The other illustrations have been selected with a strict regard to the meaning of that word.  In order to throw light on the text, I have preferred—­to the ventures of fancy—­reproductions of title-pages of works on navigation that Hudson probably used; pictures of the few and crude instruments of navigation that he certainly used; and pictures of ships virtually identical with those in which he sailed.

The copy of Wright’s famous work on navigation that Hudson may have had, and probably did have, with him was of an earlier date than that (1610) of which the title-page here is reproduced.  This reproduction is of interest in that it shows at a glance all of the nautical instruments that Hudson had at his command; and of a still greater interest in that the map which is a part of it exhibits what at that time, by exploration or by conjecture, was the known world.  To the making of that map Hudson himself contributed:  on it, with a previously unknown assurance, his River clearly is marked.  The inadequate indication of his Bay probably is taken from Weymouth’s chart—­the chart that Hudson had with him on his voyage.  A curious feature of this map is its marking—­in defiance of known facts—­of two straits, to the north and to the south of a large island, where should be the Isthmus of Panama.

The one seemingly fanciful picture, that of the mermaids, is not fanciful—­a point that I have enlarged upon elsewhere—­by the standard of Hudson’s times.  Hudson himself believed in the existence of mermaids:  as is proved by his matter-of-fact entry in his log that a mermaid had been seen by two of his crew.

A BRIEF LIFE OF HENRY HUDSON

HENRY HUDSON

I

If ever a compelling Fate set its grip upon a man and drove him to an accomplishment beside his purpose and outside his thought, it was when Henry Hudson—­having headed his ship upon an ordered course northeastward—­directly traversed his orders by fetching that compass to the southwestward which ended by bringing him into what now is Hudson’s River, and which led on quickly to the founding of what now is New York.

Indeed, the late Thomas Aquinas, and the later Calvin, could have made out from the few known facts in the life of this navigator so pretty a case in favor of Predestination that the blessed St. Augustine and the worthy Arminius—­supposing the four come together for a friendly dish of theological talk—­would have had their work cut out for them to formulate a countercase in favor of Free Will.  It is a curious truth that every important move in Hudson’s life of which we have record seems to have been a forced move:  sometimes with a look of chance about it—­as when the directors of the Dutch East India Company called him back and hastily renewed with him their suspended agreement that he should search for a passage to Cathay on a northeast course