Nevertheless, the general Government, acting on Linschoten’s suggestion, furnished a fleet of seven ships:  two from Enkhuizen, two from Zeeland, two from Amsterdam; and a yacht which was to be despatched homeward with the news, so soon as the expedition should have passed through the straits of Nassau, forced its way through the frozen gulf of Tartary, doubled Cape Tabin, and turned southward on its direct course to China.  The sublime credulity which accepted Linschoten’s hasty solution of the polar enigma as conclusive was fairly matched by the sedateness with which the authorities made the preparations for the new voyage.  So deliberately were the broadcloths, linens, tapestries, 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 frozen sea that season, and the expedition returned, having accomplished nothing.  It reached Amsterdam upon the 18th of November, 1595.