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The compass had not then been invented, but knowing that ravens by instinct seek the nearest land when freed on the ocean, he provided himself with three of these birds to serve as guides. He remained awhile at the Faroe Islands and then boldly sailed northward. When he was several days out he uncaged one of the ravens, which immediately took its flight back to the Faroe Islands.
Bredejord, Stockholm. "NEW YORK, October 27th. "SIR, In reply to your letter of the 5th instant, I hasten to write you the following facts: "1st. A vessel named 'Cynthia, commanded by Captain Barton, and the property of the Canadian General Transportation Company, was lost, with her cargo and all on board, just fourteen years ago, in the neighborhood of the Faroe Islands. "2d.
In order not to render the outlay of the Company completely abortive, Hudson was obliged to make for the Faröe Islands, to descend southward as low as 44 degrees, and to search on the coast of America for the strait, of the existence of which he had been assured.
As late as 1380, two Venetians, named Zeno, visited Iceland, and reported that there was a tradition there of a land named Estotiland, a thousand miles west of the Faroe Islands, and south of Greenland.
However, no man likes to be regarded as an object of curiosity even by two small ragamuffins belonging to a strange race, so I just held up suddenly, and requested these children of Faroe to state explicitly the grounds of their interest in my behalf. What they said in reply it would be impossible for me to translate, since the Faroese language is quite as impenetrable as the Icelandic.
The historian of the voyage, Gerrit de Veer, was also on board as second mate. The Dutchmen sailed from Amsterdam on the 10th of May, 1596, passed by the Shetland and Faröe Islands, and on the 5th of June, saw the first masses of ice, "whereat we were much amazed, believing at first that they were white swans."
In the air there passed sooty albatross with four-meter wingspans, birds aptly dubbed "vultures of the ocean," also gigantic petrels including several with arching wings, enthusiastic eaters of seal that are known as quebrantahuesos,* and cape pigeons, a sort of small duck, the tops of their bodies black and white in short, a whole series of petrels, some whitish with wings trimmed in brown, others blue and exclusive to these Antarctic seas, the former "so oily," I told Conseil, "that inhabitants of the Faroe Islands simply fit the bird with a wick, then light it up."
Two days later we were not far from the coast of Scotland, somewhere near what Danish sailors call Peterhead, and then the <i>Valkyrie</i> stretched out direct for the Faroe Islands, between Orkney and Shetland. Our vessel now felt the full force of the ocean waves, and the wind shifting, we with great difficulty made the Faroe Isles.
Had there been even the slightest reference to it in the newspapers, Canon Beresford, instead of returning home, would have gone farther afield to an Orkney Island or the Shetland group, or, perhaps, to one of those called Faroe, which do not appear on ordinary maps but are believed by geographers to exist.
For a whole year a canopy of cinder-laden cloud hung over the island. Sand and ashes irretrievably overwhelmed thousands of acres of fertile pasturage. The Faroe islands, the Shetlands, and the Orkneys were deluged with volcanic dust, which perceptibly contaminated even the pure skies of England and Holland.
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