Arranging with Jackman, whose little vessel sailed badly, to wait for him at Waigatz, Pet went ahead and endeavoured to pass through Burrough Strait, but meeting with trouble from the ice, missed the passage, and working round Waigatz to the south, entered the Kara Sea through Yugor Strait, or as it used to be called after him, Pet Strait. Coasting eastward with the mainland in sight, he was, as might be expected, much hampered by the heavy pack. On being joined by the little _William_ he made for the northward, seeking a way to the east, but the "more and thicker was the ice so that they could go no further," and, after talking the matter over on the 28th of July, Pet and Jackman reluctantly decided to return to Waigatz and there decide on what should be done. Their way back was difficult. They became shut in so that "they could not stir, labouring only to defend the ice as it came upon them." For one day they were clear of it, but next day, the 16th of August, they were encumbered again, though they got out of the trouble by sailing between the ice and the shore, which was a new experience. In this way they just scraped through Pet Strait, and bore away in the open sea to Kolguiev, both vessels grounding for a time on the sands to the south of that island. On the 22nd of August, two days afterwards, the _William_ parted from the _George_ in a dense fog, while Pet brought his ship home and dropped anchor at Ratcliff on Boxing Day. The Dutch had for some time been trying to outstrip the English on this route to the far east. In 1565 they had settled at Kola, and about thirteen years afterwards had established the factory at the mouth of the Dwina on the site of Nova Kholmogory, generally known as Archangel. In 1584 Olivier Brunel, their energetic emissary in Russia, sailed on the first Dutch Arctic discovery expedition. He tried in vain to pass through Pet Strait, and the ship, with a valuable cargo of furs and mica, was wrecked on its homeward voyage at the mouth of the Petchora. Ten years elapsed, and then there sailed from the Texel the expedition of Cornelis Nai, in which the _Mercury_, of Amsterdam, was commanded by Willem Barents. Barents—really Barentszoon, the son of Bernard—sighted Novaya Zemlya, with which his name was to be thenceforth associated, on the 4th of July, and coasting along its mighty cliffs, peopled with their myriad seabirds, passed Cape Nassau ten days later. Thence reaching 77° 20´, and thus improving on John Davis's record for the highest north, he struggled through the ice to the Orange Islands and back, some twenty-five miles, during which he tacked eighty-one times and thereby sailed some seventeen hundred geographical miles. Failing to proceed further, he came south, and off Pet Strait—named by the Dutchmen Nassau Strait—fell in with the other two ships returning from their unsuccessful attempt to cross the Kara Sea.