The Golden Book of the Dutch Navigators

by Hendrik Willem Van Loon

When we realize that the Dutch colonial empire was conquered with and by such men we gain a mighty respect for the leaders whose power of will turned these wild bands of adventurers into valiant soldiers. And when we study the history of our early colonial system we no longer wonder that it was so bad. We are gratefully astonished that it was not vastly worse.

On the tenth of March of the year 1595 the crews had been mustered, the last provisions had been taken on board. Everything was ready for the departure. The riot act was read to the men, for discipline was maintained by means of the gallows and the flogging-pole, and after a great deal of gunpowder had been wasted upon salutes the ships sailed to the Texel. Here they waited in the roads for two weeks, and then with a favorable wind from the north set sail for the English Channel. All this and the rest of the story which is to follow we have copied from the diary of Frank van der Does, who was on board the Hollandia and who was one of the few officers who got safely home.

During the first three weeks it was plain sailing. On the twenty-sixth of April the fleet reached one of the Cape Verde Islands. Some of the wild goats of the islands that had so greatly impressed Linschoten were caught and divided among the sailors, making a very welcome change in their eternal diet of salted meat. Another week went by, and two Portuguese freighters, loaded to the gunwales, appeared upon the horizon. Kindly remember that this was only a few years after the desperate struggle with Spain and while yet any ship that might be considered popish was a welcome prize. Therefore the instinct of all the Hollanders on board demanded that this easy booty be captured. These ships, so the men reasoned, would provide more profit than an endless, dreary trip to an unknown Indian sea; but for once discipline prevailed. The commanders were under strict order not to do any freebooting on their own account. On the contrary, they must make friends wherever they could. Accordingly, the Dutch admiral gave the Portuguese a couple of hams, and the Portuguese returned the favor with a few jars of preserved fruit. Then the two squadrons separated, and the Dutch fleet went southward.

In the end of June the ships passed the equator, and scurvy made its customary appearance among the men. The suspicion that scurvy might have something to do with the lack of certain elements in the daily food had begun to dawn upon the sailors of that time. Of course it was quite impossible for them to carry fresh solid food in their little and ill-ventilated ships, but they could take fluids. Water was never drunk by sailors of that day. It spoiled too easily in the primitive tanks. Beer was the customary beverage. This time, however, a large supply of wine had been taken along, and when they reached the tropics each of the sailors got a pint of wine per day as a remedy or, rather, a preventive of the dreaded disease. But it increased rapidly, and with a feeling of deep relief the sailors welcomed the appearance of wild birds, which indicated that the Cape of Good Hope must be near. Early in August they sailed past the southern point of the African continent, and dropped anchor in a small bay near the spot where now the town of Port Elizabeth is situated. Here our friend Van der Does was sent on shore with two boats to find fresh water. His first attempt at a landing did not succeed. The boats got into a very heavy surf. They were attacked by a couple of playful whales, and on the shore excited natives, reputed to be cannibals, danced about in gleeful anticipation. A storm broke loose, and for almost an entire day the men floated helplessly on the angry waves. When at last they returned to the ship the other sailors had already given them up as lost.

The next day the weather was more favorable, and they managed to reach the shore, where they made friends with the natives. According to the description, these must have been Hottentots. They made a very bad impression. The Hottentot, then as now, was smallish and very ugly, with a lot of black hair that looked as if it had been singed. In short, in the language of the sixteenth century they looked like people who had been hanging on the gallows for a long time and had shriveled into the leathern caricature of a man. A dirty piece of skin served them as clothing, and their language sounded to the Dutch sailors like the cackling of a herd of angry turkeys. As for their manners, they were beastly. When they killed an animal, they ate it raw, both insides and outsides. Perhaps they stopped long enough to scrape some of the dirt off with their fingers, but usually they did not take the trouble to cook their food. Furthermore—this, however, so far was only a suspicion—they were said to be cannibals and ate their own kind.

The happy Hottentot still lived in the Stone Age, and these first European traders were a veritable godsend to a people obliged to hunt with stone arrows. The expedition did not fail to discover this, and for a few knives and a few simple iron objects they received all the cows and sheep they wanted. And, to our great joy, we get our first glimpse of that most amusing and clownish of all living creatures, the penguin. The penguin has risen in the social scale of wild birds since he has become one of the chief attractions of the moving-pictures. In the year 1595 he was every bit as silly and absurd an animal as he is now, when he wanders forth to make friends with the sailors of our South Polar expeditions. Van der Does hardly knew what to make of this strange creature which has wings, yet cannot fly, and whose feathers look like the smooth skin of a seal. Strangest of all, this wild animal was found to be so tame that the sailors had to box their ears before they could force a narrow path through the dense crowds of excited birds.

On the eleventh of August the ships left the safe harbor. Their original plan had been to cross the Indian Ocean from this point and to make directly for the Indian islands, but there had been so much illness among the crew that the plan had to be given up. They decided to call at Madagascar first of all. There they hoped to find an abundance of fresh fruit and to spend some weeks in which to allow the sick people to recover completely before they ventured, into the actual domains of the Portuguese.

Unfortunately, the navigating methods of that day were still very primitive. A profound trust in the Lord made up for a lack of knowledge of the compass. The good Lord in his infinite mercy usually guided the ship until it reached some shore or other. Then the navigator set to work and wormed his way either upward or downward until at last he struck the spot which he had been trying to reach all the time and thanked divine Providence for his luck. The particular bay renowned for its fresh water and vegetables, that the expedition hoped to reach was situated on the east coast of Madagascar, but a small gale blew the ships to the westward. They could not reach the southern cape, and they were forced to take whatever the western coast could provide. That was little enough. There was an abundance of wild natives. Upon one occasion the natives caught a landing party and stripped them of all their arms and clothes before they allowed them to return to their ships. But there were no wild fruit-trees, and upon these now depended the lives of the members of the expedition.