28 
A VOYAGE TO SPITZBERGEN 
ness and exposure, he died suddenly in the boat, while 
studying a chart of their course. 
De Veer’s account of the voyages of Barents has 
been reprinted by the Hakluyt Society, with an elabo¬ 
rate introduction and notes. 7 The editor states that the 
prior discovery of Spitzbergen by the Dutch is now 
universally admitted ; and adds, “ But that Spitzbergen 
was actually circumnavigated by them is a fact, which, 
as far as we are aware, has never been adverted to by 
any writer on arctic discovery.” 8 
It is against the fact that no such claim was advanced 
by De Veer, — who speaks of the country as “ this land 
which we esteem to be Greenland” — and against the 
silence of writers (Dutch as well as others) on the 
point, that the editor has to make good his belief of 
circumnavigation from the narrative itself. 9 
7 “ A True Description of Three Voyages, by the North-east, towards Cathay and 
China, undertaken by the Dutch in the Years 1594,1595, and 1596. By Gerrit De Veer. 
Published at Amsterdam in the Year 1598; and, in 1609, translated into English by 
William Phillip. Edited by Charles T. Beke, Phil. D., F.S.A. London, 1853.” 
8 Introduction, p. lxxxv. 
9 The editor remarks, that Gerard’s imperfect account, published in De Bry’s 
Collection, being better known to literary men than De Veer’s original journal, “is 
doubtless the reason why the circumnavigation of Spitzbergen by Barents, &c., has 
hitherto remained unknown.” This explanation is hardly satisfactory. It does not 
seem possible that De Veer’s narrative can have been so little known or consulted. 
The admitted obscurity of the journal, which even the editor’s labors have not made 
clear to a casual reader, seems a more natural explanation of the omission to observe 
so important a circumstance. 
Without desiring to question the correctness of the British editor’s theory, it may 
be proper to refer to some of the difficulties it has to encounter. It appears to involve 
the supposition, that Barents — who had determined the position of Bear Island with 
perfect accuracy—could have sailed round Spitzbergen without being aware of its 
entire isolation, or that the fact was unknown to his companion De Veer. If the 
plants and grass growing there, and “ the beast that feed on grass,” found in as high a 
latitude as 80°, — while at Nova Zembla, several degrees further south, none of either 
were seen (from which they inferred that ice and cold were not caused by proximity 
to the Pole), — had suggested the name of “ Greenland,” their discovery might very 
well have been so called, as the same name was often applied to different places. But 
