It may well be conceived that it was no easy task for a bold and resolute sailor, and at the same time a devout and conscientious man, as William Barents undoubtedly was, to “protest before God, as he wished He might act in the salvation of his soul”, that it was impossible for him to do more than he had done, so long as his ship was staunch and he had a crew willing to go forward with him, or even to brave a winter residence in those inhospitable regions. Linschoten speaks of the dissentient Amsterdammers in the plural number; whence it is to be inferred that Barents did not stand alone, but that Harmen Ianszoon, the master of the other Amsterdam vessel, was at first of the same opinion; and, most probably, it was only when he yielded, that Barents saw himself, however reluctantly, forced to give in. After the protest had been so signed, the fleet proceeded on its homeward voyage, and on the 30th of September reached Wardhuus, where it remained till the 10th of the following month. The vessels then again set sail all together; but the vice-admiral’s ship, the Hope, on board of which was Linschoten, managed to get the start of the rest, arriving at the Texel on the 26th of October. It was not till the 18th of the following month that Barents’s vessel arrived in the river Maas. The journal of the proceedings of the fleet, which was kept by Linschoten in pursuance of his instructions, was communicated by him to the Government immediately on his arrival; but it was not till six years afterwards that he published his very interesting and valuable narrative of this voyage, as well as of that of the preceding year so far as concerns the Enkhuysen vessels, which had sailed through Yugorsky Shar—“Pet’s Strait” or the “Strait of Nassau”—into the Sea of Kara. So little appears to be known by bibliographers respecting Linschoten’s narrative of these voyages, that we have scarcely the means of describing any other editions than those which happen to exist in the British Museum. The earliest of these appeared in Dutch, in 1601, in folio, under the following title:— Voyagie, ofte Schip-vaert, van Ian Hvyghen van Linschoten, van by Noorden om langes Noorwegen, de Noort­caep, Laplant, Vinlant, Ruslandt, de Witte Zee, de Custen van Candenoes, Swetenoes, Pitzora, &c. door de Strate ofte Engte van Nassau tot voorby de Revier Oby. Waer inne seer distinctelicken Verbaels-ghewijse beschreven ende aenghewesen wordt, alle t’ghene dat hem op de selve Reyse van dach tot dach bejeghent en voorghecomen is. Met de af beeldtsels van alle de Custen, Hoecken, Landen, Opdoeningen, Streckinghen, Coursen, Mijlen, ende d’ander merckelicke dingen meer: Gelijc als hy’t alles selfs sichtelicken en̄ waerachtelicken nae’t leven uytgeworpen ende gheannoteert heeft, &c. Anno 1594 en̄ 1595. Ghedruct tot Franeker, by Gerard Ketel. The colophon has—