253 
THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 
[chap. 
the least regard to truth or probability. He is the Miiuchhausen 
of the North-east voyages. The Norse peasants, for instance, are 
said to be all slaves to the nobles, who have sovereign power 
over their property, tyrannise over their inferiors, and are prone 
to insurrection. The elks are said to be liable to falling sickness, 
and therefore fall down in convulsions when they are hunted— 
hence their name “ eleend.” Sailors are said to have purchased 
on the north-west coast of Norway for ten crowns and a pound 
of tobacco three knots of wind from the Lapps living there, who 
were all magicians; when the first knot was loosed, a gentle 
breeze arose, the second gave a strong gale, the third a storm, 
during which the vessel ^^as in danger of being wrecked.^ 
Novaya Zemlya is stated to be inhabited by a peculiar tribe, 
“the Zembliens,” of whom two were taken prisoners and carried 
to Copenhagen. De la Martiniere also got the head of a walrus, 
which had been harpooned with great difficulty; the animal was 
drawn as a fish with a long horn projecting from its head. As 
a specimen of the birds of Novaya Zemlya a penguin was 
drawn and described, and finally the work closed with a rectifi¬ 
cation of the map of the Polar Kegions, which according to the 
author’s ideas ought to be as represented below. I refer to these 
absurdities, because the account of Martiniere’s voyage exerted 
no little influence on the older writings relating to the Arctic 
Legions. 
1664 and 1668. A whaling captain, Willem de Vlamingh, 
sailed in 1664 round the northern extremity of Novaya Zemlya 
to Barents’ winter quarters, and thence eastwards, where one 
of his men thought he saw land (“ Jelmert-landt,” Witsen, 
p. 902).2 The same Vlamingh says that in 1668 he discovered, 
twenty-five miles N.N.E. of Kolgujev, a new island three to four 
^ The story of the wind knots is taken from Olaus Magnus, De gentibus 
septentrio7ialibus, Rome, 1555, p. 119. There a drawing of the appearance 
of the knots is also given. 
‘ Compare page 203. 
