A Book of Discovery Part 23

Sighting the North Cape of Lapland, they held on a north-westerly course till on 9th June they came upon a little island which they named Bear Island. Here they nearly met their end, for, having ascended a steep snow mountain on the island to look around them, they found it too slippery to descend. "We thought we should all have broken our necks, it was so slippery, but we sat up on the snow and slid down, which was very dangerous for us, and break both our arms and legs for that at the foot of the hill there were many rocks." Barents himself seems to have sat in the boat and watched them with intense anxiety.

They were once more amid ice and Polar bears. In hazy weather they made their way north till on the 19th they saw land, and the "land was very great." They thought it was Greenland, but it was really Spitzbergen, of which he was thus the discoverer.

Many things astonished the navigators here. Although they were in such high lat.i.tudes, they saw gra.s.s and leafy trees and such animals as bucks and harts, while several degrees to the south "there groweth neither leaves nor gra.s.s nor any beasts that eat gra.s.s or leaves, but only such beasts as eat flesh, as bears and foxes."

[Ill.u.s.tration: BARENTS IN THE ARCTIC: "HUT WHEREIN WE WINTERED." From De Veer's account of the voyages of Barents, 1598.]

By 1st July he had explored the western sh.o.r.e and was sailing south to Bear Island. He never landed on the coast of Spitzbergen: so we have no further account of this Arctic discovery. Sailing across the wide northern sea now known as Barents Sea, he made land again in the north of Nova Zembla, and, hugging the western sh.o.r.e, came to Ice Point.

Here they were sorely hara.s.sed by Polar bears and floating ice and bitter gales of wind. Still they coasted on till they had rounded the northern end of Nova Zembla and unexpectedly sailed into a good harbour where they could anchor. The wind now blew with redoubled vigour, the "ice came mightily driving in" until the little ship was nearly surrounded, "and withal the wind began more and more to rise and the ice still drave harder and harder, so that our boat was broken in pieces between the ship and the ice, and it seemed as if the ship would be crushed in pieces too."

As the August days pa.s.sed on, they tried to get out of their prison, but it was impossible, and there was nothing for it but to winter "in great cold, poverty, misery, and grief" in this bleak and barren spot.

The successful pilot was to explore no more, but the rest of the tragic tale must be shortly told. With the ice heaping high, "as the salt hills that are in Spain," and the ship in danger of going to pieces, they collected trees and roots driven on to the desolate sh.o.r.es from Tartary, "wherewith as if G.o.d had purposely sent them unto us we were much comforted." Through the September days they drew wood across the ice and snow to build a house for the winter. Only sixteen men could work and they were none too strong and well.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BARENTS'S SHIP AMONG THE ARCTIC ICE. From a coloured woodcut in the account of Barents's three voyages by Gerard de Veer, published in 1598.]

Throughout October and November they were snowed up in their winter hut, with "foul stormie weather" outside, the wind blowing ceaselessly out of the north and snow lying deep around. They trapped a few foxes from day to day to eat, making warm caps out of their fur; they heated stones and took them into their cabin beds, but their sheets froze as they washed them and at last their clock froze too.

"They looked pitifully upon one another, being in great fear that if the extremity of the cold grew to be more and more we should all die there with the cold." Christmas came and went and they comforted one another by remembering that the sun was as low as it could go, and that it must begin to come to them again; but "as the day lengthens, so the cold strengthens," and the snow now lay deeper until it covered the roof of their house.

The New Year found them still imprisoned, "with great cold, danger, and disease." January, February, March, April pa.s.sed and still the little ship was stuck fast in the ice. But as the sun began to gain power, hope revived, and they began to repair their boats, to make new sails, and repair tackle. They were too weak and ill to do much work, but by the middle of June the boats were fairly ready and they could cut a way through the ice to the open sea. This was their only hope of escape, to leave the ship behind and embark in two little open boats for the open sea.

"Then William Barents wrote a letter, which he put into a musket's charge and hanged it up in the chimney, showing how we came out of Holland to sail to the kingdom of China, and how we had been forced in our extremity to make that house and had dwelt ten months therein, and how we were forced to put to sea in two small open boats, for that the ship lay fast in the ice."

Barents himself was now too ill to walk, so they carried him to one of the little boats, and on 14th June 1597 the little party put off from their winter quarters and sailed round to Ice Point. But the pilot was dying. "Are we about Ice Point?" he asked feebly. "If we be, then I pray you lift me up, for I must view it once again."

Then suddenly the wind began to rise, driving the ice so fast upon them "that it made our hair stand upright upon our heads, it was so fearful to behold, so that we thought verily that it was a foreshadowing of our last end."

They drew the boats up on to the ice and lifted the sick commander out and laid him on the icy ground, where a few days later he died--"our chief guide and only pilot on whom we reposed ourselves next under G.o.d." The rest of the story is soon told.

On 1st November 1597 some twelve gaunt and haggard men, still wearing caps of white fox and coats of bearskin, having guided their little open boats all the way from Nova Zembla, arrived at Amsterdam and told the story of their exploration to the astonished merchants, who had long since given them up as dead.

It was not till 1871 that Barents' old winter quarters on Nova Zembla were discovered. "There stood the cooking-pans over the fireplace, the old clocks against the wall, the arms, the tools, the drinking vessels, the instruments and the books that had beguiled the weary hours of that long night, two hundred and seventy-eight years ago."

Among the relics were a pair of small shoes and a flute which had belonged to a little cabin-boy who had died during the winter.

CHAPTER x.x.xVII

HUDSON FINDS HIS BAY

Henry Hudson was another victim to perish in the hopeless search for a pa.s.sage to China by the north. John Davis had been dead two years, but not till after he had piloted the first expedition undertaken by the newly formed East India Company for commerce with India and the East. It was now more important than ever to find a short way to these countries other than round by the Cape of Good Hope. So Henry Hudson was employed by the Muscovy Company "to discover a shorter route to Cathay _by sailing over the North Pole_." He knew the hardships of the way; he must have realised the fate of Willoughby, the failure of Frobisher, the sufferings of Barents and his men, the difficulties of Davis--indeed, it is more than probable that he had listened to Davis speaking on the subject of Arctic exploration to the merchants of London at his uncle's house at Mortlake.

Never did man start on a bolder or more perilous enterprise than did this man, when he started for the North Pole in a little boat of eighty tons, with his little son Jack, two mates, and a crew of eight men.

"Led by Hudson with the fire of a great faith in his eyes, the men solemnly marched to St. Ethelburga Church, off Bishopsgate Street, London, to partake of Holy Communion and ask G.o.d's aid. Back to the muddy water front, opposite the Tower, a hearty G.o.d-speed from the gentlemen of the Muscovy Company, pompous in self-importance and lace ruffles--and the little crew steps into a clumsy river-boat with brick-red sails."

After a six weeks' tumble over a waste of waters, Hudson arrived off the coast of Greenland, the decks of the little _Hopewell_ coated with ice, her rigging and sails hard as boards, and a north-east gale of wind and snow against her. A barrier of ice forbade further advance; but, sailing along the edge of this barrier--the first navigator to do so--he made for the coast of Spitzbergen, already roughly charted by Barents. Tacking up the west coast to the north, Hudson now explored further the fiords, islands, and harbours, naming some of them--notably Whale Bay and Hakluyt Headland, which may be seen on our maps of to-day. By 13th July he had reached his Farthest North, farther than any explorer had been before him, farther than any to be reached again for over one hundred and fifty years. It was a land of walrus, seal, and Polar bear; but, as usual, ice shut off all further attempts to penetrate the mysteries of the Pole, thick fog hung around the little ship, and with a fair wind Hudson turned southward. "It pleased G.o.d to give us a gale and away we steered," says the old ship log. Hudson would fain have steered Greenland way and had another try for the north. But his men wanted to go home, and home they went, through "slabbie" weather.

But the voice of the North was still calling Hudson, and he persuaded the Muscovy Company to let him go off again. This he did in the following year. Only three of his former crew volunteered for service, and one of these was his son. But this expedition was devoid of result. The icy seas about Nova Zembla gave no hope of a pa.s.sage in this direction, and, "being void of hope, the wind stormy and against us, much ice driving, we weighed and set sail westward."

[Ill.u.s.tration: HUDSON'S MAP OF HIS VOYAGES IN THE ARCTIC. From his book published in 1612.]

Hudson's voyages for the Muscovy Company had already come under the notice of the Dutch, who were vying with the English for the discovery of this short route to the East. Hudson was now invited to undertake an expedition for the Dutch East India Company, and he sailed from Amsterdam in the early spring of 1609 in a Dutch ship called the _Half-Moon_, with a mixed crew of Dutch and English, including once more his own son. Summer found the enthusiastic explorer off the coast of Newfoundland, where some cod-fishing refreshed the crews before they sailed on south, partly seeking an opening to the west, partly looking for the colony of Virginia, under Hudson's friend, Captain John Smith. In hot, misty weather they cruised along the coast. They pa.s.sed what is now Ma.s.sachusetts, "an Indian country of great hills--a very sweet land." On 7th August, Hudson was near the modern town of New York, so long known as New Amsterdam, but mist hid the low-lying hills and the _Half-Moon_ drifted on to James River; then, driven back by a heat hurricane, he made for the inlet on the old charts, which might lead yet east.

It was 2nd September when he came to the great mouth of the river that now bears his name. He had been beating about all day in gales and fogs, when "the sun arose and we saw the land all like broken islands.

From the land which we had first sight of, we came to a large lake of water, like drowned land, which made it to rise like islands. The mouth hath many sh.o.r.es and the sea breaketh on them. This is a very good land to fall in with, and a pleasant land to see. At three of the clock in the afternoon we came to three great rivers. We found a very good harbour and went in with our ship. Then we took our nets to fish and caught ten great mullets of a foot and a half long each, and a ray as great as four men could haul into the ship. The people of the country came aboard of us, seeming very glad of our coming, and brought green tobacco--they go in deer skins, well-dressed, they desire clothes and are very civil--they have great store of maize, whereof they make good bread. The country is full of great and tall oaks." To this he adds that the women had red copper tobacco pipes, many of them being dressed in mantles of feathers or furs, but the natives proved treacherous. Sailing up the river, Hudson found it a mile broad, with high land on both sides. By the night of 19th September the little _Half-Moon_ had reached the spot where the river widens near the modern town of Albany. He had sailed for the first time the distance covered to-day by magnificent steamers which ply daily between Albany and New York city. Hudson now went ash.o.r.e with an old chief of the country. "Two men were dispatched in quest of game," so records Hudson's ma.n.u.script, "who brought in a pair of pigeons. They likewise killed a fat dog and skinned it with great haste with sh.e.l.ls.

The land is the finest for cultivation that ever I in my life set foot upon."

Hudson had not found a way to China, but he had found the great and important river that now bears his name. Yet he was to do greater things than these, and to lose his life in the doing. The following year, 1610, found him once more bound for the north, continuing the endless search for a north-west pa.s.sage--this time for the English, and not for the Dutch. On board the little _Discovery_ of fifty-five tons, with his young son, Jack, still his faithful companion, with a treacherous old man as mate, who had accompanied him before, with a good-for-nothing young spendthrift taken at the last moment "because he wrote a good hand," and a mixed crew, Hudson crossed the wide Atlantic for the last time. He sailed by way of Iceland, where "fresh fish and dainty fowl, partridges, curlew, plover, teale, and goose"

much refreshed the already discontented crews, and the hot baths of Iceland delighted them. The men wanted to return to the pleasant land discovered in the last expedition, but the mysteries of the frozen North still called the old explorer, and he steered for Greenland.

He was soon battling with ice upon the southern end of "Desolation,"

whence he crossed to the snowy sh.o.r.es of Labrador, sailing into the great straits that bear his name to-day. For three months they sailed aimlessly about that "labyrinth without end" as it was called by Abacuk p.r.i.c.kett who wrote the account of this fourth and last voyage of Henry Hudson. But they could find no opening to the west, no way of escape.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A SHIP OF HUDSON'S FLEET. From his _Voyages_, 1612.]

Winter was coming on, "the nights were long and cold, and the earth was covered with snow." They were several hundred miles south of the straits, and no way had been found to the Pacific; they had followed the south sh.o.r.e "to the westernmost bay of all," James Bay, but lo!

there was no South Sea. Hudson recognised the fact that he was land-bound and winter-bound in a desolate region, with a discontented crew, and that the discontent was amounting to mutiny. On 1st November they hauled up the ship and selected a wintering place. Ten days later they were frozen in, and snow was falling continuously every day. "We were victualled for six months, and of that which was good," runs the record. For the first three months they shot "partridges as white as milk," but these left with the advent of spring, and hunger seized on the handful of Englishmen wintering in this unknown land. "Then we went into the woods, hills, and valleys--and the moss and the frog were not spared." Not till the month of May did the ice begin to melt and the men could fish. The first day this was possible they caught "five hundred fish as big as good herrings and some trout," which revived their hopes and their health. Hudson made a last despairing effort to find a westward pa.s.sage. But now the men rose in mutiny.

"We would rather be hanged at home than starved abroad!" they cried miserably.

So Hudson "fitted all things for his return, and first delivered all the bread out of the bread room (which came to a pound apiece for every man's share), and he wept when he gave it unto them." It was barely sufficient for fourteen days, and even with the fourscore small fish they had caught it was "a poor relief for so many hungry bellies."

With a fair wind in the month of June, the little _Discovery_ was headed for home. A few days later she was stopped by ice. Mutiny now burst forth. The "master" and his men had lost confidence in each other.

There were ruffians on board, rendered almost wild by hunger and privation. There is nothing more tragic in the history of exploration than the desertion of Henry Hudson and his boy in their newly discovered bay. Every detail of the conspiracy is given by p.r.i.c.kett. We know how the rumour spread, how the crew resolved to turn the "master" and the sick men adrift and to share the remaining provisions among themselves.

And how in the early morning Hudson was seized and his arms bound behind him.

"What does this mean?" he cried.

"You will know soon enough when you are in the shallop," they replied.

The boat was lowered and into it Hudson was put with his son, while the "poor, sick, and lame men were called upon to get them out of their cabins into the shallop." Then the mutineers lowered some powder and shot, some pikes, an iron pot, and some meal into her, and the little boat was soon adrift with her living freight of suffering, starving men--adrift in that icebound sea, far from home and friends and all human help. At the last moment the carpenter sprang into the drifting boat, resolved to die with the captain sooner than desert him. Then the _Discovery_ flew away with all sail up as from an enemy.

And "the master" perished--how and when we know not.

Fortunately the mutineers took home Hudson's journals and charts.

Ships were sent out to search for the lost explorer, but the silence has never been broken since that summer's day three hundred years ago, when he was deserted in the waters of his own bay.

CHAPTER x.x.xVIII

BAFFIN FINDS HIS BAY

Two years only after the tragedy of Henry Hudson, another Arctic explorer appears upon the scene. William Baffin was already an experienced seaman in the prime of life; he had made four voyages to the icy north, when he was called on by the new Company of Merchants of London--"discoverers of the North-West Pa.s.sage"--formed in 1612, to prepare for another voyage of discovery. Distressed beyond measure at the desertion of Henry Hudson, the Muscovy Company had dispatched Sir Thomas b.u.t.ton with our old friend Abacuk p.r.i.c.kett to show him the way. b.u.t.ton had reached the western side of Hudson's Bay, and after wintering there returned fully convinced that a north-west pa.s.sage existed in this direction. Baffin returned from an expedition to Greenland the same year. The fiords and islets of west Greenland, the ice-floes and glaciers of Spitzbergen, the tidal phenomena of Hudson's Strait, and the geographical secrets of the far-northern bay were all familiar to him. "He was, therefore, chosen as mate and a.s.sociate"

to Bylot, one of the men who had deserted Hudson, but who had sailed three times with him previously and knew well the western seas. So in "the good ship called the _Discovery_," of fifty-five tons, with a crew of fourteen men and two boys, William Baffin sailed for the northern seas. May found the expedition on the coast of Greenland, with a gale of wind and great islands of ice. However, Baffin crossed Davis Strait, and after a struggle with ice at the entrance to Hudson's Strait he sailed along the northern side till he reached a group of islands which he named Savage Islands. For here were Eskimos again--very shy and fearful of the white strangers. "Among their tents," relates Baffin, "all covered with seal skins, were running up and down about forty dogs, most of them muzzled, about the bigness of our mongrel mastiffs, being a brindled black colour, looking almost like wolves. These dogs they used instead of horses, or rather as the Lapps do their deer, to draw their sledges from place to place over the ice, their sledges being shod or lined with bones of great fishes to keep them from wearing out, and the dogs have furniture and collars very fitting."