them, in part directly through 
the whale-fishing to which they 
gave rise, and which was so profit¬ 
able to Holland, and in part in¬ 
directly through the elevation they 
gave to the self-respect and national 
feeling of the people. They com¬ 
pared the achievements of their 
countrymen among the ice and 
snow of the Polar lands to the voy¬ 
age of the Argonauts, to Hannibal’s 
passage of the Alps, and to the campaign of the Macedonians 
in Asia and the deserts of Libya (see, for instance, Blavius. 
Atlas major, Latin edition, t. i., pp. 24 and 31.) As these 
voyages together present the grandest attempts to solve the 
problem that lay before the Vega expedition, I shall here give 
a somewhat detailed account of them. 
The First Dutch Expedition, 1594.—This was fitted out 
•at the expense of private persons, mainly by the merchants 
HoLLAFDVi’ 
DUTCH SKIPPER. 
After G. de Veer. 
