Page:Tasman A Forgotten Navigator.djvu/9

 instead of being buried in inaccessible libraries, as had been the former works of a similar character.

On the decline of the Spanish and Portuguese maritime ascendancy, Holland, then in all the flush of recent victory over its great enemy Spain, came to the front as the world's greatest sea power.

The Dutch, in spite of the enmity of their Portuguese and Spanish rivals, contrived to profit by their superior maritime experience, and produced several eminent cartographers. Linschoten, a Dutchman, who had voyaged to the East, produced, in 1595, his Itinerario, illustrated with maps. Lucas Wagenaar, also of Holland, published the first Marine Atlas in 1584.

These, and other works of a similar nature, were a powerful aid to Dutch exploration. The first appearance of the Dutch in the East was in 1596, just eight years after the Spanish Armada. To reach India by the Cape of Good Hope, they had to run the gauntlet of the Portuguese naval power, and by the Cape Horn route they had to fight their bitter enemy Spain.

They therefore, in the last years of the 16th century, made three different attempts to reach the East by the North-east passage of the Arctic regions. Each attempt was unsuccessful. Their third voyage was specially tragic. Although having no special connection with our subject, one incident in connection with this voyage may be interesting.

Their vessel got hopelessly jammed by the ice, and the crew had to winter in Nova Zembla. Here their great commander, Barentz, died, and the following summer the crew escaped in boats. In 1871 the hut in which they had wintered was discovered. It had been strongly built, and had withstood the Arctic storms of 274 years. Everything in the hut was almost in the same condition as which these emaciated Dutch sailors had left, nearly three centuries before. The clock on the wall—the cooking pans over the fire-place—a book on navigation in the Dutch language, by a Spanish author—an account of China, by Mendozai—a flute which still gave out a few notes of music—a halbert leaning against the wall—and the shoes of a boy who had died. The Arctic climate has a wonderful preserving power.

In the beginning of the 17th century we find the Dutch in possession of Java; and now the sturdy figure of Abel Jansen Tasman looms dimly through the centuries. Navigator and explorer, he occupies, by reason of his discoveries, a commanding position among the world’s great seamen. Without the fiery genius of Drake, or the scientific and observant mind of Dampier, he possessed abilities of no common order.