The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606-1765 | Page 6

period. Besides this, the English navigator Dampier and
afterwards Captain Cook now began to inscribe their names on the rolls
of history, and those names quite legitimately outshine those of the
Dutch navigators of the eighteenth century. The palmy days of Dutch
discovery fell in the seventeenth century.
In some such fashion the history of the Dutch wanderings and

explorations on the coasts of Australia might be divided into
chronological periods. The desire of being clear has, however, led me
to adopt another mode of treatment in this Introduction: I shall one after
another discuss the different coast-regions discovered and touched at by
the Netherlanders.
III.
THE NETHERLANDERS IN THE GULF OF CARPENTARIA[*]
[* As regards the period extending from 1595-1644, see also my Life of
Tasman, Ch. XII, pp. 88ff.]
We may safely say that the information concerning the Far East at the
disposal of those Dutchmen who set sail for India in 1595, was
exclusively based on what their countryman JAN HUYGEN VAN
LINSCHOTEN, had told them in his famous Itinerario. And as regards
the present Australia this information amounted to little or nothing.
Unacquainted as he was with the fact that the south-coast of Java had
already been circumnavigated by European navigators, VAN
LINSCHOTEN did not venture decidedly to assert the insular nature of
this island. It might be connected with the mysterious South-land, the
Terra Australis, the Terra Incognita, whose fantastically shaped
coast-line was reported to extend south of America, Africa and Asia, in
fact to the southward of the whole then known world. This South-land
was a mysterious region, no doubt, but this did not prevent its
coast-lines from being studded with names equally mysterious: the
charts of it showed the names of Beach [*], the gold-bearing land
(provincia aurifera), of Lucach, of Maletur, a region overflowing with
spices (scatens aromatibus). Forming one whole with it, figured Nova
Guinea, encircled by a belt of islands.
[* That the Dutch identified Beach with the South-land discovered by
them in 1616, is proved by No. XI A of the Documents (p. 14).]
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So far the information furnished by VAN LINSCHOTEN [*]. At the
same time, however, there were in the Netherlands persons who had
other data to go by. In 1597 CORNELIS WIJTFLIET of Louvain
brought out his Descriptionis Plolomaicae augmentum, which among
the rest contained a chart on which not only Java figured as an island,
but which also represented New Guinea as an island by itself, separated
from Terra Australis. The question naturally suggests itself, whether
this chart [**] will justify the assumption that the existence of Torres
Strait was known to WIJTFLIET. I, for one, would not venture to infer
as much, seeing that in other respects this chart so closely reproduces
the vague conjectures touching a supposed Southland found on other
charts of the period, that WIJTFLIET'S open passage between New
Guinea and Terra Australis cannot, I think, be admitted as evidence that
he actually knew of the existence of Torres Strait, in the absence of any
indications of the basis on which this notion of his reposed. Such
indications, however, are altogether wanting: none are found in
WIJTFLIET'S work itself, and other contemporary authorities are
equally silent on the point in question [***].
[* See No. I of the Documents, with charts Nos. 1 and 2.]
[** COLLINGRIDGE, Discovery, p. 219, has a rough sketch of it.]
[*** Cf. also my Life of Tasman, p. 89, and Note 8.]
After this digression let us return to the stand-point taken up by the
North-Netherlanders who first set sail for the Indies in 1595. They
"knew in part" only: they were aware that they knew nothing with
certitude. But their mercantile interests very soon induced them to try
to increase and strengthen their information concerning the regions of
the East. What sort of country after all was this much-discussed
New-Guinea, they began to ask. As early as 1602 information was
sought from the natives of adjacent islands, but these proved to have
"no certain knowledge of this island of Nova Guinea" [*]. The next step
taken was the sending out of a ship for the purpose of obtaining this
"certain knowledge": there were rumours afloat of gold being found in
New Guinea!

[* See No. II of the Documents.]
On the 28th of November 1605 the ship Duifken, commanded by
Willem Jansz., put to sea from Bantam with destination for New
Guinea. The ship returned to Banda from its voyage before June of the
same year. What were the results obtained? What things had been seen
by Willem Jansz. and his men? The journal of the Duifken's voyage has
not come down to us, so that we are fain to infer its results from other
data, and fortunately such data are not wanting. An English