[* As regards the period extending from 1595-1644, see also my Life of
Tasman, Ch. XII, pp. 88ff.]
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.
[* That the Dutch identified Beach with the South-land discovered by them
in 1616, is proved by No. XI A of the Documents (p. 14).]
{Page v}
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
[***].
[* See No. I of the Documents, with charts Nos. 1 and 2.]
[** COLLINGRIDGE, Discovery, p. 219, has a rough sketch of it.]
[*** Cf. also my Life of Tasman, p. 89, and Note 8.]
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!
[* See No. II of the Documents.]
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. [*]
[* See pp. 28, 42, 43, 45 _infra_. I trust that these data will go far to
remove COLLINGRIDGE'S doubt (Discovery p. 245) as to whether the ship
Duifken sailed farther southward than 8° 15'.]
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.
[* As regards the names given on this expedition to various parts of this
coast, see my Life of Tasman, pp. 90-91, and chart No. 3 on p. 5
_infra_.]
[** See pp. 47, 66 _infra_.]
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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.
[* See _inter alia_ a report of a well-known functionary of the E.I.C.,
G. E. RUMPHUS, dated after 1685 in LEUPE Nieuw-Guinea, p. 86: "The Drooge
bocht [shallow bay], where Nova-Guinea is surmised to be cut off from the
rest of the Southland by a passage opening into the great South-Sea,
though our men have been unable to pass through it owing to the shallows,
so that it remains uncertain whether this strait is open on the other
side."]
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. [**]
[* See pp. 6, 7-8, 13 and note 2 _infra_.]
[** See the Documents under No. XIV (pp. 21 ff.), and especially chart
No. 7 on p. 46.]
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. [***]
[* As regards the attempts to survey and explore this shallow water, see
_infra_ pp. 33-34]
[** See p. 37 below.]
[*** As regards this, see especially the chart on p. 46.--Cf. my Life of
Tasman, pp. 99-100.]
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.
[* See my Life of Tasman, pp. 101-102; and pp. 47-48 below.]
{Page vii}
The honour of having first explored this part of the gulf in his second
famous voyage of 1644 is due to our countryman Abel Janszoon Tasman
together with Frans Jacobszoon Visscher and his other courageous
coadjutors in the ships Limmen Zeemeeuw and Brak. [*] Abel Tasman's
passagie [course] of 1644 lay again along the south-west coast of New
Guinea; again also Tasman left unsolved the problem of the passage
through between New Guinea and Australia: Torres Strait was again
mistaken for a bay. The east-coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria was next
further explored, and various new names were conferred especially on
rivers on this coast, which most probably got the name of Carpentaria
about this time; of the names then given a great many continue to figure
in modern maps. After exploring the east-coast, Tasman turned to the
south-coast of the gulf. In this latter case the results of the
exploration proved to be less trustworthy afterwards. Thus Tasman mistook
for a portion of the mainland the island now known as Mornington Island;
the same mistake he made as regards Maria Eiland in Limmensbocht. For the
rest however, the coast-line also of the south-coast was delineated with
what we must call great accuracy if we keep in mind the defective
instruments with which the navigators of the middle of the seventeenth
century had to make shift. The west-coast of the gulf, too, was skirted
and surveyed in this voyage; Tasman passed between this coast and the
Groote (Van der Lijn's) eiland.
[* See my Life of Tasman, pp. 115-118, and especially chart No. I of the
Tasman Folio. Much information may also be gathered from chart No. 14 of
the present work, since it registers almost the whole amount of Dutch
knowledge about Australia circa 1700.]
The entire coastline enclosing the Gulf of Carpentaria had accordingly
now been skirted and mapped out. The value of Tasman's discoveries in
this part of Australia directly appears, if we lay side by side, for
instance, the chart of the upper-steersman De Leeuw [*], who formed part
of the voyage of 1623, or Keppler's map of 1630 [**]; and Tasman's chart
of 1644 [***], or Isaac De Graaff's made about 1700 [****], which last
gives a pretty satisfactory survey of the results of Tasman's voyage of
1644 so far as the Gulf of Carpentaria is concerned. Although Tasman's
expedition of 1644 did not yield complete information respecting the
coast-line of the Gulf, and although it is easy to point out
inaccuracies, the additions made by this voyage to our knowledge on this
point are so considerable that we may say with complete justice that
while the discovery of the east-coast of the Gulf is due to Jansz. (1606)
and Carstensz. (1623), it was Tasman who made known the south-coast and
the greater part of the west-coast.
[* No. 7 on p. 46.]
[** No. 6 on p. 10.]
[*** Chart No. I in the Tasman Folio.]
[**** No. 14 below.]
More than a century was to elapse before Dutch explorers again were to
visit the Gulf of Carpentaria. In 1756 the east- and west-coast of it
were visited first by Jean Etienne Gonzal and next by Lavienne Lodewijk
van Assehens [*]. The expedition is of little interest as regards the
surveying of the coast-line, but these explorers got into more frequent
contact with the natives than any of their predecessors--what especially
Gonzal reports on this subject, is certainly worth noting. Gonzal also
first touched at the south-west coast of New Guinea, and next, again
without becoming aware of the real character of Torres Strait, sailed to
the east-coast of the Gulf, skirting the same up to about 13° S. Lat.,
after which he crossed to the west-coast. What he did there is of little
interest. Van Asschen's experiences are of even less importance for our
present purpose. One remark of his, however, is worth noting: he states
namely that he found the east-coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria [**] to be
"fully 12 miles more to eastward" than the charts at his disposal had led
him to believe; and it would really seem to be a fact that Tasman had
placed this coast too far to westward.
[* See No. XXXVI _infra_.]
[** The names there conferred by him on various parts of the coast, may
be sufficiently gathered from Document No. XXXVI.]
{Page viii}