_Daily Register of Batavia, 1657._
[July] the 8th. Late in the evening there arrived in the road-stead here,
and came to anchor, the small flute de Vinck of the Zealand Chamber,
which had sailed [from the Netherlands] on December 24, 1656...she came
hither via the Cape of Good Hope and the South-land...
The skipper further reports that, according to the order and instructions
handed him by Commander [*] Riebeeck, he had touched at the South-land,
but it being the bad monsoon on the said coast, they had found it
impossible to sail along the coast so far {Page 76} as to look after the
wreck and the men of the lost ship den Draeck; for in the night of June 8
(having the previous day seen all signs of land, and the weather being
very favourable) they had come to anchor in 29° 7' S.L., and the
estimated Longitude of 130° 43', in 25 fathom coarse sandy bottom mixed
with coral; the following morning at daybreak they saw the breakers on
the reef at the end of which they were lying at anchor, and on one side
ahead of them, the South-land, which there showed as a low-lying coast
with dunes; upon which they weighed anchor and continued sailing along
the coast in order to keep near the land, which was still in sight the
day following; but the weather began to become so much worse and the
breakers on the coast were so violent, that it was a fearful sight to
behold, upon which they shaped their course a little more to seaward. On
the 10th and 11th they kept sailing along the coast in 40 or 50 fathom,
but seeing their chances of touching at the coast this time get less and
less, and the weather continuing very unruly with violent storms of
thunder and lightning, they resolved to keep off the coast, and drifted
on without sail. On the 12th they made small sail, the wind continuing to
blow from the S. and S.S.W., and also from the S.S.E., and shaped their
course for Batavia...
[* Of the Cape of Good Hope.]