DISCOVERY OF NEW HOLLAND--TASMAN ORDERED TO SURVEY THE
ISLAND--DISCOVERY OF VAN DIEMEN'S LAND--OF NEW ZEALAND--MURDERERS'
BAY--THE FRIENDLY ISLANDS--THE FEEJEES--NEW BRITAIN--AN EARTHQUAKE AT
SEA--A COPIOUS LANGUAGE--CIRCUMNAVIGATION OF NEW HOLLAND--RETURN TO
BATAVIA--RESULTS OF THE VOYAGE--DUTCH OPINIONS OF TASMAN'S MERIT.
The Council of the Dutch East India Company thought proper, in 1642,
to order a complete and precise survey of the lands accidentally
discovered during the previous fifty years by vessels trading between
Holland and Batavia, in Java. These had touched, at intervals, at
numerous points upon the continental island of New Holland,--Hertog at
Endracht's Land in 1616, and De Witt, Van Nuyts, and Carpenter at other
points, somewhat later. It was eminently desirable that a scientific
navigator should visit and render an account of this region, of which
only casual glimpses had thus far been obtained. Captain Abel Jansen
Tasman was intrusted with this duty by Van Diemen, Governor-General of
the Company. He left Batavia in August with two vessels, the Zeehaan
and the Heemskirk, and proceeded towards the south and southeast.
During this portion of the voyage the needle was in such continual
agitation, unwilling to remain in any of the eight points and boxing
the whole compass in twenty-four hours, that Tasman was led to believe
large mines of loadstone to exist in the vicinity. On the 24th of
November he discovered land, and gave to it the name of Van Diemen's
Land,--a name which it has retained, though in honor of its discoverer
it is often, of late years, called Tasmania. He saw no inhabitants,
though he fancied he heard human voices. He noticed two trees, fifteen
feet in girth and sixty feet in height from the ground to the branches.
Up the trunks of these trees steps, five feet apart, had been cut in
the bark. By these the natives, apparently of prodigious size, had
climbed into the foliage and robbed the birds' nests of their eggs.
Though a sound resembling that of a trumpet had been heard, though
tracks of wild beasts were fresh in the sand, and though smoke ascended
from the interior in several places, no living creature was seen.
Tasman set up a post, upon which every man of the company cut his name,
and upon the top of which a flag was hoisted, and then set out in quest
of the Solomon Islands, which he supposed to lie to the east.
On the 13th of September he discovered a high, mountainous country,
to which he gave the name of Staten Land,--Land of the States, [of
Holland.] Its present name is New Zealand. He coasted along the shore
to the northeast, and anchored in a fine bay, though he did not
disembark. The savages, who were shy at first, at last ventured on
board the Heemskirk, in order to trade. Tasman, suspicious of their
intentions, sent a boat with seven men from the Zeehaan, to put the
crew of his consort upon their guard. These seven men, being without
arms, were attacked: three of them were killed, and the other four
forced to swim for their lives. The two vessels opened their fire upon
the canoes of the islanders, and Tasman branded the spot with a name
which still exists upon the charts,--Murderers' Bay.
[Illustration: MURDERERS' BAY.]
On the 21st of January, 1643, he saw three islands, in latitude 21°
south: he named them Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Middlebourg. The
inhabitants were peaceable and friendly, were unacquainted with the use
of weapons, and very skilful in stealing. The natives called Amsterdam
Tonga-Tabou; Rotterdam, Ana-Mocka; and Middlebourg, Eoa. These are now
the principal members of the group known as the Friendly Islands. They
remained unvisited by Europeans from the time of Tasman, in 1643, to
the second voyage of Cook, in 1773,--a space of one hundred and thirty
years. Cook found traditions still existing respecting Tasman's ships;
and a nail was shown him which had been left by the Dutch navigator.
Proceeding to the north and then to the west, Tasman discovered a
group of twenty islands, girt with shoals and sands. He named them
Prince William's Islands and Heemskirk's Shallows. These now form the
eastern portion of the Feejee archipelago. They remained unvisited for
a century and a half, until the people of the Friendly Islands spoke of
them to Cook and his successors and induced them to visit them.
Tasman now feared that the currents and winds had driven him more to
the westward than he had supposed; for he had not seen the sun for
many weeks, and was consequently without reliable observations. He
resolved to make for the north, and then for the western coast of New
Guinea, in order not to be driven to the south of the island and pass
it without seeing it.
[Illustration: NATIVES OF MURDERERS' BAY.]
On the 1st of April, he saw the coast of what he supposed was New
Guinea, but which was in reality New Britain. Here an earthquake
terrified the seamen, for the shock caused them to fear they had
struck upon a rock; but the lead did not reach the bottom. On the
20th, they passed a burning island, noticed by late navigators, and
perceived flames issuing from lofty mountains. The water was full of
shrubs, bamboos, and small trees, carried by the rivers to the sea.
The discharge of fresh water by these rivers was such that it almost
corrected the salt of the ocean. The natives showed Tasman some ginger,
and sold him hogs and cocoanuts. At the island of Moa he found the
inhabitants speaking a language so copious, that they could at once
repeat, intelligibly, the words of any other language. Tasman did not
find it so easy to speak theirs, however, as the letter _r_ occurred
once or more in every syllable. He purchased, for knives made of the
iron hoops of water-casks, six thousand cocoanuts and a hundred bunches
of bananas, or Indian figs.
On the 18th of May, Tasman reached the western extremity of New Guinea,
having sailed entirely round the continent or island of Australia. He
arrived at Batavia, whence he had started, after an absence of ten
months. His expedition was the clearest and most precise of the several
voyages which had been made for the discovery of the Terra Australis
Incognita: few voyages, since that of Magellan, had contributed more
to geographical science; for, by reducing the limits of the Terra
Australis, as he did by circumnavigating the supposed continent, he did
much to rid geography of its most important error.
Tasman made a second voyage in 1644; but his journals and his track
have been completely lost,--probably by design, as the Dutch did
not make geographical researches in the interest of the world, but
exclusively in that of the East India Company. By his second voyage
he is believed to have determined the extent of the great Gulf of
Carpentaria, which so profoundly indents the northern coast of New
Holland. The portion of his discoveries relative to New Zealand and
the Friendly Islands has been completed by Cook; that relative to Van
Diemen's Land by d'Entrecasteaux, in his voyage in search of Lapérouse.
The fragments which remain of Tasman's journals attest his reasoning
powers, his nautical experience, and his unerring judgment. The Dutch
never published his own account of his adventures, and the few extracts
which have become public crept by accident and stealth into later
works and journals of discovery. A Dutch writer thus alludes to the
indifference manifested by his countrymen in regard to Tasman:--"We
do not know when he was born, when he went to India, or when he
returned. In our grand biographical dictionaries, where you will find
every puerile detail respecting such and such musty savant, only known
as a professor at some university or as a quarrelsome skirmisher of
the Republic of Letters, there is no room, it seems, for the first
navigator of his age." The English have proposed of late to substitute
a name of their own for that of Van Diemen's Land; but the appellation
of Tasmania is beginning, as we have said, for evident reasons of
propriety to find a place upon modern charts and maps.
[Illustration: A BUCCANEER.]