Tasman overlooked the deep indentation of Geelvink Bay, which makes a jagged peninsula of nearly half Dutch New Guinea; and rounding the Island of Waigiu his ships passed through the Spice Islands to the Island of Buru, where he found himself once more within the limits of Dutch influence. The two vessels safely regained Batavia, where their crews were received with much honour and rejoicing. "God be praised and thanked for this happy voyage. Amen", wrote Tasman at the end of his journal on 15 June, 1643.
In the opinion of the Dutch East India Company Tasman's wonderful voyage was too imperfect in its results to merit their complete approbation, though he and his companions received a reward in money for their achievements as "Southland Navigators". But it was realized by the Council of the Dutch East Indies that the actual configuration and extent of the Southland was very little known on the eastern side, though there remained above all things the important fact that a passage well within the South Temperate Zone existed between the Indian and the Pacific Oceans. In 1644 Tasman and Visscher started on another great voyage of discovery for the special purpose of surveying the regions between what was known of New Guinea and what was already placed on the map as Nieuw Holland, or Nieuw Nederland. This region (New Holland) was only what we now call Western Australia, and was thought perhaps to be an independent island. Eastern Australia, which terminated in Tasmania, was called Zuidland or Southland. If there was a still more easterly Australia it was thought to be united with New Zealand under the name of Nieuw Zeeland, and it was conjectured there might also be a separate island to the south, which in that case would be called Nuytsland. Tasman's first expedition had thrown no light on the products of the countries behind these strips of coast line. All these lands in the south might be of great value, or they might be valueless, consequently much more detailed exploration was necessary. The vessels told off for this expedition "for the true and complete discovery of the Southland" consisted of two large schooners or yachts, the Limmen and the Zeemeeuw (Mew or Seagull), and a much smaller boat, Bracq, called a galliot. On 29 January, 1644, these vessels started, "in the name of God" and under the command of Tasman, assisted by Visscher and other officers, including a draughtsman to make maps of the coast and drawings of any remarkable objects or peoples. Directing his course to the little Banda Islands south of the big island of Ceram, so as to commence his new venture from the westernmost limits of New Guinea, Tasman skirted pretty closely the southern coast of that enormous island, sailing eastwards with the express purpose of finding if it was separated from the mainland of New Holland by a strait of water. In fact—knowing nothing of the previous voyage of Torres—he was in search of the celebrated Torres' Straits, and yet, amazing to relate, though he pushed his ships into the beginning of Torres' Straits he allowed himself to be deceived, by the somewhat numerous islands and islets which dot the waters of this not particularly narrow passage, into believing that the gulf before him was land-locked and not worth further investigations. The strait is in reality about 140 miles wide at its narrowest. Nor is it so thickly covered with islands as to be devoid here and there of far sea horizons, suggesting the existence of wider waters beyond. It is therefore very difficult to understand how Tasman can have allowed himself to be so easly misled. It recalls the similar blunder which so long impeded access to Canada, when Jacques Cartier and others overlooked the Cabot Straits between Cape Breton and Newfoundland, and laboriously sailed all the way north of the last-named territory in order to get into the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
Double Canoe of the Polynesians Simple Outrigger Canoe
THE TWO DUTCH SHIPS UNDER TASMAN'S COMMAND (THE HEEMSKERK AND THE ZEEHAEN) AT ANCHOR IN THE TONGA ISLANDS, PACIFIC NATIVES BRINGING OFF SUPPLIES OF BANANAS
(From a drawing by Tasman)
The rest of Tasman's voyage, consequently, is not of very great interest to us as regards his pioneering work in Australasia. He made a fairly accurate survey of the Gulf of Carpentaria and of the northern coast of Australia (Arnhem Land), and passing to the west connected this up with the West Australian coast, whence he sailed due north to Java.
The rest of his active life was spent in voyages to the Philippine Islands and Indo-China. He got into disgrace on one of these expeditions by losing his temper and trying to hang several of the seamen who had disobeyed orders. For this he was punished in various ways, amongst others by being obliged to resign his position as one of the elders of the Church. Eventually, however, his affairs righted themselves, and he retained the respect of his fellow countrymen in Java till the time of his death, which occurred probably in the year 1659, at Batavia. In his will he remembered the poor people of his native village, Lutjegast, in Friesland, and left them out of his property a sum equivalent to about £10 each.
Why the Dutch should have discontinued their explorations of Australasia after the return of Tasman in 1644 is not easily understood, since their appetite for a colonial empire was enormous. But, so far as records go, no further ships were sent for a considerable time in that direction, and the Dutch interested themselves a good deal more either in the settlement of South Africa or attempts to secure a monopoly of the trade with China and Japan. It should be mentioned, however, that in 1696 an expedition was sent to search for a missing East India Company's ship which had sailed twelve years previously from the Cape of Good Hope for Java, and this expedition, under Commander Willem de Vlamingh, in examining the West Australian coast for traces of the ship, made a far more thorough survey of that region than had been effected by the chance visits of Dutchmen in the early part of the seventeenth century. It penetrated as far south as the Swan River (on which the West Australian capital of Perth now stands); and de Vlamingh thus named the river because on it he saw wonderful black swans, thought until then to be such an impossibility that amongst Latin writers a black swan was regarded as a symbol of improbability.
Previous to de Vlamingh's voyage, however, the West Australian coast had been visited by an English ship in 1688, the Cygnet, a vessel practically manned by pirates, though they bore the more polite designation of buccaneers, and hailed from the coasts of Tropical America, where they had been plundering the Spaniards. On board this ship was a remarkable pioneer, William Dampier, who held the post of supercargo, and who spent all his spare time in examining the natural history and native races of the regions he visited as an associate of the pirates.