und once more for the frozen northern seas. By 1st
June he had reached a region where there was no night, and a few days
later a strange sight startled the whole crew, "for on each side of
the sun there was another sun and two rainbows more, the one compassing
round about the suns and the other right through the great circle,"
and they found they were "under 71 degrees of the height of the Pole."

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 latitudes, they saw grass and leafy trees and such animals as
bucks and harts, while several degrees to the south "there groweth
neither leaves nor grass nor any beasts that eat grass or leaves, but
only such beasts as eat flesh, as bears and foxes."

[Illustration: 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 shore 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 shore, came to Ice Point.
Here they were sorely harassed 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 m