202 HISTORY OF INDIA. [IVk>k I.
AD, 1568. Chancellor was more fortunate. By keeping near the coa«t lie had reached
^ Wardhuys without much difficulty; and after waiting seven days in the hope
Chancellor tluit tlic othcr vesscls might arrive, continued his course " till he came at hi.st to the place where he found no night at all, but a continued light and hright- ness of the sun, shining clearly upon the great and mighty sea." Ultimately lie was carried into the White Sea, and anchored in the harbour of Arcliangel. On learning that it formed part of the vast dominions of the Czar of Muscovy, he determined on visiting his capital of Moscow ; and by means of the letter which he carried from his sovereign, and his own address, obtained such a favourable reception from the reigning sovereign, Ivan Vasilovitsch, as enabled him to lay
The Russian the foundation of the Muscovy or Ru.ssian Company on very advantajreoas
Company. _ •' l J J ts
terms. The important traffic secured by this company withdrew attention, for a time, from the north-east passage; and many were even so sanguine as to imagine that by this company alone it might be possible to establish an inter- course with India, by which the necessity of any other passage would be in a great measure superseded. Attempts to fhe plan was to make Archangel the starting point, and then, strikincj the
reach India ^ » & 1 > > o
through Volga where it first becomes navigable, sail down into the Caspian, and thus
Russia. . . . , -
form a commumcation with the ancient overland routes from the East. Jom-- neys, with a view to the establishment of this communication, were actually luidertaken, and several of the travellers employed penetrated far into the in- terior of Asia. The whole scheme, however, was a delusion. The Venetians, when in complete command of the overland traffic by much shorter and more convenient routes, had been driven from all the leading markets of Europe by the Portuguese. How, then, could the Russian Company hope to compete with them, when, in addition to the carriage paid by the Venetians, they were biu-- dened with at least 2000 miles of expensive transport, part of it over an ocean always dangerous, and during half the year rendered inaccessible by mountains of ice ?
These considerations soon opened men's eyes to the hopelessness of estabhsh- ing a profitable traffic with India by the way of the White Sea, and the explora- tion of the north-east and north-west passages was resmned more ardently than ever. The latter passage, indeed, continued to be explored long after the impos- sibility of using it as an ocean thoroughfare to the East was universally recog- nized; and even in our own times, in the formidable task of exploring this passage, some of our most distinguished British navigators have earned their best laurels, and some of them, too, have unhappily perished. The north-east passage, which at one time seemed the more hopeful of the two, was sooner aban- doned, but not before the utmost skill and hardihood both of British and Dutch seamen had been expended upon it in vain. Some of their attempts, considered as preliminary steps in the process which eventually brought them into direct collision with the Portuguese, are here entitled to at least a passing notice.
North west passage.
