De Witt told me that, but for knowing the truth, he could not have believed that the town had ever existed. Luxuriant grass, up to a man’s waist, now grew all over the site. The only relics they had found were two or three of the roughly-made Quadruco swords. We visited the batteries, and De Witt had the two brass cannons conveyed on board his vessel.
“These are your private property, Herr Buys,” he said, “and it is no good leaving them here for the Mongols; the Company will pay you good rix-dollars for them when we reach Batavia.”
Next morning early we sailed, and I said farewell for ever to the bay where I had undergone so many vicissitudes, and to the desolate land of Terra Australis or New Holland, as I now heard it was called.
As De Witt’s discovery-voyage had been on the north coast of the great continent, and he had only been instructed to call at the Quadruco Bay to see how we were progressing, his work was over, and we shaped a straight course to Batavia.
I was cordially welcomed by the Governor, who obtained for me a passage in a homeward-bound ship, and furnished me with letters to influential people in Holland. Having bade good-bye to my many kind friends, I sailed for home.
The voyage was uneventful; and after some months I found myself once more in my native Harlem.
I put up at a tavern and made inquiries as to my family. Alas! I found that a sickness, which had visited the town some years back, had carried off my father, mother, and elder brother—in fact, they had died soon after Hoogstraaten’s visit. My father’s estate, which was somewhat considerable, had descended, in my absence, to my young brother, who was but a child when I left home in the ill-fated Batavia. I turned my steps towards my home and asked for my brother.
I was shown into his private office. I found him a young man with a somewhat hard face, who gazed curiously at me and asked my business.
“I am your brother Diedrich,” I replied, “just returned from Batavia.”
He sprang up from his chair, to welcome me, as I foolishly thought, but it was quite otherwise.