Transcribed from the 1892 Cassell & Co. edition ,
cassell’s nationallibrary.
From the Collection of
RICHARD HAKLUYT.
CASSELL & COMPANY, Limited:
london, paris& melbourne.
1892.
Thirty-five years ago I made a voyage to the Arctic Seas in what Chaucercalls
A little bote
No bigger than a mannë’s thought;
it was a Phantom Ship that made some voyages to different parts of theworld which were recorded in early numbers of Charles Dickens’s“Household Words.” As preface to Richard Hakluyt’srecords of the first endeavour of our bold Elizabethan mariners to findNorth-West Passage to the East, let me repeat here that old voyage of minefrom No. 55 of “Household Words,” dated the 12th of April,1851: The Phantom is fitted out for Arctic exploration, withinstructions to find her way, by the north-west, to Behring Straits, andtake the South Pole on her passage home. Just now we steer due north,and yonder is the coast of Norway. From that coast parted HughWilloughby, three hundred years ago; the first of our countrymen whowrought an ice-bound highway to Cathay. Two years afterwards hisships were found, in the haven of Arzina, in Lapland, by some Russianfishermen; near and about them Willoughby and his companions—seventydead men. The ships were freighted with their frozen crews, andsailed for England; but, “being unstaunch, as it is supposed, bytheir two years’ wintering in Lapland, sunk, by the way, with theirdead, and them also that brought them.”
Ice floats about us now, and here is a whale blowing; a whale, too, verynear Spitzbergen. When first Spitzbergen was discovered, in the goodold times, there were whales here in abundance; then a hundred Dutch ships,in a crowd, might go to work, and boats might jostle with each other, andthe only thing deficient would be stowage room for all the produce of thefishery. Now one ship may have the whole field to itself, and travelhome with an imperfect cargo. It was fine fun in the good old times;there was no need to cruise. Coppers and boilers were fitted on theisland, and little colonies about them, in the fishing season, had nothingto do but tow the whales in, with a boat, as fast as they were wanted bythe copper. No wonder that so enviable a Tom Tidler’s groundwas claimed by all who had a love for gold and silver. The Englishcalled it theirs, for they first fished; the Dutch said, nay, but theisland was of their discovery; Danes, Hamburghers, Bisayans, Spaniards, andFrench put in their claims; and at length it was agreed to makepartitions. The numerous bays and harbours which indent the coastwere divided among the rival nations; and, to this day, many of them bear,accordingly, such names as English Bay, Danes Bay, and so forth. Onebay there is, with graves in it, named Sorrow. For it seemed to thefishers most desirable, if possible, to plant upon this island permanentestablishments, and condemned convicts were offered, by the Russians, lifeand pardon, if they would winter in Spitzbergen. They agreed; but,when they saw the icy mountains and the stormy sea, repented, and wentback, to meet a death exempt from torture. The Dutch tempted freemen, by high rewards, to try the dangerous experiment. One of theirvictims left a journal, which describes his suffering and that of hiscompanions. Their mouths, he says, became so sore that, if they hadfood, they could not eat; their limbs were swollen