early May 1609

Déjà vu . . . déjà vu. That’s the term coming to mind. Only last year we followed the Norwegian shore. I know its tricky winds and my crew have seen the denizens of its waters . . . from spouting whales, feeding puffins, and at least one frolicking mermaid. I can’t be sure I’ve seen her, but my dreams of her are quite vivid. I sense she knows me and guides our ship. Maybe her destiny and mine are somehow intertwined. Maybe what Cathay offers me, it also offers her. My obsession is hers too, ours shared.

As we climb the latitudes I spend much time on the quarter deck with the spyglass and cross-staff. Taking readings and looking for Nord Kap is what the crew thinks, and of course that’s what Mr Juet and I are doing, but in my case . . . .in my case, I’m imagining that our mermaid also guides. I watch all signs of nature, including the supernatural ones At at such point that she suggests in her inimitable non-verbal communication that we turn for the isthmus of Smith and Champlain, then that we certain shall do, VOC be damned.

washed up in a (waterproofed) bottle:

late April 1609

((Editor’s Note: Although Henry channeled this logbook installment some days back, we’ve lost the artwork–water color–several times, owing to the splash of the North Sea washing the tint off the medium.  Be assured that Bowsprite and I are consulting  the best 17th-century telecom specialists still around to assist with technical onshore aquarelle dehydration aka TOAD.))

Half Moon, my equus maritimus, has been riding the North Sea well, galloping happily away from the wharf in Amsterdam.  Our course has taken us close enough for brief landfalls at Peterhead in Scotland and Lerwick in the Shetlands.  From there we make for the Lofotens, which the high mountains will reveal some distance out at sea.  We follow that over the top of Nordkap and east to Cathay.  Except for Cathay, these landfalls are nothing new;  we were here only 12 moonths ago.

Spirits are high on board;  the crew seem as elated as I am to leave our beloveds and our places to seek out and discover.  Each landfall conjures up ideas of adventures deferred.  How might Peterhead girls sing?  What grog can be bought in the Shetlands?  What savory fish permeates Lofoten kitchens?  I’d love to know, but not now.  Nordkap beckons and Cathay awaits with its own girls, grog, and grub.  Spirit us there, equus maritimus aka half moon, a name I despise as it associates closely with halfs like half-hearted, half-baked, and a farmer’s term I recently learned from the bawdy Dutch … half-assed.

And if the privacy of the journal allows–I pray you speak to on one of this–a word about contingencies:  a map came into my possession one moonless night on the Amsterdam wharfs, a map copied from John Smith.  Virginia, he suggests, is but a thin isthmus beyond which lies the great Ocean that laps on the shores of Cathay.  If no Northeast Passage opens, then Smith’s map will present an alternative.

3 April 1609

I love the warm breezes on my cheek telling me it’s spring. Soon, soon we will be under way and cold winds will plow us through white-capped seas and ice mountains all the way to Cathay. Let Smith stay in his Virginia and Champlain in his wide dead-end river . . . Half Moon will light the way to the East.

Soon, but an old dispute has broken out about which calendar to use . . . our English calendar seems unacceptable to some of the Dutch. The Roman Pope Gregory 13 decided some years back to revise time-keeping itself! As for me, I’m an explorer whose destiny draws me to Cathay, not a man of religion. Let’s just sail . . . on Gregory’s calendar or ours—they call it Julian’s—be gone with stilo novo or stilo Julio.

Soon we cast off. Watching Half Moon rock and strain in these breezes, I imagine the vessel eager like me, impatient to run her beak deep into blue water and then raise it upwards, washing its decks to the scupper holes with white foamy salt water, frothy as Dutch beer, as we speed our way to Cathay. I’ve dreamt of arriving in Cathay, with its palm trees, silks, spice, and gold. Soon I, like my ship, will be released. With the awesome power of the wind, Half Moon will race seaward with a spirited stallion. That lion on the bow . . . when we arrive in the East I’ll barter that feline for a horse’s head, equus maritimus.

13 March 1609

As the vernal equinox approaches, so grows my awareness that by this month’s end I hope to be at sea.  At sea and Cathay-bound!    My new crew seems more excited about this departure than my two previous commands.  Maybe it’s their chemistry, as we have some English, some Hollanders, even some Frisians, and possibly the Javanese Pernomo—who quickly became adept at skating—although by now the canals are free of their ice.  He’s eager to get past NordKap so he might there skate again.

Labors ongoing on the wharf have increased in frenzy, as there is much much to getting Half Moon shipshape.  Riggers reinforce the lines and stays.  Gunsmiths work out the most favorable array of cannon and other arms.  Carpenters attend to dozens of repairs and  modifications for the cold voyage.  And VOC wharfmen provision the ship with casks of flour, cheese, salted meats, and of course grog.  The crew with families spend as much time as possible with their loved ones while the crew with no families seek Amsterdammer fellowship in the drinkhouses.   My son John will again sail with me, and he has spent much time with his mother Katherine and siblings.

It will thrill my soul to have him beside me as we sail into Cathay, for I know on this voyage we shall.  I’ve told him that as ship’s boy, he will do the honors of drawing the spirits from the juniper grog cask as we enter the port of Cathay.  He will offer drinks to the wealthy Cathaynese merchants there.

*Art modified above was by Jan Karel Donatus Van Beecq (1638-1722).

2 March 1609

So now I have a ship, and I’ve started working with VOC to hire a crew.  Yope, as usual, has been an enormous help, sending letters across the Channel up to Van Meteren in London, and we’ve started getting English sailors applying to sail.  Robert Juet from last year’s trip has responded already, for example.  A good sailor/mate he,  but I’ve never gotten along famously with him.

Then there’ve been the Dutch who applied, and one of those named Bram brought with him his  Javanese assistant Pernomo.

But Pernomo seems wretched in the cold of Amsterdam putting on sarong after sarong and many turbans to seek warmth.  How would he get on if we sailed over the Nordkap looking past the icebergs for the Northeast Passage, I wondered.  And I’ve hit on hiring requirement:  I’ll list ice skating as an essential skill.   We are, after all,  sailing north to a place where ice and snow might bar our passage,  so if Pernomo can learn to iceskate, then surely I can hire him.  And now that I think further on this, Bram mentioned that from sailing the Eastern ports and transacting on those faraway docks, Pernomo can speak many languages of the East, including some words from Cathay!

Pernomo may be a valuable crewman even if he can’t skate well, for he can interpret once we arrive later this year in Cathay!

*Art modified above was by Bart van Hove (1856-1914).

15 February 1609

Yope took me to the docks on the Amstel, where wharf cats feasted on rats and herring.  Of course, none of these cats seemed so intelligent as my Cathay.  He had something to show me, he said.

A large ship called Batavia had just arrived from Java (“YA vah” as Yope pronounces it).  The crewmen tanned from the tropical sun, their hair bleached.  And Batavia , a heavy laden treasure vessel, its cargo a heady perfume of  cloves, nutmeg, and pepper.  And doing some of the work on deck were Javanese, small but powerful dark-skinned men shouting at each other in some musical language.  Some crew still on duty aboard ship  called out to friends on the dock, and in my best (cough!) Dutch writing, let me transcribe what I heard.

“Yope, hoe gat het?”  I guess that means “how are you?”

And so a dialogue went on awhile, with Yope seeming as excited as the mariners, “Yope, wij zijn blij terug de komen.”
Then another sailor might see him, and being here now almost two months, I could recognize a repetition.  “Yope jongen, hoe is het?”

Yope had something to show me.  Beyond the great Batavia was a smaller ship, the Halve Maen, my ship he said.  Frankly, seeing its size, so dwarfed by Batavia disappointed me.  Rather than “Half “Moon, I thought it should be called “last quarter,” as that would describe.  Still, a ship means that soon I might sail again, sail into Cathay.

*Art modified above was by Ludolf Backhuysen (1630-1708).

31 January 1609

“The directors shall equip . . . a small vessel . . . well provided with men, provisions, and other necessaries. Hudson shall sail . . . search for a passage by the north . . . north of Nova Zemla—-hmm, thinks I, I’m not going to die there “king of the ice” like Barents—-obtain knowledge . . . without any considerable loss of time . . . return immediately . . . make a faithful report . . . deliver over journals, log-books, and charts . . . without keeping anything back . . .”

I wonder how much VOC directors van Os and Poppe do me trust. Truth be told, intrigue is the norm here. Yope introduced me to Petrus Plancius . . . er “flatfoot” Yope calls him. Petrus says not to talk to LeMaire, the Dutch “Frenchman,” who was telling about Champlain’s explorations up the big river. Petrus also says my friend John Smith knows not what he suggests, that he has fantasies on the brain like his rescue from princesses like Tragabigzanda and Pocahontas. Smith, on the other hand, assures me in private letters, of credible stories he’s heard tell of large seas maybe leading to Cathay lying northwest of his Virginia colony.

Intrigue!! Social networking in 1609 Amsterdam. Dam! Yope just laughs and refills my glass with beer.

15 January 1609

Greetings from Holland, where I’ve been for almost a month already, thanks to Mr van Meteren.  He’s introduced me to Josse de Hondt, or Jodocus Hondius.  Van Meteren writes history and makes it happen;  Jodocus makes maps and translates for me, except when we speak Latin.  After copious sips of Dutch beer, I’ve even started slipping from Latin into Dutch.  When no VOC officers linger,  he asks I call him Yope, and he addresses me as Henk.

The most useful Dutch word I’ve learned so far is goeie dag, which means hello and good-bye and in the pronouncing sounds like a rude throating-clearing. Actually, it’s pronounced like goo ya DOG, but with both g‘s scraped.

Otherwise, I truly love Amsterdam, where people from beyond the seven seas walk the docks and sit down together to break bread and spill beer.

I’ve stayed in Yope’s house in Den Hague in between trips to Amsterdam to meet with officers of the VOC.  He entertains a wide range of people, many of whom are exiled from Antwerp, a less tolerant place;  I’ve met some French, including Isaac le Maire, which seemed to trouble my hosts as soon as Monsieur leMaire suggested I sail for le bon roi Henri.

Today they offered me a contract.  Yope is translating the terms as I write this note.  Good money for me, but it seems they want to keep my wife and children in Amsterdam as guarantee that I return here.

More later when Yope finishes his translations.

23 December 1608

Who am I?  Grandson of the wealthy founder of a merchant company?  unemployed captain of a discovery vessel sans discoveries much appreciated?  undaunted, intrepid seeker of  new routes and fortunes on the cusp of fabulous opportunity?

The dark, cold solstice compounds my self-doubt;  and kith and kin team together to torment me, hurling terms like “failure” and “fait-neant.”  Such is the plight of us the obsessed.  I am so confident that my destiny is intertwined with Cathay that I care not a whit which flag flies from my topmast . . . be it tri-couleur of “le bon roi henri” or the “drie kleuren van de VOC.”

Dear reader, come hither so I may whisper secrets in your ear . . . I’ve entered discussion with agents of both le bon roi and the menheers van de compagnie.  and come the balmy breezes of the spring equinox, sail I shall.  I’d even fly the flag of Cathay from the mast tops . . . although I suspect their literati recluses sitting atop mountains of gold know better and fly kites.    Now there’s an idea for ship propulsion too.

My deepest secret:  on Christmas morning my family and I embark for Amsterdam;  my dilemma is that my wife and children, though excited, think it’s to visit our friend Emanuel van Meteren, and it is that but also more.

Later messages from Amsterdam.  Happy new year.

All art on this site copyright Christina Sun.