were found sometimes in swarms of two hundred at a time, basking in the arctic sun, and seemed equally at home on land, in the sea, and on icebergs.  When aware of the approach of their human visitors, they would slide off an iceblock into the water, holding their cubs in their arms, and ducking up and down in the sea as if in sport.  Then tossing the young ones away, they would rush upon the boats, and endeavour to sink the strangers, whom they instinctively recognised as their natural enemies.  Many were the severe combats recorded by the diarist of that voyage of Barendz with the walrusses and the bears.

The chief result of this first expedition was the geographical investigation made, and, with unquestionable right; these earliest arctic pilgrims bestowed the names of their choice upon the regions first visited by themselves.  According to the unfailing and universal impulse on such occasions, the names dear to the fatherland were naturally selected.  The straits were called Nassau, the island at its mouth became States or Staten Island; the northern coasts of Tartary received the familiar appellations of New Holland, New Friesland, New Walcheren; while the two rivers, beyond which Linschoten did not advance, were designated Swan and Mercury respectively, after his two ships.  Barendz, on his part, had duly baptized every creek, bay, islet, and headland of Nova Zembla, and assuredly Christian mariner had never taken the latitude of 77 deg. before.  Yet the antiquary, who compares the maps soon afterwards published by William Blaeuw with the charts now in familiar use, will observe with indignation the injustice with which the early geographical records have been defaced, and the names rightfully bestowed upon those terrible deserts by their earliest discoverers rudely torn away.  The islands of Orange can still be recognized, and this is almost the only vestige left of the whole nomenclature.  But where are Cape Nassau, William’s Island, Admiralty Island, Cape Plancius, Black-hook, Cross-hook, Bear’s-hook, Ice-hook, Consolation-hook, Cape Desire, the Straits of Nassau, Maurice Island, Staten Island, Enkhuizen Island, and many other similar appellations.

The sanguine Linschoten, on his return, gave so glowing an account of the expedition that Prince Maurice and Olden-Barneveld, and prominent members of the States-General, were infected with his enthusiasm.  He considered the north-east passage to China discovered and the problem solved.  It would only be necessary to fit out another expedition on a larger scale the next year, provide it with a cargo of merchandize suitable for the China market, and initiate the direct polar-oriental trade without further delay.  It seems amazing that so incomplete an attempt to overcome such formidable obstacles should have been considered a decided success.  Yet there is no doubt of the genuineness of the conviction by which Linschoten was actuated.  The calmer Barendz, and his friend and comrade Gerrit de Veer, were of opinion that the philosopher had made “rather a free representation” of the enterprise of 1594 and of the prospects for the future.