DIEMEN'S LAND.
On the 24th of the same month, being in the latitude of 42 degrees 25
minutes south, and in the longitude of 163 degrees 50 minutes, I
discovered land, which lay east-south-east at the distance of ten miles,
which I called Van Diemen's Land. The compass pointed right towards this
land. The weather being bad, I steered south and by east along the
coast, to the height of 44 degrees south, where the land runs away east,
and afterwards north-east and by north. In the latitude of 43 degrees 10
minutes south, and in the longitude of 167 degrees 55 minutes, I anchored
on the 1st of December, in a bay, which I called the Bay of Frederic
Henry. I heard, or at least fancied I heard, the sound of people upon
the shore; but I saw nobody. All I met with worth observing was two
trees, which were two fathoms or two fathoms and a half in girth, and
sixty or sixty-five feet high from the root to the branches: they had cut
with a flint a kind of steps in the bark, in order to climb up to the
birds' nests: these steps were the distance of five feet from each other;
so that we must conclude that either these people are of a prodigious
size, or that they have some way of climbing trees that we are not used
to; in one of the trees the steps were so fresh, that we judged they
could not have been cut above four days.
The noise we heard resembled the noise of some sort of trumpet; it seemed
to be at no great distance, but we saw no living creature
notwithstanding. I perceived also in the sand the marks of wild beasts'
feet, resembling those of a tiger, or some such creature; I gathered also
some gum from the trees, and likewise some lack. The tide ebbs and flows
there about three feet. The trees in this country do not grow very
close, nor are they encumbered with bushes or underwood. I observed
smoke in several places; however, we did nothing more than set up a post,
on which every one cut his name, or his mark, and upon which I hoisted a
flag. I observed that in this place the variation was changed to 3
degrees eastward. On December 5th, being then, by observation, in the
latitude of 41 degrees 34 minutes, and in the longitude 169 degrees, I
quitted Van Diemen's Land, and resolved to steer east to the longitude of
195 degrees, in hopes of discovering the Islands of Solomon.