V.
THE NETHERLANDERS ON THE WEST- AND SOUTH-WEST COAST OF AUSTRALIA
In the year 1616 the Dutch ship Eendracht, commanded by Dirk Hartogs on her voyage from the Cape of Good Hope to Batavia unexpectedly touched at "divers islands, but uninhabited" and thus for the first time surveyed part of the west-coas of Australia[*]. As early as 1619 this coast, thus accidentally discovered, was known by the name of Eendrachtsland or Land van de Eendracht. The vaguenes of the knowledge respecting the coast-line then discovered, and its extent, is not unaptly illustrated in a small map of the world reproduced as below, and found in {Page x} GERARDI MERCATORIS Atlas sive Cosmographicae Meditationes de Fabrica mundi et fabricati figura. De novo...auctus studio JUDOCI HONDIJ (Amsterodami; Sumptibus Johannis Cloppenburgij. Anno 1632) [**]. If, however, we compare this map of the world with KEPPLER'S map of 1630 [***], we become aware that Hondius has not recorded all that was then known in Europe respecting the light which since 1616 European explorers had thrown on the question of the western coast-line of Australia. In Keppler's map, namely, besides the English discovery of the Trial rocks (1622) [****], and the name "'T Landt van Eendracht" in fat characters, passing from the north to the south, we meet with the following names, which the smaller letters show to have been intended to indicate subordinate parts of Eendrachtsland: Jac. Rommer Revier [*****], Dirck Hartogs ree, F. Houtmans aebrooleus and Dedells lant. What is more, Keppler's map also exhibits the south-west coast of Australia.
[* See on this point the Documents sub No. VII (pp. [8f.]).--It will hardly be denied that these pieces of evidence may justly be called "documents immediately describing" Hartogs's dicsovery.]
[** For my knowledge of this remarkable atlas I am indebted to Mr. ANTON MENSING, member of the firm of Messrs. Frederik Muller and Co., of Amsterdam. These gentlemen kindly enabled me to reproduce this chart for the present work. I received it too late to allow of its being placed among the charts accompanying the various documents.]
[*** See Chart No. 6 on p. [10] below.]
[**** See under No. XIII (p. [17]) below.]
[***** See on this point p. [54] infra (No. XXII A and note 3).]
No. 18. Typus orbis terrarum uit GERARDI MERCATORIS Atlas...De Novo...emendatus...studio JUDOCI HONDIJ, 1632.
Whence all those names? The answer to this question, and at the same time various other new features, are furnished by the chart of Hessel Gerritsz. of 1627 [*] and by the one dated 1618 [**], in which corrections have been introduced after date. The 1627 chart is specially interesting. Gerritsz., at the time cartographer in ordinary to the E.I.C., has "put together this chart of the Landt van d'Eendracht from the journals and drawings of the Steersmen", which means that he availed himself of authentic data [***]. He acquitted himself of the task to admiration, and has given a very lucid survey of the (accidental) discoveries made by the Dutch on the west-coast of Australia. In this chart of 1627 the Land of d'Eendracht takes up a good deal of space. To the north it is found bounded by the "Willemsrivier", discovered in July 1618 by the ship Mauritius, commanded by Willem Janszoon [****]. According to the chart this "river" is in about 21° 45' S. Lat., but there are no reliable data concerning this point. If we compare Hessel Gerritsz's chart with those on which about 1700 the results of Willem De Vlamingh's expedition of 1696-7 were recorded [*****] we readily come to the conclusion that the ship Mauritius must have been in the vicinity of Vlaming Head (N.W. Cape) on the Exmouth Gulf. From Willem Janszoon's statements it also appears that on this occasion in 22° an "island (was) discovered, and a landing effected." The island extended N.N.E. and S.S.W. on the west-side. The land-spit west of Exmouth Gulf may very possibly have been mistaken for an island. From this point then the Eendrachtsland of the old Dutch navigators begins to extend southward. To the question, how far it was held to extend, I answer that in the widest sense of the term ('t Land van Eendracht or the South-land, it reached as far as the South-coast, at all events past the Perth of our day) [******]. In a more restricted sense it extended to about 25° S.' Lat. In the latter sense it included the entrance to Shark Bay, afterwards entered by Dampier, and Dirk Hartogs island, likewise discovered by Dirk Hartogs.
[* No. 4 on p. [9] infra.]
[** [No. 5] (folding map).]
[*** It is evident that he did not use all the data then available. Thus, for instance, he left unused those furnished by the Zeewolf (No. VIII, pp. [10] ff. below), and those of the ship Leiden (No. XV, p. 49).]
[**** See the Documents under No IX (pp. [12] f.).]
[***** [Nos. 13 and 14]]
[****** Chart [No. 14]]
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More to southward we find in the chart of 1627 I. d'Edels landt, made in July 1619 by the ships Dordrecht and Amsterdam, commanded by Frederik De Houtman and Jacob Dedel [*]. To the north of Dedelsland the coast is rendered difficult of access by reefs,the so-called (Frederik De) Houtmans-Abrolhos (now known as the Houtman Rocks), also discovered on this occasion [**]. To the south, in about 32° S. Lat. [***] Dedelsland is bounded by the Landt van de Leeuwin, surveyed in 1622 [****]. Looking at the coast more closely still, we find in about 29° 30, S. Lat. the name Tortelduyff (Turtle Dove Island), to the south of Houtmans Abrolhos, an addition to the chart dating from about 1624 [*****].
[* See the documents sub No. XI (pp. 14 ff.). If NORDENSKIÖLD had known these documents, he would have withheld the second alinea on p. 199 of his interesting Periplus.--The doubts, also, concerning Frederik De Houtman's share in the discoveries on the west-coast of Australia, expressed by COLLINGRIDGE (Discovery p. 304), CALVERT (Discovery, p. 25), and others, are now likely to be set at rest.]
[** They were then held to lie in 28° 46'. On this point see also the documents of PELSAERT'S shipwreck (No. XXIII, pp. [55] ff).]
[*** About this latitude, between 32° and 33° S. Lat., also De Houtman and Dedel estimated themselves to be, when they first came upon land. They afterwards ran on on a northerly course.]
[**** See the documents sub No. XII (p. [17]).]
[***** See No. XVI (p. [50]) below, and the highly curious charts Nos. [Nos. 16 and 17].]
So much for the highly interesting chart of Hessel Gerritsz of the year 1627. If we compare with it the revised edition of the 1618 chart, we are struck by the increase of our forefathers' knowledge of the south-west coast. This revised edition gives the entire coast-line down to the islands of St. François and St. Pieter (133° 30' E. Long. Greenwich), still figuring in the maps of our day: the Land of Pieter Nuyts, discovered by the ship het Gulden Zeepaard in 1627 [*].
[* See No. XVIII (p. [51]) below.]
North of Willemsrivier, this so-called 1618 chart has still another addition, viz. G. F. De Witsland, discovered in 1628 by the ship Vianen commanded by G. F. De Witt [*]. In this case, too, it is difficult to determine exactly the longitudes between which the coast-line thus designated is situated. [**] But with great distinctness the chart exhibits the chain of islands of which the Monte Bello and tha Barrow islands are the principal, and besides, certain islands of the Dampier Archipelago, afterwards so called after the celebrated English navigator. I would have these observations looked upon as hints towards the more accurate determination of the site of this De Wit's land, and they may be of the more value since the small scale of the chart renders an exact determination of it exceedingly difficult.
[* See No. XXI (p. [54]) below.]
[** See, however, No. [XXI., C.] infra.]
In Gerritsz's chart of 1627, as well as in the so-called 1618 one, we are struck by the fact, that on the west-coast the coast-line shows breaks in various places: De Witt's land is not connected with the coast of Willems-rivier; the coast-line of Eendrachtsland does not run on; there is uncertainty as regards what is now called Shark-bay; the coast facing Houtmans Abrolhos is a conjectural one only; the coast-line facing Tortelduyf is even altogether wanting; Dedelsland and 't Land van de Leeuwin are not marked by unbroken lines. This fragmentary knowledge sufficiently accounts for the fact, that about the middle of the seventeenth century navigators were constantly faced by the problem of the real character of the South-land: was it one vast continent or a complex of islands? And the question would not have been so repeatedly asked, if the line of the west-coast had been more accurately known.
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Tasman and Visscher [*] did a great deal towards the solution of this problem, since in their voyage of 1644 they also skirted and mapped out the entire line of the West-coast of what since 1644 has borne the name of Nieuw-Nederland, Nova Hollandia, or New Holland, from Bathurst Island to a point south of the Tropic of Capricorn. In this case also certain mistakes were committed: they failed, for instance, to recognise the real character of Bathurst Island, which, like Melville Island, they looked upon as forming part of the mainland; but if we make due allowance for the imperfection of their means of observation, we are bound to say that the coast-line has by them been mapped out with remarkable accuracy [**].
[* I pass by certain other exploratory voyages on the westcoast (see e.g. No. [XXIV.] infra, etc.).]
[** Cf. Tasman's chart of 1644 in the Tasman Folio.]
About fifteen years after the west-coast was more accurately mapped out also, to the south of the tropic of Capricorn. In the year 1658 Samuel Volekersen with the ship de Wakende Boei [Floating Buoy], and Aucke Pieters Jonck with the ship Emeloord surveyed a portion of the west-coast, and the charts then made have been preserved [*]. The coast-line from a point near the Tortelduyf down to past Rottenest (the large island on which Volkertsen did not confer a name, preferring to "leave the naming to the pleasure of the Hon. Lord Governor-General") and the present Perth, were surveyed with special care. In the same year the ship Elburg, commanded by Jacob Peereboom, brought in further reports about the Land van de Leeuwin, where she had been at anchor "in Lat. 33° 14' South, under a projecting point" (in Geographe Bay?).
[* See infra No. [XXIX.], pp. 75 ff., and the charts sub No. [XXIX.] E, F and I.]
The surveying of the lines of the west-coast was finally brought to a close by the exploratory voyage of Willem De Vlamingh in 1696-7 with the ships Geelvink, Nijptang, and het Wezeltje. A remarkable chart referring to this voyage, here reproduced [*], as well as the ISAAC DE GRAAFF chart [**] of circa 1700, give an excellent survey of the expedition. The whole coast-line from the so-called Willemsrivier (N.W. Cape) to a point south of Rottenest, Garden-island and Perth, was now mapped out. And that, too, with great accuracy. Thus, for instance, the true situation of the belt of islands enclosing Shark Bay was this time observed with unerring exactitude, and Shark Bay itself actually discovered, though its discovery is usually credited to Dampier (August, 1699).
[* No. [13].]
[* No. [14].]