Note 970 — THE THIRD VOYAGE NORTH-WARD TO THE KINGDOMES OF CATHAIA and China, in Anno 1596.

The 18 of August in the morning, the sunne being east, [in order to gain time] wee puled vp our stone (which we vsed in steed of an anchor,970) and rowed along by the land till the sunne was south, then wee saw a point of land reaching into the sea, and on it certaine signes of crosses,971 which as we went neerer vnto wee saw perfectly; and when the sunne was west, wee perceiued that the land reached west and south-west, so that thereby we knew it certainly to be the point of Candinaes, lying at the mouth of the White Sea, which we were to crosse, and had long desired to see it. This point is easily to be knowne, hauing fiue crosses standing vpon it, which are perfectly to be decerned, one the east side in the south-east, and one the other side in the south-west.972 And when we thought to saile from thence to the west side of the White Sea towards the coast of Norway, we found that one of our runlets of fresh water was almost leakt out; and for that we had about 40 Dutch [160] miles to saile ouer the sea before we should get any fresh water, we sought meanes first to row on land to get some, but because the waues went so high we durst not do it; and so hauing a good north-east wind (which was not for vs too slack973) we set forward in the name of God, and when the sunne was north-west we past the point,974 and all that night and the next day sailed with a good wind, and [in] all that time rowed but while three glasses were run out;975 and the next night after ensuing hauing still a good wind, in the morning about the east north-east sunne we saw land one the west side of the White Sea, which we found by the rushing of the sea vpon the land before we saw it. And perceiuing it to be ful of clifts,976 and not low sandy ground with same hills977 as it is on the east side of the White Sea, we assured our selues978 that we were on ye west side of the White Sea, vpon the coast of Lapeland, for the which we thanked God that he had helped vs to saile over the White Sea in thirty houres, it being forty Dutch [160] miles at the least, our course being west with a [nice] north-east wind.