AVOOD AND FLAWES’ EXPEDITION, 
261 
v.l 
John Narboroiigh during a voyage through the dangerous 
Magellan Straits, in the course of which he became known 
as a bold and skilful seaman, but he not only wanted experi¬ 
ence in sailing amongst ice^ but also the endurance and the 
coolness that are required for voyages in the high north. He 
thereby showed himself to be quite unfit for the command 
which he undertook. Before his departure he was unreason¬ 
ably certain of success; with the first encounter with ice his 
self-reliance gave way entirely; and when his vessel was 
wrecked on the coast of Hovaya Zemlya, he knew no other way 
to keep up the courage of his men and prevent mutiny than 
to send the brandy bottle round.^ Finally after his return 
he made Barents and other distinguished seafarers in the 
Arctic Regions answerable for all the skipper tales collected 
from quite other quarters, which he before his departure held 
to be proved undoubtedly true. This voyage would therefore 
not have been referred to here, if it had not been preceded and 
followed by lively discussions regarding the fitness of the Polar 
Sea for navigation, during which at least a portion of the 
experience which Dutch and English whalers had gained of the 
state of the ice between Greenland and Novaya Zemlya was 
rescued from oblivion, though unfortunately almost exclusively 
in the form of unconfirmed statements of very high latitudes, 
which had been occasionally reached. Three papers mainly led 
to Wood’s voyage. These were :—- 
1. A letter, inserted in the Transactions of the Royal Society,'^ 
on the state of Novaya Zemlya, said to be founded on discoveries 
which had been made at the express command of the Czar. 
^ ^‘All I could do in this exigency was to let the brandy-bottle go 
round, which kept them allways fox’d, till the 8th July Captain Flawes 
came so seasonably to our relief ”■ (Barrow, A Chronological Mistorv of 
Voyages into the Arctic Regions. London, 1818, p. 268). 
^ “ A letter, not long” since wu’itten to the Publisher by an Experienced 
person residing at Amsterdam,” etc. {Philosophical Transactions^ vol. ix. 
p. 3. London, 1674). 
