tries, and other assorted
articles for this first great speculation to Cathay, via the North Pole,
stowed on board the fleet, that nearly half the summer had passed before
anchor was weighed in the Meuse. The pompous expedition was thus
predestined to an almost ridiculous failure. Yet it was in the hands of
great men, both on shore and sea. Maurice, Barneveld, and Maalzoon had
personally interested themselves in the details of its outfitting,
Linschoten sailed as chief commissioner, the calm and intrepid Barendz
was upper pilot of the whole fleet, and a man who was afterwards destined
to achieve an immortal name in the naval history of his country, Jacob
Heemskerk, was supercargo of the Amsterdam ship. In obedience to the
plans of Linschoten and of Maalzoon, the passage by way of the Waigats
was of course attempted. A landing was effected on the coast of Tartary.
Whatever geographical information could be obtained from such a source
was imparted by the wandering Samoyedes. On the 2nd of September a party
went ashore on Staten Island and occupied themselves in gathering some
glistening pebbles which the journalist of the expedition describes with
much gravity as a "kind of diamonds, very plentiful upon the island."
While two of the men were thus especially engaged in a deep hollow, one
of them found himself suddenly twitched from behind. "What are you
pulling at me for, mate?" he said, impatiently to his comrade as he
supposed. But his companion was a large, long, lean white bear, and in
another instant the head of the unfortunate diamond-gatherer was off and
the bear was sucking his blood. The other man escaped to his friends, and
together a party of twenty charged upon the beast. Another of the
combatants was killed and half devoured by the hungry monster before a
fortunate bullet struck him in the head. But even then the bear
maintained his grip upon his two victims, and it was not until his brains
were fairly beaten out with the butt end of a snaphance by the boldest of
the party that they were enabled to secure the bodies of their comrades
and give them a hurried kind of Christian burial. They flayed the bear
and took away his hide with them, and this, together with an ample supply
of the diamonds of Staten Island, was the only merchandize obtained upon
the voyage for which such magnificent preparations had been made. For, by
the middle of September, it had become obviously hopeless to attempt the
passage of the froze