CHAPTER X

TASMAN EXPLORES AUSTRALIA

It often happened that ships of the Dutch East India Company on their way to the Indies were blown out of their course or were carried by the currents in a southern direction. Then they were driven into a part of the map which was as yet unknown, and they had to find their way about very much as a stranger might do who has left the well-known track of the desert. Sometimes these ships were lost. More often they reached a low, flat coast which seemed to extend both east and west as far as the eye could reach, which offered very little food and very little water, and appeared to be the shore-line of a vast continent which was remarkably poor in both plants and animals. Indeed, so unattractive was this big island, as it was then supposed to be, to the captains of the company that not a single one of them had ever taken the trouble to explore it. They had followed the coast-line until once more they reached the well-known regions of their map, and then they had hastened northward to the comfortable waters of their own Indian Ocean. But of course people talked about this mysterious big island, and they wondered. They wondered whether, perhaps, the stories of the Old Testament, the stories of the golden land of Ophir, which had never yet been found, might not yet be proved true in that large part of the map which showed a blank space and was covered with the letters of _terra incognita_.

If there were any such land still to be discovered by any European people, the Dutch East India Company decided that they ought to benefit by it. Therefore their directors studied the question with great care and deliberation.

A number of expeditions were sent out one after the other. In the year 1636 two small vessels were ordered to make a careful examination of the island of New Guinea, which was supposed to be the peninsula part of the unknown Southern continent. But New Guinea itself is so large that the two vessels, after spending a very long time along the coast, were obliged to return without any definite information.

Anthony van Diemen, the governor-general of the Dutch East Indies, however, was a man of stubborn purpose, and he refused to discontinue his search until he should have positive knowledge upon this puzzling subject. Six years after this first attempt he appointed a certain Franz Jacobsz Visscher to study the question theoretically from every possible angle and to write him a detailed report. Visscher had crossed the Pacific Ocean a few years after the discovery of Strait Le Maire, and he had visited Japan and China, and was familiar with all the better known parts of the Asiatic seas. He set to work, and he gave the following advice. The ships of the company must take the island of Mauritius as their starting-point. They must follow a southeastern course until they should reach the 54 degree of latitude. If, in the meantime, they had not found any land, they must turn toward the east until they should reach New Guinea, and from there, using this peninsula or island or whatever it was as a starting-point, they should establish its correct relation to the continent of which it was supposed to be a solid part. If it should prove to be an island, then the ships must chart the strait which separated it from the continent, and they must find out whether these did not offer a short route from India to Strait Le Maire and the Atlantic Ocean.

Van Diemen studied those plans carefully. He approved of them, and ordered two ships to be made ready for the voyage. They were small ships. There was the _Heemskerk_, with sixty men, and the _Zeehaen_, with only forty. Visscher was engaged to act as pilot and general adviser of the expedition. The command was given to one Abel Tasman. Like most of the great men of the republic, he had made his own career. Born in an insignificant village in the northern part of the republic somewhere in the province of Groningen,--the name of the village was Lutjegat,--he had started life as a sailor, had worked his way up through ability and force of character, and in the early thirties of the seventeenth century he had gone to India. Thereafter he had spent most of his life as captain or mate of different ships of the company. He had been commander of an expedition sent out to discover a new gold-land, which, according to rumor, must be situated somewhere off the coast of Japan, and although he did not find it,--since it did not exist,--he had added many new islands to the map of the company. Since he was a man of very independent character, he was specially fitted to be in command of an expedition which might meet with many unforeseen difficulties.

His instructions gave him absolute freedom of action. The chief purpose of this expedition was a scientific one. Professional draughtsmen were appointed to accompany the _Heemskerk_ and make careful maps of everything that should be discovered. Special attention must be paid to the currents of the ocean and to the prevailing direction of the wind. Furthermore, a careful study of the natives must be made. Their mode of life, their customs, and their habits must be investigated, and they must be treated with kindness. If the natives should come on board and should steal things, the Hollanders must not mind such trifles. The chief aim of the expedition was to establish relations with whatever races were to be discovered. Of course there was little hope of finding anything except long-haired Papuans, but if by any chance Tasman should discover the unknown southland and find that this continent contained the rumored riches, he must not show himself desirous of getting gold and silver. On the contrary, he must show the inhabitants lead and brass, and tell them that these two metals were the most valuable commodities in the country which had sent him upon his voyage. Finally, whatever land was found must be annexed officially for the benefit of the Estates General of the Dutch Republic, and of this fact some lasting memorial must be left upon the coast in the form of a written document, well hidden below a stone or a board planted in such a way that the natives could not destroy it.

On the nineteenth of August, Tasman and his two ships went to Mauritius, where the tanks were filled with fresh water and all the men got a holiday. They were given plenty of food to strengthen them for the voyage which they were about to undertake through the unknown seas. After a month of leisure the two ships left on the sixth of October of the year 1642 and started out to discover whatever they might find. The farther southward they got the colder the climate began to be. Snow and hail and fog were the order of the day. Seals appeared, and everything indicated that they were reaching the Arctic Ocean of the Southern Hemisphere. Day and night they kept a man in the crow's-nest to look for land. Tasman offered a reward of money and rum for the sailor who should first see a light upon the horizon, but they found nothing except salt water and a cloudy sky.

Tasman consulted Visscher, and asked him whether it would not be better to follow the 44 degree of latitude than to go farther into this stormy region. Since they had been sailing in a southern direction for almost a month without finding anything at all, Visscher agreed to this change in his original plans. Once more there followed a couple of weeks of dreary travel without the sight of anything hopeful. At last on the twenty-ninth of November of the year 1642, at four o'clock of the afternoon, land was seen. Tasman thought that it was part of his continent and called it Van Diemen's Land, after the governor-general who had sent him out. We know that it was an island to the south of the Australian continent, and we now call it Tasmania.

On the second of December Tasman tried to go on shore with all his officers, but the weather was bad and the surf was too dangerous for the small boat of the _Heemskerk_. The ship's carpenter then jumped overboard with the flag of the Dutch Republic and a flagpole under his arm. He reached the shore, planted his pole, and with Tasman and his staff floating on the high waves of the Australian surf and applauding him the carpenter hoisted the orange, white, and blue colors which were to show to all the world that the white man had taken possession of a new part of the world. The carpenter once more swam through the waves, was pulled back into the boat, and the first ceremony connected with the Southern continent was over.

The voyage was then continued, but nowhere could the ships find a safe bay in which they might drop anchor. Everywhere the coast appeared to be dangerous. The surf was high, and the wind blew hard. At last, on the eighteenth of December, after another long voyage across the open sea, more land was seen. This time the coast was even more dangerous than it had been in Tasmania and the land was covered with high mountains. Furthermore the Hollanders had to deal with a new sort of native, much more savage and more able to defend themselves than those who had looked at the two ships from the safe distance of Van Diemen's Land, but had fled whenever the white man tried to come near their shore.

At first the natives of this new land rowed out to the _Heemskerk_ and the _Zeehaen_ and paddled around the ships without doing any harm. But one day the boat of the _Zeehaen_ tried to return their visit. It was at once attacked by the ferocious natives. Three Dutch sailors were killed with clubs, and several were wounded with spears. Not until after the _Heemskerk_ had fired a volley and had sunk a number of canoes did the others flee and leave the Dutch boat alone. The wounded men were taken on board, where several of them died next day. Tasman did not dare to risk a further investigation of this bay with his small vessels, and after the loss of several of his small company he departed. The place of disaster he called Tasman Bay, and sailed farther toward the north. If he had gone a few miles to the east, he would have discovered that this was not a bay at all but the strait which divides the northern and southern part of New Zealand. Now it is called Cook Strait after the famous British sailor who a century later explored that part of the world and who found that New Zealand is not part of a continent, but a large island which offered a splendid chance for a settlement. It was very fertile, and the natives had reached a much higher degree of civilization than those of the Australian continent. Cook made another interesting discovery. The natives who had seen the first appearance of the white man had been so deeply impressed by the arrival of the two Dutch ships that they turned their mysterious appearance into a myth. This myth had grown in size and importance with each new generation, and when Captain Cook dropped anchor off the coast of New Zealand and established relations with the natives, the latter told him a wonderful story of two gigantic vessels which had come to their island ever so long ago, and which had been destroyed by their ancestors while all the men on board had been killed.

It is not easy to follow Tasman on the modern map. After leaving Cook Strait he went northward, and passing between the most northern point of the island, which he called Cape Maria van Diemen, and a small island which, because it was discovered on the sixth of January, was called the "Three Kings Island," he reached open water once more.

He now took his course due north in the hope of reaching some of the islands which Le Maire had discovered. Instead of that, on the nineteenth of January, the two ships found several islands of the Tonga group, also called the Friendly Islands. They baptized these with names of local Dutch celebrities and famous men in the nautical world of Holland. Near one of them, called Amsterdam, because it looked a little more promising than any of the others, the ships stopped, and once more an attempt was made to establish amicable relations with the natives. These came rowing out to the ship, and whenever anything was thrown overboard they dived after it and showed an ability to swim and to remain under water which ever since has been connected with the idea of the South Sea population. By means of signs and after all sorts of presents, such as little mirrors and nails and small knives, had been thrown overboard to be fished up by the natives, Tasman got into communication with the Tonga people. He showed them a mean, thin chicken and pointed to his stomach. The natives understood this and brought him fresh food. He showed an empty glass and went through the motion of drinking. The natives pointed to the land and showed him by signs that they knew what was wanted, and that there was fresh water to be obtained on shore.

Gradually the natives lost their fear and climbed on board. In exchange for the cocoanuts which they brought they received a plentiful supply of old rusty nails. When those on shore heard that the millennium of useful metal had come sailing into their harbor, their eagerness to get their own share was so great that hundreds of them came swimming out to the Dutch vessels to offer their wares before the supply of nails should be exhausted. Tasman himself went on land, and the relations between native and visitor were so pleasant that the first appearance of the white man became the subject of a Tonga epic which was still recited among the natives when the next European ship landed here a century and a quarter later.

Going from island to island and everywhere meeting with the same sort of long-haired, vigorous-looking men, Tasman now sailed in a south-western direction. He spent several weeks between the Fiji Islands and the group now called Samoa. During all this time his ships were in grave danger of running upon the hidden reefs which are plentiful in this part of the Pacific. At last the winter began to approach and the weather grew more and more unstable, and as the ships after their long voyage were in need of a safe harbor and repair, it was decided to try and return within the confines of the map of the known and explored world. Accordingly the ships sailed westward and discovered several islands of the Solomon group, sailed through the Bismarck Archipelago, as it is called now, and after several months reached the northern part of New Guinea, which they, too, supposed to be the northern coast of the large continent of which they had touched the shores at so many spots, but which instead of the promised Ophir was a dreary, flat land surrounded by little islands full of cocoanuts, natives, and palm-trees, but without a scrap of either gold or silver.

Tasman then found himself in well-known regions. He made straightway for Batavia, and on the fifteenth of June of the year 1644 he landed to report his adventures to the governor-general and the council of the Indian Company. A few months later he was sent out upon a new expedition, this time with three ships. He made a detailed investigation of the northern coast of the real Australian continent. He sailed into the Gulf of Carpentaria. He found the Torres Strait, which he supposed to be a bay between New Guinea and Australia,--for the report of the Torres discovery in 1607 was as yet in the dusty archives of Manila, and had not been given to the world,--and once more he returned by way of the western coast of New Guinea to inform the governor-general that whatever continent he had found produced nothing which could be of any material profit to the Dutch East India Company. In short, New Holland, as Australia was then called, was not settled by the Hollanders because it had no immediate commercial value. After this last voyage no further expeditions were sent out to look for the supposed Southern Continent. From the reports of several ships which had reached the west coast of Australia and from the information brought home by Tasman it was decided that whatever land there might still be hidden between the 110 and 111 degree of longitude, offered no inducements to a respectable trading company which looked for gold and silver and spices, but had no use for kangaroos and the duck-billed platypus. New Holland was left alone until the growing population of the European continent drove other nations to explore this part of the world once more a hundred and twenty years later.