Surely no more graphic summary of disaster has ever appeared than these words penned three hundred and fourteen years ago, which cry to us down the long, intervening ages of privation and suffering endured in the cause of science. [Illustration: A SHIP OF THE LATE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. From Ortelius, 1598.] In the year 1594, then, four ships were sent forth from Amsterdam with orders to the wise and skilful pilot, William Barents, that he was to sail into the North Seas and "discover the kingdoms of Cathay and China." In the month of July the Dutch pilot found himself off the south coast of Nova Zembla, whence he sailed as the wind pleased to take him, ever making for the north and hugging the coast as close as possible. On 9th July they found a creek very far north to which they gave the name of Bear Creek, because here they suddenly discovered their first Polar bear. It tried to get into their boat, so they shot it with a musket, "but the bear showed most wonderful strength, for, notwithstanding that she was shot into the body, yet she leapt up and swam in the water; the men that were in the boat, rowing after her, cast a rope about her neck and drew her at the stern of the boat, for, not having seen the like bear before, they thought to have carried her alive in the ship and to have showed her for a strange wonder in Holland; but she used such force that they were glad they were rid of her, and contented themselves with her skin only." This they brought back to Amsterdam in great triumph--their first white Polar bear. But they went farther north than this, until they came to a plain field of ice and encountered very misty weather. Still they kept sailing on, as best they might, round about the ice till they found the land of Nova Zembla was covered with snow. From "Ice Point" they made their way to islands which they named Orange Islands after the Dutch Prince. Here they found two hundred walrus or sea-horses lying on the shore and basking in the sun. [Illustration: NOVA ZEMBLA AND THE ARCTIC REGIONS. From a map in De Bry's _Grands Voyages_, 1598.] "The sea-horse is a wonderful strong monster of the sea," they brought back word, "much bigger than an ox, having a skin like a seal, with very short hair, mouthed like a lion; it hath four feet, but no ears." The little party of Dutchmen advanced boldly with hatchets and pikes to kill a few of these monsters to take home, but it was harder work than they thought. The wind suddenly rose, too, and rent the ice into great pieces, so they had to content themselves by getting a few of their ivory teeth, which they reported to be half an ell long. With these and other treasures Barents was now forced to return from these high latitudes, and he sailed safely into the Texel after three and a half months' absence.