Willem Janszoon Tasman

“ In June 1639 Tasman, along with Matthew Quast, was despatched by Van Diemen, governor-general of the Dutch East Indies, on a voyage to the Western Pacific, which was first directed to the Philippine Islands; part of the coast of Luzon was explored. Sailing east and north Tasman and Quast touched at several of the Bonin Islands, which they were probably the first to discover. ”

“ On the 24th he passed Morghen Islands, and, sailing round New Ireland and along the north coast of New Guinea, he cleared the straits between New Guinea and Jilolo, arriving at Batavia on June 15. after a ten months' voyage. [2] The materials for an account of Tasman's important second voyage in 1644 are extremely scanty; they consist of Tasman's own chart and some fragmentary notes by Burgomaster Witsen in his work (1705) on the migrations of the human race (translated in Dalrymple's collection) . ”

“ These poor creatures seem not accustomed to carry burdens; and I believe one of our ship’s boys, of ten years old, would carry as much as one of their men.” In his description of the natives, he agrees with Tasman in their being “a naked black people, with cixcurly hair, like that of the negroes in Guinea; but he mentions other circumstances which are not mentioned in the note from Tasman.” He describes them as “the most miserable people in the world. The Hottentots compared with them are gentlemen. ”

“ I cannot help remarking upon this part of Captain Tasman’s journal, that it is not easy to conceive, unless he was bound up by leis instructions, why he did not remain some time either at Rotterdam or at Amsterdam Island, but especially at the former; since, perhaps, there is not a place in the world so happily seated, for making new discoveries with ease and safety. He owns that he traversed the whole island, that he found it a perfect paradise, and that the people gave him not the least cause of being diffident in point of security ”

“ Major also found in the British Museum copies of charts and a quantity of MS. describing Tasman's 1644 voyage, which, there is reason to believe, were made from Tasman's originals by one Captain Bowrey in 1688, who had spent fourteen years before that date trading in the Dutch East Indies. These documents are all that have been found, and a diligent search of geographers still leaves undiscovered Tasman's original narrative. The 1688 copies were probably known to Dampier when he sailed in the Roebuck, and he was, likely enough, supplied with specially made duplicates by the naval authorities. ”

“ Tasman found a naked, black people, with curly hair; malicious and cruel, using for arms, bows and arrows, hazeygaeys and kalawaeys. They once came to the number of fify, double armed, dividing themselves into two parties, intending to have surprised the Dutch, who had landed twenty-five men; but the firing of guns frightened them so that they fled. Their prows are made of the bark of trees: their coast is dangerous: there are few vegetables: the people use no houses. ”

“ As for the islands of Horne, they lie nearly in the latitude of 15 degrees, are extremely fruitful, and inhabited by people of a kind and gentle disposition, who readily bestowed on the Hollanders whatever refreshments they could ask. It was no wonder, therefore, that, finding themselves thus distressed, Captain Tasman thought of repairing to these islands, where he was sure of obtaining refreshments, either by fair means or otherwise, which design, however, he did not think fit to put in execution. ”

“ From this document an interesting summary of Dutch exploration can be made. Tasman, in his first voyage, had discovered the island of Van Diemen, which he named after the then Governor of Batavia, but which has since been named Tasmania, after its discoverer. During this first voyage the navigator also discovered New Zealand, passed round the east side of Australia without seeing the land, and on his way home sailed along the northern shore of New Guinea. ”

“ In a map by Van Keulen, published at the close of the seventeenth century, a portion of Tasman’s track with the soundings is given, but this also is without reference to Tasman himself. It has, however, been the good fortune of the editor of the present volume to light upon a document which, in the absence of Tasman’s narrative, and his own original chart, is the next to be desired: viz., an early copy, perhaps from his own chart, with the tracks of his two voyages pricked thereon, and the entire soundings of the voyage of 1644 laid down. A reduction of this chart is here given. It forms Art. ”

“ The first French navigator who came to the fair island was Marion du Fresne. He had heard of the discovery by Tasman, and paid a visit to the spot on which the Dutch had landed, Frederick Henry Bay. He arrived there in two vessels, on the 4th of March, 1772. The French author, Domény de Rienzi, informs us that "the Aborigines came with confidence down to the boats, and remained near the French, with their children and their wives." As this was the first time the Tasmanians had come in contact with Europeans, it is pleasing to record this evidence of their frank cordiality with the strangers. ”

“ Australia and Tasmania possess many specimens of strange animal life; even in the latter, or Van Diemen's Land, are found several species which exist only on that small bit of the earth's surface. Tasmania, which is separated from the southern extremity of Australia by a strait about one hundred and forty miles in width, was first discovered in 1633, by Abel Tasman, a famous Dutch navigator, who supposed it to be a portion of Australia, then known as New Holland. ”

“ The expedition was not purely exploratory. The very practical and hard-headed directors of the Dutch East India Company were never actuated by any adventurous ideals; neither did they believe that the honour of exploration, like the practice of virtue, was it own reward. Profitable dividends were tho chief ends in view.
For this purpose the two vessels were laden with all sorts of goods, under the care and management of a merchant or supercargo. It may be interesting to mention, parenthetically, that Tasman's monthly salary was 80 guilders, or, in English money, £6 13s. ”

“ The next day the chiefs set their men to work to dig larger wells, and the Dutchmen got all the water they wanted. Tasman noted in his journal that the natives here had no knowledge of tobacco or smoking of any kind. Neither men nor women went completely naked (a characteristic feature of the Melanesians) , but wore clothing round the waist, which in the case of the women extended to the knees, and was made of the leaves of trees. ”

“ As proof alone is discovery in science, so only exploration is discovery in geography. For lack of this essential element even well-certified discoveries are apt to be fruitless. Tasman’s frightened glimpse of New Zealand and his more careful coasting of Tasmania left durable marks on both countries, but only in nomenclature. They led to nothing. No Dutch settlement seems ever to have been made south of New Guinea; no northern nationality is more conspicuously absent among the colonizers of the South Seas. ”

“ Their gardens were laid out in regular squares of bananas and other trees, the fruits of which were found very pleasant after the rough voyage. They also manufactured a kind of cloth from the bark of a tree, and altogether their condition was similar to that in which Cook afterwards found them.
They appeared to have no idea of a Supreme Being, but those we term savages are sometimes reticent in expressing their superstitious beliefs to strangers. Tasman notices with curiosity that all the elder women had their little fingers cut from both hands, but the young women had not. ”

“ They appear to live very poorly; go naked; eat yams and other roots."
This fragment of description is meagre enough; but it is all that we can boast of possessing. It is further remarkable that those who have spoken of the part of the coast visited by Tasman in this voyage, have led their readers into a misconception by attributing the discovery of the Gulf of Carpentaria to Carpenter, and of the northern Van Diemen's Land to the governor so named. ”

“ Sir Joseph Banks acquired at the same time a copy of instructions to Tasman, given by the Governor of Batavia in 1644, for a second expedition, and which recapitulated the various voyages of his predecessors. These, however, have no connection with Van Diemen's Land.
To adorn the new stadthouse of Amsterdam, erected in 1665, three hemispheres were wrought in stone, of twenty-two feet in diameter: the circles were inlaid with brass, and [Pg 4] were executed by a celebrated artist. ”

“ After Tasman, the next visitor was Captain Marion, of the Mascarin and Castries, who in 1772 arrived from the Mauritius, in search of the "southern continent," then the grand object of nautical inquiry, and anchored in Frederick Hendrik Bay, the 4th March. The visit is chiefly memorable for a fatal collision with the natives, who, according to the French, exhibited uncommon ferocity. On his stepping on shore they offered Captain Marion a fire stick, which he supposed a ceremony of friendship ”

“ The outline of the northwest coast was known upon the authority, as generally believed, of Tasman; with some points corrected by Dampier. The accuracy of Tasman's chart was, however, very much called in doubt: instead of being a continued shore, as the Dutch chart represented it, Dampier found the southern parts of De Witt's Land to consist of a range of islands. And he gives it as his opinion, that the northern part of New Holland was separated from the lands to the southward, by a strait ”

“ At the time that Tasman's Peninsula was occupied by convict penal stations, to prevent runaways getting into Forrestier's Peninsula, and so on to the main, fierce dogs were chained across Eagle Hawk Neck, in addition to the guard of soldiers. East Bay Neck was placed in Admiral D'Entrecasteaux's charts as a channel, connecting Tasman's Frederick Henry Bay and the Storm Bay, and making Tasman's Peninsula, Tasman's Island. Though flat, its immediate neighbourhood is high land, and scrubby, miserable country. ”

“ III. p. 96) , that he had Tasman's chart of it; though none bearing his name can now be found. [4]
The notes of burgomaster Witsen shew, that the North-west Coast was visited by Tasman; and as they give the earliest information of the inhabitants, and are curious in themselves, they are here transcribed from Mr. Dalrymple's Papua.
"In lat. 13° 8′ S. lon. 146° 18′" (probably about 1291⁄2° east of Greenwich) , "the coast is barren. The people are bad and wicked, shooting at the Dutch with arrows, without provocation, when they were coming on shore: It is here very populous." ”

“ They found that the channel extended to the Storm Bay of Tasman: they entered and named the Huon, and the Rivère du Nord, now the Derwent, and examined the different harbours. Their charts are said to exhibit the finest specimen of marine surveying ever made [Pg 11] in a new country. [9] Of D'Entrecasteaux's Channel, then deemed the most important discovery since the time of Tasman, Rossel, who recorded the events of the voyage, writes with rapture:—"A harbour, twenty-four miles in length, and equally safe in every part. ”

“ It need, therefore, no longer be subject of surprise that Tasman should have given the name of Carpenter, the president of the Home Company of the Indies, to an extensive country and gulf discovered by him in 1644.
We cannot dismiss our notice of this important voyage, which thus gave the name of New Holland to the great South Land, without quoting the remark of Thevenot in the Relation de l’estat présent des Indes, prefixed to the second volume of his Relation de Divers Voyages Curieux. He says: “The Dutch pretend to have a right to the southern land which they have discovered.... ”

“ M. Van Wyk xcvRoelandszoon, in a letter addressed to the editor of the Nouvelles Annales des Voyages, dated 26th July, 1825, states, that many savans du premier ordre had for a long time sought in vain for the original papers of Abel Tasman. One young, but very able fellow-countryman of his, had even made a voyage for that express purpose to Batavia, in the hope that they might be found there, but he unfortunately died shortly after his arrival at that place. M. Van Wyk continues, “we still live in the hope of receiving some of these documents.” ”

“ On this voyage Tasman and Quast visited the Philippines and improved Dutch knowledge of he east coast of Luzon; they also discovered and mapped various islands to the north, apparently the Bonin archipelago. Sailing on to N. and E. in search of the isles of precious metals, they ranged about fruitlessly in the northern Pacific, at one time believing themselves to be 600 Dutch miles east of Japan. After this the voyage was continued almost constantly westward, but in varying latitudes, reaching as high as 42° N, always without success. ”