Early Voyages to Terra Australis, Now Called Australia: / A Collection of Documents, and Extracts from Early Manuscript Maps, Illustrative of the History of Discovery on the Coasts of That Vast Island, from the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century to the Time of Captain Cook.

by Richard Henry Major

The weather continuing cold and wet, they resolved to serve out extra rations of rum to each man.

On the 8th, the weather grey and cold. They supposed themselves to be in 31° 47´. The 18th, saw land to the eastward, being about 31° 49´. At sunset they came to anchor under a north-easterly point of the island, half a mile from land.

On the 19th, a boat was put off in the direction of the island; the steersman reported its being well wooded, but that no good landing place had been met with, the coast being surrounded by rocky reefs. Two seals were seen there, also one wild cat, and the excrements of other animals. On the 20th, a boat was sent on shore well manned; the following day several signal-guns were fired, and in the evening the boat returned to the ship, bringing with it a piece of the mast of the Draeck, and again returning to land after taking in a supply of provisions, brought back a part of the round-top, a block, and other trifling objects.

On the 22nd, they again sent to shore. At night it blew hard, the waves running very high. A gun was fired, and a light hung out as a guide to the boat on its return. They ran great risk of driving upon the rocks. At midnight, the cable parting, another anchor was dropped.

On the 23rd, the weather being still boisterous, and they themselves in great distress and nothing seen of the boat, fears were entertained that it might have capsized or been dashed against the rocks. They were afterwards compelled to cut their cable and run out to sea.

On the 27th, they sighted the island again, and ran so near the coast that they might have been seen by a man on the beach. Several guns were fired toward the place where the boat had last gone to land, but neither sign nor sound being observed, it was taken for certain that they had been lost, and resolved that they should sail along the coast toward Batavia. The fire was again seen at dusk close to the sea-line, which they supposed to have been lighted by the crew of the Draeck or the Waeckende Boey, as no such fire had been seen before. A gun was fired, whereupon another fire close to the first became visible. But having neither boat nor schuyt, it was impossible to land and equally so to come to anchor; the bottom being coral-rock.

On the 29th, they found themselves at some distance to the north of the point where the fire was seen. The coast became more level as they proceeded, and they sailed along the shore till sunset, when they again run further out to sea; in the course of the second watch they passed the Tortelduyf cliff, the surf breaking on it being plainly visible.

On the 30th, the weather not permitting them to run close in, they remained at some distance off shore. On the 31st, they were distant five miles from the Dirck Hertogs Reede, and on April 10th, arrived at Java.[^[23]]

From the journal of the above-mentioned Abraham Leeman, steersman of the Waeckende Boey, it appears that they first sighted the Southland on the 22nd of February, 1656, went several times on shore with the boat, and on one occasion, on the 20th of March, having again landed, they went inland in a northerly direction, and in searching along the beach found there pieces of plank, lids of boxes, staves of water-barrels and butter-casks, and other objects of trifling importance. The heat on that day was excessive, so much so that one of the men fainted. They also found similar planks, staves, etc., in an enclosure. They then encountered a very heavy sea, which prevented their returning on board their vessel, and were obliged to sail along the cliffs in the utmost peril. Owing to the dangerous nature of the coast they were obliged to keep themselves alive by eating seals’ flesh, gulls, etc., and, from want of fresh water, they were compelled to supply its place by sea-water and their own urine. At last they were compelled to undertake a perilous voyage across the ocean in their little shallop, and at length reached Batavia by way of Mataram and Japara.

Moreover the General and Council recount, in their general letter of the 14th of December, 1658, that the fly-boat Elburg, when on its way hence, had come upon the Southland in 31½° latitude, and had been obliged, on account of wind and the heavy sea, to anchor about two miles and a half off the coast in twenty-two fathoms water, not without great danger. Twelve days afterwards they again got into open sea, and in latitude 33° 14´ found a commodious anchorage under a projecting corner of the island in twenty fathoms water. The skipper, steersman, with the sergeant and six soldiers went ashore, and found three black men round a fire, dressed in skins, like the natives of the Cape of Good Hope. They could not, however, get to speak to them. Three small hammers were also found there, with wooden handles and heads of hard stone, fastened to the stem by a sort of gum-lack, strong enough to break a man’s skull. A little further inland stood some huts, but no more men were seen. In several places they found fresh water, and here and there a great quantity of this gum. The small hammer brought here was found, when rubbed, to be of an agreeable odour and of a reddish colour.