Adventures in Southern Seas: A Tale of the Sixteenth Century

E-text prepared by James Tenison
A Tale of the Sixteenth Century
First published August 1920 by George G. Harrap & Co. Ltd. 39-41 Parker Street, Kingsway, London, W.C.2 Reprinted July 1924 Printed in Great Britain by Neill & Co. Ltd., Edinburgh
In the year 1801 was found by the chief coxswain of the Naturalist (a ship commanded by Captain Hamelin on a voyage of discovery performed by order of the Emperor Napoleon I), at Shark's Bay, on the coast of West Australia, a pewter plate about six inches in diameter, bearing a roughly engraved Dutch inscription, of which the following is a translation:
1616
On the 25th of October arrived here the ship 'Endraght', of Amsterdam; first supercargo Gilles Miebas Van Luck; Captain Dirk Hartog, of Amsterdam. She set sail again on the 27th of the same month. Bantum was second supercargo; Janstins first pilot.
Peter Ecoores Van Bu, in the year 1616.
No connected account of the voyages of Dirk Hartog is extant, but the report of the discovery of this pewter plate suggested the task of compiling a narrative from the records kept by Dutch navigators, in which Dirk Hartog is frequently referred to, and which is probably as correct a history of Hartog's voyages as can be obtained. The aborigines of New Holland, as Australia was then called, judging by the description given of them by Van Bu, the author of the writing on the pewter plate, appear to have been a more formidable race of savages than those subsequently met with by Captain Cook on his landing at Botany Bay, and the dimensions of the tribe among whom Van Bu was held captive were certainly larger than those of the migratory tribes of Australian blacks in more modern times. The sea spider described by Van Bu in his second adventure was probably the octopus, which attains to great size in the Pacific. The hopping animals are doubtless the kangaroos, with which Australians are now familiar.
Captain Dampier, in 1699, first mentions the water serpents referred to by Van Bu. In passing, he says, we saw three water serpents swimming about in the sea, of a yellow colour, spotted with dark brown spots. Next day we saw two water serpents, different in shape from such as we had formerly seen; one very long and as big as a man's leg in girth, having a red head, which I have never seen any before or since.