discovered. In order to become
sharers in the great profits which commerce with the land of silks and
perfumes brought with it, it therefore appeared to be indispensable to
discover a new sea route north of Asia or America to the Eastern seas.
If such a route had been actually found, it was clear that the position
of Holland would have been specially favourable for undertaking this
lucrative trade. In this state of things we have to seek for the reason
of the delight with which the Dutch hailed the first proposal to force a
passage by sea north of Asia to China or Japan. Three successive
expeditions were at great expense fitted out for this purpose. These
expeditions did not, indeed, attain the intended goal--the discovery of
a north-eastern sea route to Eastern Asia, but they not only gained for
themselves a prominent place in the history of geographical discovery,
but also repaid a hundred fold the money that had been spent on them, in
part directly through the whale-fishing to which they gave rise, and
which was so profitable to Holland, and in part indirectly through the
elevation they gave to the self-respect and national feeling of the
people. They compared the achievements of their countrymen among the ice
and snow of the Polar lands to the voyage of the Argonauts, to
Hannibal's passage of the Alps, and to the campaign of the Macedonians
in Asia and the deserts of Libya (see, for instance, BLAVIUS. _Atlas
major_, Latin edition, t. i., pp. 24 and 31.) As these voyages together
present the grandest attempts to solve the problem that lay before the
_Vega_ expedition, I shall here give a somewhat detailed account of
them.

[Illustration: DUTCH SKIPPER. After G. de Veer. ]

THE FIRST DUTCH EXPEDITION, 1594.--This was fitted out at the expense of
private persons, mainly by the merchants BALTHASAR MUCHERON, JACOB
VALCKE, and FRANCISCUS MAELSON. The first intention was to send out only
two vessels with the view of forcing a passage through the sound at
Vaygats towards the east, but on the famous geographer PLANCIUS
representing that the route north of Novaya Zemlya was that which would
lead most certainly to the desired goal, other two were fitted out, so
that no fewer than four vessels went out in the year 1594 on an
exploratory expedition towards the north. Of these, two, viz. a large
vessel, specially equipped, it would appear, for the northern waters,
called the _Mercurius_, and commanded by WILLEM BARENTS,[127] and