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754 KERGUELEN’S VOYAGE TO THE NORTH.
by bailiffs. There are eighteen or twenty cantons, each of which comprifes fifteen or
fixteen parifhes. All thefe parifhes are directed by two bifhops; one governs the
“northern, the other the fouthern part. The feat of the fovereign council is Beflefted,
under the direction of a grand bailiff, who refides there. ‘The king, for the receipt of
taxes, maintains a fenefchal at the fame place. Thefe two principal officers render an
account to the governor-general, who dwells at court. ‘This is the whole of what is in-
terelting, without extending beyond the bounds I have prefcribed to myfelf, which I can
fay of Iceland. I now take up the thread of my journal.
THIRD PART.
Containing the Courfe from Iceland to Berghen ; Defcription of Berghen, of Norway,and the
People fituated North of Norway.
As I had ordered all the fithing veffels which the gale of wind of the twenty-ninth of
May had obliged to take fhelter at Patrixfiord, to-inform the whole fleet that I fhould
remain a fortnight longer in that road, in order to be nearer to render them affiftance,
and that they might not be under neceflity of groping for me, as it were, in foggy wea-
ther, I remained in the fame pofition to the fifteenth of June. I fhall here remark, that
any king’s fhip which may be fent to protect the fifhery, can never be more effeétually
ferviceable than by giving a general rendezyous to all veflels who may ftand in need of
fuccour or repairs ; for the fifhery of Iceland is fo extenfive, that it would require four
frigates for its protection; and there are in thefe climates fuch thick fogs, that it is
fometimes impoflible to perceive a veffel at the diftance of mufket fhot.
The fifteenth of June, in the morning, in the profpect of a fouth wind, I caufed a fmall
anchor with a towing line to be heaved out to the S. S. W. to be the better enabled to
raife it eafily and quickly either from the frigate, or by means of my long-boat. .The
{trength of the anchorage, the depth of water, and the projeCtion of the inlet, inclined
me to this expedient. It was calm all day, I weighed my two main anchors’in the after-
noon, and at nine in the evening, the wind fouthing, I fet fail. I did not fhip my oared
cutters before I was out the points, left it fhould have fallen calm, and I have need of
them to tow me. I forgot to obferve that fouth of the fouthern point of Patrixfiord, out-
fide, is an inlet of yellow fand, which ferves as a mark at four leagues diftant, and is a
beacon on that fide.
The fixteenth, I took bearings along the coaft. The feventeenth and eighteenth, the
wind varied from W.N. W. to S. W. a light breeze, and foggy. The nineteenth,
being in that part of the fea, and on the precife {pot where formerly were feveral iflands,
under the name of Goubermans, I founded and found one hundred and forty fathoms
of water, muddy bottom, mixed with herbs.
The fketch of thefe iflands was taken by fome Danifh engineers, who drew the map
of Iceland. The iflanders relate that they formerly confifted of nine; that they were
no more than four leagues from the main ifland, and that they were fwallowed up dur-
ing an earthquake : what is certain refpecting them is, that they are noticed in all maps,
and that there now remains no veltige of them, their former refidence being that part
of the coaft where now is the greateft depth of water. It is not more difficult to ima-
gine that thefe iflands may have been f{wallowed up by an earthquake, or owing to
fubterrancous fires, than to conceive, as does a celebrated naturalift *, that Iceland itfelf£
* Egerhardus Ola, de Igne Subterraneo, ‘page 14.
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