That it is impossible to land here with boats or pinnaces, owing to the
clayey and muddy bottom into which a man will sink up to the waist, the
depth of the water being no more than 3 or 4 fathom at 3 or 4 miles'
distance from the land; the land is low-lying and half-submerged, being
quite under water at high tide; it is covered with wild trees, those on
the beach resembling the fir-trees of our country, and seemingly bearing
no fruit; the natives are coal-black like the Caffres; they go about
stark naked, carrying their privities in a small conch-shell, tied to the
body with a bit of string; they have two holes in the midst of the nose,
with fangs of hogs of swordfishes through them, protruding at least three
fingers' breadths on either side, so that in appearance they are more
like monsters than human beings; they seem to be evil-natured and
malignant; their canoes are small and will not hold above 3 of 4 of them
at most; they are made out of one piece of wood, and the natives stand up
in them, paddling them on by means of long oars; their arms are arrows,
bows, assagays and callaways, which they use with great dexterity and
skill; broken iron, parangs and knives are in special demand with them.
The lands which we have up to now skirted and touched at, not only are
barren and inhabited by savages, but also the sea in these parts yields
no other fish than sharks, sword-fishes and the like unnatural monsters,
while the birds too are as as wild and shy as the men.
* * *
In the morning of the 11th, the wind being W.N.W. and the weather fair,
we set sail on a S.S.W. course along the coast in 4, 3Ω and 2Ω fathom
muddy bottom; towards the evening we saw no more land ahead of us, the
farthest extremity falling off quite to eastward, and extending east by
south; we accordingly ran S.S.E., but it was not long before we got into
2 fathom water and even less. We therefore went over to the north, and in
the evening dropped anchor in' fathom, having this day sailed eight miles
to S.S.W.
In the morning of the 12th the wind blew from the N.W.; in the forenoon I
rowed to the land myself with the two pinnaces well-manned and armed, in
order to see if there was anything worth note there; but when we had got
within a musket-shot of the land, the water became so shallow that we
could not get any farther, whereupon we all of us went through the mud up
to our waists, and with extreme difficulty reached the beach, where we
saw a number of fresh human foot-prints; on going a short distance into
the wood, we also saw twenty or more small huts made of dry grass, the
said huts being so small and cramped that a man could hardly get into
them on all fours, from which we could sufficiently conclude that the
natives here must be of small stature, poor and wretched; we afterwards
tried to penetrate somewhat {Page 30} farther into the wood, in order to
ascertain the nature and situation of the country, when on our coming
upon a piece of brushwood, a number of blacks sprang out of it, and began
to let fly their arrows at us with great fury and loud shouts, by which a
carpenter was wounded in the belly and an assistant in the leg: we were
all of us hard pressed, upon which we fired three or four muskets at them
killing one of the blacks stone-dead, which utterly took away their
courage; they dragged the dead man into the wood, and we, being so far
from the pinnaces and having a very difficult path to go in order to get
back to them, resolved to return and row back to the yachts.
(The Valsch Caep is 8 degrees 15 minutes south of the equator and 70
miles S.E. of Aru.)
The The same day at low tide we saw a large sandbank, S.E., S., and S.W.
of us, where we had been with the yacht on the 11th last, the said
sandbank extending fully 4 miles W., S.W. and W. by S. of the land or
foreland; on which account we have in the new chart given to the same the
name of de Valsch Caep [*]; it is in Lat. 8° 15' South, and about 70
miles east of Aru.
[* The South-west point of Prince Frederik Hendrik island.]
* * *