The discovery of America by Christopher Columbus in 1492 had given rise to a theory that a vast continent known as Terra Australis existed in the South, and Portuguese and Spanish ships had made report from time to time of this southern land. It was to confirm or dispel this belief that the voyage of Dirk Hartog was made.
For many months after leaving Amsterdam we sailed south, touching at some islands to obtain vegetable food and replenish our water-casks. Worn out with hardship, our crew more than once showed signs of mutiny. Sometimes for weeks together we lay becalmed in the tropics, when the air hung like a pall of vapour from the sky, and the pitch boiled and blistered in the seams of the deck-planks. In other seasons we were driven by storm and stress. But at length, in spite of every obstacle, an unbroken coast stretched before us far as the eye could reach. For three days we sailed past verdure-covered hills, white, sandy beaches, and bluff headlands, until Hartog felt assured the Great South Continent was at last in very truth before him.
The day upon which Hartog determined to land was bright and fine; the place a sandy beach upon which the waves broke in frothy spume. We were all keen to be ashore after so long a spell of the sea, and I reckoned myself in luck to be chosen as one of the boat's crew to land the captain.
"Let Peter come," said Hartog when the boat was alongside. "I would have him engrave a plate to be set in some safe place, so that it may be known that I, Dirk Hartog, landed here, to any who may come after me."
When we had come to the shore Hartog, taking the boat's crew with him, set off inland, leaving me to my work. The plate was soon finished, when I fastened it to a rock out of reach of the waves.
It bore the following inscription:
"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."
I engraved the date upon which the ship was to sail according to directions given me by the captain, though whether the "Endraght" did sail at that time I cannot say, by reason of an adventure which befell me.