The Golden Book of the Dutch Navigators

by Hendrik Willem Van Loon

Van Noort now paid a personal visit to De Weert and asked what he could do to help him. De Weert was much obliged for this offer, and asked for bread enough to last him another four months. Unfortunately Van Noort could not do this. He had still a very long voyage before him, and did not dare to deprive his own men of their supplies. He advised De Weert to go to the island of the penguins and to fill his storeroom with the dried meat of these birds. Meanwhile, much to his regret, he must leave De Weert as soon as possible, for he was in a hurry.

The next day they said farewell to one another for the last time. De Weert took the precautions to leave instructions for the captain of the lost Trouwe. He wrote a letter which was placed inside a bottle, and this bottle was buried at the foot of a high tree. On the tree itself a board was hammered, and on this board a message was painted telling in Dutch where to look for an important document at the foot of the tree. Then the ship sailed to the penguin island, and the thirty men who could do any work at all hunted the fat and lazy birds until they had killed several thousand. It was easy work. The penguins obligingly waited on their nests until they were killed. But the trip to the island almost destroyed the entire expedition. There was only one boat left, and in this boat the men who were not sick had rowed to the shore. They had been careless in fastening her, and a sudden squall caught her and threw her on the rocks. She was badly damaged and could not be used without being repaired, but the men on shore had no tools with which to do any repairing, while those on the ship were so ill that they could not swim to the shore with the necessary hammers and saws. Two entire days were used to get that boat into order with the help of one ax and some pocket-knives, and during those two days the men lived out in the open on the cold shore and lived on raw penguin meat.

The island, among other things, contained material evidences of Van Noort's presence. A dead native, with his hands tied behind his back, was found stretched out upon the sand. In a little hollow in the rocks they discovered a woman who had been wounded by a gunshot. They took good care of the woman, bandaged her wounds, and gave her a pocket-knife. To show her gratitude, she told De Weert of another island where there were even more penguins. The next week was spent on this island, and now the men had plenty of food. But the ship was without a single anchor and had only one leaking lifeboat. With the certainty that he could not land anywhere unless boats were sent for him from shore De Weert decided to return to the coast of Guinea and try to reach home. On the eighteenth of January the Geloof went back upon her track. Two months later the vessel reached the coast of Guinea. This trip back was not very eventful except for one small incident. One of the sailors who was a drunkard had broken into the storeroom and had stolen a lot of rice and several bottles of wine. Theft was one of the things which was punished most severely. Therefore, the man had been condemned to death and was to be hanged. But while he was sitting in the rigging and waiting for somebody to push him into eternity the other members of the crew felt sorry for him and asked their captain to spare his life. At first he refused, but finally he agreed to show clemency if the men would never bother him again with a similar request. The prisoner was allowed to come down from his high perch, and to show his gratitude he broke again into the storeroom that same night. He was a very bad example. As such he was hanged from the yardarm of the highest mast, and his body was dropped into the sea.

The crew, however, were so thoroughly demoralized by this time that even such drastic measures did no good. They continued to pillage the storeroom, and when at last four of them had been detected and had been found guilty, their comrades were so weak that nobody could be found to hang the prisoners properly and they had to be taken home.

In July of the year 1600 the Geloof reached the English Channel, and on the thirteenth of that month she entered the mouth of the Maas. There, within sight of home, one more sailor died. He was number sixty-nine. Only thirty-six men came back to Rotterdam. They were ill and had a story to tell of constant hardships and of terrible disappointments. The great expedition of the two courageous merchants and all their investments were a complete loss. None of the other ships ever came back to Holland. But year after year stragglers from the other four ships reached home and told of the fate of the other three hundred sailors who had taken part in the unfortunate voyage. Some of these reports have come down to us, and we are able to give a short account of the adventures of each ship after that day early in the year 1600 when the Pacific storms had separated them from one another.