After that he was regarded as the leader in all matters of navigation. The stadholder, Prince Maurice, who had succeeded his father William after the latter had been murdered by one of King Philip's gunmen, sent for Jan Huygen to come to The Hague and report in person upon his discoveries. John of Barneveldt, the clever manager of all the financial and political inter ests of the republic, discussed with him the possibility of a successful northeastern trading company. Before another year was over Jan Huygen, this time at the head of a fleet of seven ships, was sent northward for a second voyage. Everybody, from his Hi ghness the stadholder down to the speculator who had risked his last pennies, had the greatest expectations. Nothing came of this expedition. As a matter of fact, Jan Huygen had met with exceptionally favorable weather conditions upon his first voyage; on the second he came in for the customary storms and blizzards. His ships were frozen in the ice, and for weeks they could not move. Scurvy attacked the crew and many men died.
In October of the same year he was back in Holland. The only result of the costly expedition was a dead whale that the captain had towed home as an exhibit of his good intentions. He was still a young man, not more than forty-five, but he had had his share of adventures. He did not join the third trip to the North in the next year, about which we shall give a detailed account in our next chapter. He was appointed treasurer of his native city. There he lived as its most respected citizen until the year 1611, when he died and was buried with great solemnity. His work had been done.
In the year 1595 the "Itinerary of His Voyage to the East Indies" had been published. By this book he will always be remembered. For a century it provided a practical handbook of navigation which guided the Dutch traders to the Indies, allowed them to attack th e Spaniards and Portuguese in their most vulnerable spot, and gave them the opportunity to found a colonial empire which has lasted to this very day.
CHAPTER II
THE NORTHEAST PASSAGE
Amsterdam, the capital of the new Dutch commonwealth, the rich city which alone counted more people within her wide walls than all of the country provinces put together, had ever been the leader in all matters which offered the chance of an honest penny. Her intellectual glory was a reflected one, her artistic fame was imported from elsewhere; but her exchange dictated its own terms to the rest of the country and to the rest of the world. When the Estates of the Republic gave up the hope of finding the route to India through the frozen Arctic Ocean, Amsterdam had the courage of her nautical convictions, and at her own expense she equipped a last expedition to proceed northward and discover this famous route, which had the advantage of being short and safe.
Out of this expedition grew the famous voyage of Barendsz and Heemskerk to Nova Zembla, the first polar expedition of which we possess a precise account. There were two ships. They were small vessels, for no one wished to risk a large investment on an expedition to the dangerous region of ice and snow. Fewer than fifty men took part, and all had been selected with great care. Married men were not taken; for this expedition might last many years, and it must not be spoiled by the homesick discontent of fathers of families.
Jan Corneliszoon de Ryp was captain of the smaller vessel. The other one was commanded by Jacob van Heemskerk, a remarkable man, an able sailor who belonged to an excellent family and entered the merchant marine at a time when the sea was reserved for those who left shore for the benefit of civic peace and sobriety. He had enjoyed a good education, knew something about scientific matters, and had been in the Arctic a year before with the last and unfortunate expedition of Linschoten. The real leader of this expedition, however, was a very simple fellow, a p ilot by the name of Willem, the son of Barend (Barendsz, as it is written in Dutch). He was born on the island of Terschelling and had been familiar with winds and tides since early childhood. Barendsz had two Northern expeditions to his credit, and had seen as much of the coast of Siberia as anybody in the country. A man of great resource and personal courage, combined with a weird ability to guess his approximate whereabouts, he guided the expedition safely through its worst perils. He died in a small open boat in the Arctic Sea. Without his devoted services none of the men who were with him would ever have seen his country again.
There was one other member of the ship's staff who must be mentioned before the story of the trip itself is told. That was the ship's doctor. Officially he was known as the ship's barber, for the professions of cutting whiskers and bleeding people were combined in those happy days. De Veer was a versatile character. He played the flute, organized amateur theatrical performances, k ept everybody happy, and finally he wrote the itinerary of the trip, of which we shall translate the most important part.
From former expeditions the sailors had learned what to take with them and what to leave at home. Unfortunately, contractors, then as now, were apt to be scoundrels, and the provisions were not up to the specifications. During the long night of the Arctic winter men's lives depended upon the biscuits that had been ordered in Amsterdam, and these were found to be lacking in both quality and quantity. There were more complaints of the same nature. As the leaders of the expedition fully expected to reach China, they took a fair-sized cargo of trading material, so that the Hollanders might have something to offer the heathen Chinee in exchange for the riches of paradise which this distant and mysterious land was said to possess. On the eighteenth of May everything was ready. Without any difficulty the Arctic Circle was soon reached and passed. Then the trouble began. When two Dutch sailors of great ability and equal stubbornness disagree about points of the compass there is little chance for an agreement. The astronomical instruments of that day allowed certain calculations, but in a rather restricted field. As long as land was near it was po ssible to sail with a certain degree of precision, but when they were far away from any solid indications of charted islands and continent the captains of that day were often completely at a loss as to their exact whereabouts.
The reason why two of the previous expeditions had failed was known: the ships had been driven into a blind alley called the Kara Sea. In order to avoid a repetition of that occurrence it was deemed necessary to try a more northern course. Barendsz, however, wanted to go due north east, while De Ryp favored a course more to the west. For the moment the two captains compromised and stayed together. On the fifth of June the sailor on watch in the crow's-nest called out that he saw a lot of swans. The swans were soon found to be ice, the first that was seen that year.
Four days later a new island was discovered. Barendsz thought it must be part of Greenland. After all, he argued, he had been right; the ships had been driven too far westward. De Ryp denied this, and his calculation proved to be true. The ships were still far away from Greenland. The islands belonged to the Spitzbergen Archipelago. On the nineteenth of June they discovered Spitzbergen. The name (steep mountains) describes the island. An expedition was sent ashore, after which we get the first recital of one of the endless fights with bears that greatly frightened the good people in those days of blunderbusses. Nowadays polar bears, while still far removed from harmless kittens, offer no grave danger to modern guns. But the bullets of the small cannon which four centuries ago did service as a rifle refused to penetrate the thick hide of a polar bear. The pictures of De Veer's book indicate that these hungry mammals were not destroyed until they had been attacked by half a do zen men with gunpowder, axes, spears, and meat-choppers.
A very interesting discovery was made on this new island. Every winter wild geese came to the Dutch island of the North Sea. Four centuries ago they were the subject of vague ornithological speculations, for, according to the best authorities of the day, these geese did not behave like chickens and other fowl, which brought up their families out of a corresponding number of eggs. No, their chicks grew upon regular trees in the form of wild nuts. After a while these nuts tumbled into the sea and then became geese. Barendsz killed some of the birds and he also opened their eggs. There were the young chicks! The old myth was destroyed. "But," as he
pleasantly remarked, "it is not our fault that we have not known this before, when these birds insist upon breeding so far northward."
On the twenty-fifth of June, Spitzbergen was left behind, and once more a dispute broke out between the two skippers over the old question of the course which was to be taken. Like good Dutchmen, they decided that each should go his own way. De Ryp preferred to try his luck farther to the north. Barendsz and Heemskerk decided to go southward. They said farewell to their comrades, and on the seventeenth of July reached the coas t of Nova Zembla. The coast of the island was still little known; therefore the usual expediency of that day was followed. They kept close to the land and sailed until at last they should find some channel that would allow them to pass through into the ne xt sea. They discovered no channel, but on the sixth of August the northern point of Nova Zembla, Cape Nassau, was reached. There was a great deal of ice, but after a few days open water appeared.
The voyage was then continued. Their course then seemed easy. Following the eastern coast downward they were bound to reach the Strait of Kara. Avoiding the Kara Sea, they made for the river Obi and hoped that all would be well. But before the ship had gone many days the cold weather of winter set in, and before the end of August the ship was solidly frozen into the ice. Many attempts were made to dig it out and push it into the open water. The men worked desperately; but the moment they had sawed a channel through the heavy ice to the open sea more ice-fields appe ared, and they had to begin all over again. On the thirtieth of August a particularly heavy frost finally lifted the little wooden ship clear out of the ice. Then came a few days of thaw, during which they hoped to get the vessel back into shape and into the water. But the next night there was a repetition of the terrible creakings. The ship groaned as if it were in great agony, and all the men rushed on shore.
The prospect of spending the winter in this desolate spot began to be more than an unspoken fear. Any night the vessel might be destroyed by the violent pressure of the ice. An experienced captain knew what to do in such circumstances. All provisions were taken on shore, and the lifeboats were safely placed on the dry land. They would be necessary the next summer to reach the continent. Another week passed, and the situation was as uncertain as before. By the middle of September, however, all hope had to be given up. The expedition was condemned to spend the winter in the Arctic. The ship's carpenter became a man of importance. Near the small bay into which the vessel had been driven he found a favorable spot for a house. A little river near by provided fresh water. On the whole it was an advantageous spot for shipwrecked sailors, for a short distance towards the north there was a low promontory. The western winds had carried heavy trees and pieces of wood from the Siberian coast, and this promontory had caught them. They were neatly frozen in the ice. All the men needed to do was to take these trees out of their cold storage and drag them ashore which, however, did not prove to be so easy a task as it sounds. There were only seventeen men on the ship, and two of them were too ill to do any work. The others were not familiar with the problem of how to s aw and plane water-soaked and frozen logs into planks. Even when this had been done the wood must be hauled a considerable distance on home-made sleighs, clumsy affairs, and very heavy on the soft snow of the early winter.
Unfortunately, after two weeks the carpenter of the expedition suddenly died. It was not easy to give him decent Christian burial. The ground was frozen so hard that spades and axes could not dig a grave; so the carpenter was reverently laid away in a small hollow cut in the solid ice and covered with snow.
When their house was finished it did not offer many of the comforts of home, but it was a shelter against the ever-increasing cold. The roof offered the greatest difficulty to the inexperienced builders. At last they hit upon a scheme that proved successful: they made a wooden framework across which they stretched one of the ship's sails. This they covered with a layer of sand. Then the good Lord deposited a thick coat of snow, which gradually froze and finally made an excellent cover for the small wooden c abin which was solemnly baptized "Safe Haven." There were no windows—fresh air had not yet been invented—and what was the use of windows after the sun had once disappeared? There was one door, and a hole in the roof served as a chimney. To make a better d raft for the fire of driftwood which was kept burning day and night in the middle of the cabin floor, a large empty barrel was used for a smoke-stack. Even then the room was full of smoke during all the many months of involuntary imprisonment, and upon one occasion the lack of ventilation almost killed the entire expedition.
While they were at work upon the house the men still spent the night on board their ship. When morning came, with their axes and saws and planes they walked over to the house. But hardly a day went by without a disturbing visit from the much-dreaded polar bears. After some of the provisions had been removed from the ship to the house the bears became more insistent than ever. Upon one occasion when the bears had gone after a barrel of pickled meat, as shown with touching accuracy in the picture, the concerted action of three sailors was necessary to save the food from the savage beasts. Another time, when Heemskerk, De Veer, and one of the sailors were loading provisions upon a sl eigh they were suddenly attacked by three huge bears. They had not brought their guns, but they had two halberds, with which they hit the foremost bear upon the snout; and then they fled to the ship and climbed on board. The bears followed, sat down patie ntly, and laid siege to the ship. The three men on board were helpless. Finally one of them hit upon the idea of throwing a stick of kindling-wood at the bears. Like a well-trained dog, the animal that was struck chased the stick, played with it, and then came back to ask for further entertainment. At last all the kindling-wood laid strewn across the ice, and the bears had had enough of this sport. They made ready to storm the ship, but a lucky stroke with a halberd hit one of them so severely upon the sensitive tip of his nose that he turned around and fled. The others followed, and Heemskerk and his companions were saved.
When the month of November came and the sun had disappeared, the bears also took their departure, rolled themselves up under some comfor table shelter, and went to sleep for the rest of the winter. Now the sailors could wander about in peace, for the only other animal that kept awake all through the year was the polar fox. He was a shy beastie and never came near a human being. The sailors, however, hunted him as best they could. Not only did they need the skins for their winter garments, but stewed fox tasted remarkably like the domestic rabbit and was an agreeable change from the dreary diet of salt-flesh. In Holland before the introduction of firearms rabbits were caught with a net. The same method was tried on Nova Zembla with the more subtle fox. Unfamiliar with the wiles of man, he actually allowed himself to be caught quite easily. Later on traps were also built. But the method with the net was more popular, for the men had the greatest aversion to the fresh air of the freezing polar night and never left the house unless they were ordered to do some work. When they went hunting with the net they could pass the string that dropped the mechanism right under the door and stay inside, where it was warm and cheerful, and yet catch their fox.
On the sixth of November the sun was seen for the last time. On the seventh, when it was quite dark, the clock stopped suddenly in the middle of the ni ght, and when the men got up in the morning they had lost the exact time. For the rest of the winter they were obliged to guess at the approximate hour; not that it mattered so very much, for life had become an endless night: one went to bed and got up through the force of habit acquired by thousands of previous generations. If the men had not been obliged to, they never would have left their comfortable beds. They had but one idea, to keep warm. The complaint about the insufferable cold is the main motive in this Arctic symphony. Lack of regular exercise was chiefly to blame for this "freezing feeling"—lack of exercise and the proper underwear. It is true that the men dressed in many layers of heavy skins, but their lower garments, which nowadays play a great part in the life of modern explorers, were sadly neglected. In the
beginning they washed their shirts regularly, but they found it impossible to dry them; for just as soon as the shirt was taken out of the hot water it froze stiff. When they carried the frozen garment into the house to thaw it out before the fire it was either singed and burned in spots or it refused absolutely to melt back into the shape and aspect of a proper shirt. Finally the washing was given up, as it has been on many an expeditio n, for cleanliness is a costly and complicated luxury when one is away from the beaten track of civilization.
The walls of the house had been tarred and calked like a ship. All the same, when the first blizzards occurred, the snow blew through many crac ks, and every morning the men were covered with a coat of snow and ice. Hot-water bottles had not yet been invented, but at night large stones were roasted in the fire until they were hot, and then were placed in the bunks between the fur covers. They hel ped to keep the men warm, and incidentally they burned their toes before they knew it. Not only did the men suffer in this way. That same clock which I have already mentioned at last succumbed to the strain of alternating spells of heat and cold. It began to go slower and slower. To keep it going at all, the weight was increased every few days. At last, however, a millstone could not have coaxed another second out of the poor mechanism. From that moment on an hour-glass was used. One of the men had to watch it, and turn it over every sixty minutes.
The Golden Book of the Dutch Navigators Page 3
