In 1664 Willem de Vlamingh, the Dutch navigator, or—to be cautious—the namesake of the Dutch navigator, who thirty-one years afterwards found Dirk Hartog's plate and named Swan River in West Australia after the black swans, was in these regions and rounded Novaya Zemlya into the Kara Sea, reaching so far north that if his recorded latitude be correct he must have sighted the Franz Josef archipelago, and, contrary to the tendency of Arctic explorers, mistaken land for a bank of mist or a group of icebergs. After him neither Dutch nor English delay us, the opening up of this continuation of the Urals being left to the Russians, who found it first and named it—Novaya Zemlya meaning simply New Land. For years it was left to the Samoyeds and the walrus hunters, whose persistent reports of deposits of silver in its cliffs led to Loschkin's making his way round it and spending two winters on its east coast. In 1768 Rosmysslof, also on silver bent, wintered in Matyushin Shar, that wonderful waterway, ninety fathoms deep, bounded by high hills and precipitous cliffs, winding so sharply that ships have been into it for a dozen miles or so and seeing no passage ahead have come out again to seek it elsewhere. In 1807 came Pospeloff, with Ludlow the mining engineer, to settle the silver question once for all, and settle it they did by showing that everywhere the so-called silver was either talc or mica, and naming Silver Bay ironically in memory thereof. Fourteen years afterwards Lütke surveyed the west coast, continuing during the next three summers; and in 1832 Pachtussoff arrived to undergo in the course of his really admirable work the hardships and privations of which he died. CHAPTER IV FRANZ JOSEF LAND Austro-Hungarian expedition of 1872—The voyage as planned—The drift of the _Tegetthoff_—The polyglot crew—Discovery of Franz Josef Land—Payer's description of an aurora—The sledge journeys—Crown Prince Rudolf Land—Cape Fligely reached—Abandonment of the _Tegetthoff_—The boat voyage to Cape Britwin—Leigh Smith's expeditions—Loss of the _Eira_—The retreat in the boats—Jackson in Franz Josef Land—His excellent survey work—The Italian expedition under the Duke of the Abruzzi—Cagni attempts to reach the Pole and is stopped at 86° 34´—The return journey.