Note 98 — INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST EDITION.

J. R. Forster (Engl. edit., p. 411) says that the Amsterdam vessel was called “the Boot, or Messenger”. The original German work (Frankfort, 1784, 8vo) is not in the British Museum, nor is it known whether a copy of it is to be found in this country; so that there are no means of reference. But it may be suspected that there is some confusion here between Boot, “a boat”, and Bote, “a messenger”. Most modern writers have followed Forster in calling Barents’s vessel the Messenger. This name, translated into Russian by Lütke, and then rendered back into German by Erman (p. 17), has become der Gesandte, the Envoy or Ambassador! ↑