Only 105 miles to the north is the South or Look-out Cape of Spitsbergen. The Dutch explorers, on leaving Bear Island, continued on a northerly course from the 13th to the 19th June. But no part of Spitsbergen was sighted until they reached its north-western point in 79° 49′ N. A marvellous fight with a bear is recounted by Gerrit de Veer, and two landings on the coast to get ballast and birds’ eggs. There was another landing on the 23rd to observe the variation of the compass. Then, as the ice stopped the way northward, a southerly course was shaped on June 28th. The land was supposed to be a part of Greenland. By the 1st July they were again at Bear Island. [Illustration: How our ship stuck fast in the ice.] There was much dispute between Barentsz and Rijp as to the course, and it ended in Rijp returning with his ship to Holland. Heemskerk, under the guidance of Barentsz, then made for Novaya Zemlya, and coasted along to the northward, until he doubled Cape Nassau, and passed the furthest point reached by Barentsz on his first Voyage. Here the ship was beset and, after fruitless attempts to extricate themselves from the ice by tacking about in various directions, Heemskerk and Barentsz found themselves on the west side of a bay which was named Ice Haven. Here “they were forced, in great cold, poverty, misery, and grief to stay all the winter.” This was on the 26th August. The heavy pack ice drifted into the bay, gave the ship several severe nips, and firmly wedged her between grounded masses of pack ice. But the ice was seen to be in motion in the offing until Christmas. The crew consisted of 17 souls all told. Fortunately there was a large supply of driftwood, and with this, eked out by planks from the ship, they built a house, 32 feet long by 20 broad, into which they removed all their provisions and valuables. A chimney was fixed in the centre of the roof, a Dutch clock was set up and made to strike the hours, bed-places were fixed along the walls, and a wine cask was converted into a bath. Snowstorms and gales of wind prevailed throughout the winter, which had the good effect of drifting snow round the house as high as the roof and thus raising the temperature within. They entered upon the year 1597 “with great cold, danger, and disease”; but strove to keep up their spirits by mild festivity on Twelfth-night, their meal consisting of a little wine and pancakes of meal and oil. Foxes were caught in traps, and occasionally a bear was shot, but sickness began to appear from want of exercise and unwholesome food. The little ship’s boy died, Barentsz himself had long been ill, and a man named Claas Adrianszoon was also in an almost hopeless state.