Note 129 — INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST EDITION.

This was virtually the termination of their voyage. On the following day (September 4th) a council was held on board the admiral’s ship, when it was decided that, “in order not to fail in their duty,”129—which means that it was little more than a matter of form,—they should on the following day make one more endeavour to get through the ice; and if they did not succeed, that then they should not attempt it any further, seeing that the time was passing rapidly, and the winter, with its dreadful cold and long nights, was on the point of setting in. “For,” adds Linschoten,130 “it is now sufficiently clear and manifest that it does not please the Lord God to permit us this time to proceed further on our voyage of discovery, so that it is not fitting that we should wilfully tempt Him any longer and run with our heads against the wall.”