Part 2

In 1859 R. H. MAJOR brought out his well-known book Early Voyages to Terra Australis, now called Australia, containing translations of some of the archival pieces and of other documents pertaining to the subject. And though, from P. A. LEUPE'S work, entitled De Reizen der Nederlanders naar het Juidland of Nzeuw-Holland in de 17e en 18e eeuw, published in 1868, and from a book by L. C. D. Van Dijk, brought out in the same year in which MAJOR'S work appeared, and entitled Twee togten naar de golf van Carpentaria; though, I say, from these two books it became evident that MAJOR'S work was far from complete, still it cannot be denied that he had given a great deal, and what he had given, had in the English translation been made accessible also to those to whom Dutch was an unknown tongue. This circumstance could not but make itself felt in my treatment of the subject, since it was quite needless to print once more in their entirety various documents discussed by MAJOR. There was the less need for such republication in cases which would admit of the results of Dutch exploratory voyages being exhibited in the simplest and most effective way by the reproduction of charts made in the course of such voyages themselves: these charts sometimes speak more clearly to the reader than the circumstantial journals which usually, though not always, are of interest for our purpose only by specifying the route followed, the longitudes and latitudes taken, and the points touched at by the voyagers. These considerations have in some cases led me only to mention certain documents, without printing them in full, and the circumstance that my Tasman publication has been brought out in English, will sufficiently account for the absence from this work of the journal of Tasman's famous expedition of 1642/3.[*]

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The documents, here either republished or printed for the first time, are all of them preserved in the State Archives at the Hague[*], unless otherwise indicated. They have been arranged under the heads of the consecutive expeditions, which in their turn figure in chronological order. This seemed to me the best way to enable readers to obtain a clear view of the results of the exploratory voyages made along the coasts of Australia by the Netherlanders of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

For this and this only, was the object I had in view in selecting the materials for the present work: once more, as completely and convincingly as I could, to set forth the part borne by the Netherlanders in the discovery of the fifth part of the world. I have not been actuated by any desire to belittle the achievements of other nations in this field of human activity. The memorial volume here presented to the reader aims at nothing beyond once more laying before fellow-countrymen and foreigners the documentary evidence of Dutch achievement in this field; perhaps I may add the wish that it may induce other nations to follow the example here given as regards hitherto unpublished documents of similar nature. Still, it would be idle to deny that it was with a feeling of national pride that in the course of this investigation I was once more strengthened in the conviction that even at this day no one can justly gainsay MAJOR'S assertion on p. LXXX of his book, that "the first authenticated discovery of any part of the great Southland" was made in 1606 by a Dutch schip the Duifken. All that is asserted regarding a so-called previous discovery of Australia has no foundation beyond mere surmise and conjecture. Before the voyage of the ship Duifken all is an absolute blank.

II.

CHRONOLOGICAL SURVEY OF THE DUTCH DISCOVERIES ON THE MAINLAND COAST OF AUSTRALIA.

If one would distribute over chronological periods the voyages of discovery, both accidental and of set purpose, made by the Netherlanders on the mainland coast of Australia, it might be desirable so to adjust these periods, that each of them was closed by the appearance in this field of discovery and exploration, of ships belonging to other European nations.

The first period, extending from 1595 to 1606, would in that case open with the years 1595-6, when JAN HUYGEN VAN LINSCHOTEN, in his highly remarkable book entitled Itinerario, imparted to his countrymen what he knew about the Far East; and it would conclude with the discovery of Torres Strait by the Spaniards in 1606, a few months after Willem Jansz. in the ship Duifken had discovered the east-coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria, the latter discovery forming the main interest of this period.

The second period may be made to extend from 1606 to 1622, i.e. from the appearance of the Spaniards on the extreme north-coast of the fifth part of the world, to the year in which the English ship Trial was dashed to pieces on a rock to westward of the west-coast of Australia; the discovery of this west-coast by the Dutch in and after 1616, and of the south-western extremity of the continent in 1622, constituting the main facts of the period.

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We next come to the palmiest period of Dutch activity in the discovery of Australia (1622-1688), terminating with the first exploratory voyage of importance undertaken by the English, when in 1688 William Dampier touched at the north-west coast of Australia. This period embraces the very famous, at all events remarkable, voyages of Jan Carstensz (1623), of Pool and Pieterszoon (1636), of Tasman (1642-1644), of Van der Wall (1678), etc.

The last period with which we wish to deal, lies between Dampier's arrival and Cook's first visit to these regions (1688-1769), and is of secondary importance so far as Dutch discoveries are concerned. We may just mention Willem de Vlamingh's voyage of 1696-1697, and Maerten van Delft's of 1705; Gonzal's expedition (1756) is not quite without significance, but the results obtained in these voyages will not bear comparison with those achieved by the expeditions of the preceding period. Besides this, the English navigator Dampier and afterwards Captain Cook now began to inscribe their names on the rolls of history, and those names quite legitimately outshine those of the Dutch navigators of the eighteenth century. The palmy days of Dutch discovery fell in the seventeenth century.

In some such fashion the history of the Dutch wanderings and explorations on the coasts of Australia might be divided into chronological periods. The desire of being clear has, however, led me to adopt another mode of treatment in this Introduction: I shall one after another discuss the different coast-regions discovered and touched at by the Netherlanders.

III.

THE NETHERLANDERS IN THE GULF OF CARPENTARIA[*]

We may safely say that the information concerning the Far East at the disposal of those Dutchmen who set sail for India in 1595, was exclusively based on what their countryman JAN HUYGEN VAN LINSCHOTEN, had told them in his famous Itinerario. And as regards the present Australia this information amounted to little or nothing.

Unacquainted as he was with the fact that the south-coast of Java had already been circumnavigated by European navigators, VAN LINSCHOTEN did not venture decidedly to assert the insular nature of this island. It might be connected with the mysterious South-land, the Terra Australis, the Terra Incognita, whose fantastically shaped coast-line was reported to extend south of America, Africa and Asia, in fact to the southward of the whole then known world. This South-land was a mysterious region, no doubt, but this did not prevent its coast-lines from being studded with names equally mysterious: the charts of it showed the names of Beach [*], the gold-bearing land (provincia aurifera), of Lucach, of Maletur, a region overflowing with spices (scatens aromatibus). Forming one whole with it, figured Nova Guinea, encircled by a belt of islands.

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So far the information furnished by VAN LINSCHOTEN [*]. At the same time, however, there were in the Netherlands persons who had other data to go by. In 1597 CORNELIS WIJTFLIET of Louvain brought out his Descriptionis Plolomaicae augmentum, which among the rest contained a chart on which not only Java figured as an island, but which also represented New Guinea as an island by itself, separated from Terra Australis. The question naturally suggests itself, whether this chart [**] will justify the assumption that the existence of Torres Strait was known to WIJTFLIET. I, for one, would not venture to infer as much, seeing that in other respects this chart so closely reproduces the vague conjectures touching a supposed Southland found on other charts of the period, that WIJTFLIET'S open passage between New Guinea and Terra Australis cannot, I think, be admitted as evidence that he actually knew of the existence of Torres Strait, in the absence of any indications of the basis on which this notion of his reposed. Such indications, however, are altogether wanting: none are found in WIJTFLIET'S work itself, and other contemporary authorities are equally silent on the point in question [***].

After this digression let us return to the stand-point taken up by the North-Netherlanders who first set sail for the Indies in 1595. They "knew in part" only: they were aware that they knew nothing with certitude. But their mercantile interests very soon induced them to try to increase and strengthen their information concerning the regions of the East. What sort of country after all was this much-discussed New-Guinea, they began to ask. As early as 1602 information was sought from the natives of adjacent islands, but these proved to have "no certain knowledge of this island of Nova Guinea" [*]. The next step taken was the sending out of a ship for the purpose of obtaining this "certain knowledge": there were rumours afloat of gold being found in New Guinea!

On the 28th of November 1605 the ship Duifken, commanded by Willem Jansz., put to sea from Bantam with destination for New Guinea. The ship returned to Banda from its voyage before June of the same year. What were the results obtained? What things had been seen by Willem Jansz. and his men? The journal of the Duifken's voyage has not come down to us, so that we are fain to infer its results from other data, and fortunately such data are not wanting. An English ship's captain was staying at Bantam when the Duifken put to sea, and was still there when the first reports of her adventures reached the said town. Authentic documents of 1618, 1623, and 1644 are found to refer to her voyage. Above all, the journal of a subsequent expedition, the one commanded by Carstensz. in 1623, contains important particulars respecting the voyage of his predecessors in 1605-6. [*]

On the basis of these data we may safely take for granted the following points. The ship Duifken struck the south-west coast of New Guinea in about 5° S. Lat., ran along this coast on a south-east course [*], and sailed past the narrows now known as Torres Strait. Did Willem Jansz. look upon these narrows as an open strait, or did he take them to be a bay only? My answer is, that most probably he was content to leave this point altogether undecided; seeing that Carstensz. and his men in 1623 thought to find an "open passage" on the strength of information given by a chart with which they had been furnished. [**] This "open passage" can hardly refer to anything else than Torres Strait. But in that case it is clear that Jansz. cannot have solved the problem, but must have left it a moot point. At all events he sailed past the strait, through which a few months after him Luiz Vaez de Torres sailed from east to west.

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Jansz. next surveyed the east-coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria as far as about 13° 45'. To this point, the farthest reached by him, he gave the name of Kaap-Keerweer [Cape Turn-again]. That skipper Jansz. did not solve the problem of the existence or non-existence of an open passage between New Guinea and the land afterwards visited by him, is also proved by the circumstance that even after his time the east-coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria was also called New Guinea by the Netherlanders. Indeed, throughout the 17th and 18th centuries the Dutch discoverers continued in error regarding this point. They felt occasional doubts on this head [*] it is true, but these doubts were not removed.

The Managers of the E.I.C. did not remain content with this first attempt to obtain more light [*] as regards these regions situated to eastward, the Southland-Nova Guinea as they styled it, using an appellation characteristic of their degree of knowledge concerning it. But it was not before 1623 that another voyage was undertaken that added to the knowledge about the Gulf of Carpentaria: I mean the voyage of the ships Pera and Arnhem, commanded by Jan Carstensz. and Willem Joosten van Colstjor or Van Coolsteerdt. [**]

On this occasion, too, the south-west coast of New Guinea was first touched at, after which the ships ran on on an eastern course. Torres Strait was again left alongside, and mistaken for a Drooge bocht,[*] "into which they had sailed as into a trap," and the error of New Guinea and the present Australia constituting one unbroken whole, was in this way perpetuated. The line of the east-coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria, "the land of Nova Guinea", was then followed up to about 17° 8' (Staten river), whence the return-voyage was undertaken [**]. Along this coast various names were conferred. [***]

In the course of the same expedition discovery was also made of Arnhemsland on the west-coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria, and almost certainly also of the so-called Groote Eyland or Van der Lijns island (Van Speultsland) [*] The whole of the southern part of the gulf remained, however, unvisited.

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