_Daily Register of Batavia._
October 1636.
The 6th do.
This day in the afternoon there arrived here from Amboyna the Yacht Cleyn
Wesel, having on board the subcargo Pieter Pietersen, who...after the
lamentable assassination of Commander Gerrit Thomasz Pool on the coast of
Nova Guinea, had succeeded to the latter's office, and with the Yachts
Cleen Amsterdam and Wesel had returned to Amboyna by way of Banda,
reporting in substance as follows, both by word of mouth and by the
journal kept during the voyage and the Resolutions duly registered,
touching what happened in the course of the expedition, to wit...
On the 6th of June [they came to anchor] before the native village of
Taranga at the south-western extremity of Arouw, in order...to provide
themselves with certain necessaries...
On the 9th of June, being duly revictualled, he had set sail again from
the said native village of Taranga, shaping his course to southward in
order to endeavour to get to eastward by some means or other, so as to
accomplish his ordained voyage; but when he had got to southward as far
as the 11th degree of latitude, he had not only found and met with the
east- and south-east-winds blowing constantly with great vehemence and
hollow seas, but had also come upon a new land; in such fashion that,
seeing no chance of getting to eastward for the accomplishment of his
voyage, since such voyage will have to take place in the beginning of the
western monsoon, he resolved with his council to give up further
investigations to eastward, to explore and survey the situation of the
newly discovered Van Diemensland, also called Arnhems or Speultsland,
and, having gathered the required information, to run northward again for
the purpose of obtaining perfect knowledge of the islands of Timor and
Tenember; and all this having been duly effected, to return to Banda etc.
In conformity with this resolution the said Pieter Pietersen has surveyed
the newly discovered land for the space Of 20 miles from East to West; he
has seen many fires and frequent clouds of smoke, but no natives, houses,
prows or fruit-trees, although he has paddled close along the shore with
an orangbay, and gone ashore in sundry places, finding the land wild and
barren; wherefore, not having been able to come to parley with any of the
inhabitants, on the 20th of June, as previously resolved upon, he ran to
the north from a certain Red point jutting out into the sea to northward,
where the land falls off abruptly to the west, for the purpose of making
the islands of Timor and Tenember...
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