boldest of Portuguese navigators, were to be corrected by the splendid
discoveries of sailors sent forth by the Dutch republic, and a rich
harvest in consequence was to be reaped both by science and commerce. It
is true, too, that the Netherlanders claimed to have led the way to the
great voyages of Columbus by their discovery of the Azores. Joshua van
den Berg, a merchant of Bruges, it was vigorously maintained, had landed
in that archipelago in the year 1445. He had found there, however, no
vestiges of the human race, save that upon the principal island, in the
midst of the solitude, was seen--so ran the tale--a colossal statue of a
man on horseback, wrapped in a cloak, holding the reins of his steed in
his left hand, and solemnly extending his right arm to the west. This
gigantic and solitary apparition on a rock in the ocean was supposed
to indicate the existence of a new world, and the direction in which it
was to be sought, but it is probable that the shipwrecked Fleeting was
quite innocent of any such magnificent visions. The original designation
of the Flemish Islands, derived from their first colonization by
Netherlanders, was changed to Azores by Portuguese mariners, amazed at
the myriads of hawks which they found there. But if the Netherlanders
had never been able to make higher claims as discoverers than the
accidental and dubious landing upon an unknown shore of a tempest-tost
mariner, their position in the records of geographical exploration would
not be so eminent as it certainly is.

Meantime the eyes of Linschoten, Plancius, Maalzoon, Barneveld, and of
many other ardent philosophers and patriots, were turned anxiously
towards the regions of the North Pole. Two centuries later--and still
more recently in our own day and generation--what heart has not thrilled
with sympathy and with pride at the story of the magnificent exploits,
the heroism, the contempt of danger and of suffering which have
characterized the great navigators whose names are so familiar to the