Harry Johnston

In the Malay Archipelago and the Spice Islands both Portuguese and Spanish were attacked by the Dutch, and gradually dispossessed from the end of the sixteenth century onwards. The Dutch had established themselves in the Moluccas in place of the Portuguese between 1604 and 1609, in which year the Portuguese were driven from the Nutmeg Islands of Banda. The Hollanders were followed almost immediately by the English. The merchant adventurers of both nations (who were seamen, soldiers, and pirates at will) soon penetrated to the western peninsulas of New Guinea and ousted the Portuguese from Java, Celebes, and southern Timor, but at first made little or no attempt to pass beyond Malaysia in search of the southern continent. By the conquest of Malacca in 1641 the Dutch had become practically masters of the Malay Archipelago, the Spaniards being confined to the possession of the Philippines (which they administered from the west coast of America across the Pacific),[44] and the Portuguese only lingering on in the islands of Timor and Flores, while the English had been expelled from the Spice Islands and Java, and merely retained a precarious foothold in Sumatra. Encouraged by these successes to seek for further lands that might be conquered, settled, or traded with, the Dutch began to take up the quest for the Terra Australis as soon as they were established as the masters of the Moluccas and Banda.

In 1615 a bold Dutch navigator, Jacob le Maire (of French extraction), determined, in spite of the prohibition of the Dutch East India Company, to find his way independently to the seas and lands of southern Asia by way of the extremity of South America. He sailed in company with another sea captain, Schouten, and together they discovered and named Staten Island and the celebrated Cape Horn, the southernmost extremity (a little island) of South America, and since famous as the stormiest cape in the world's seas. From this point they followed closely the coast of South America till they got into equatorial latitudes, and then steered boldly across the Pacific Ocean, either not noticing or actually not seeing the many islands or islets that must have been near their course. Apparently the first land they sighted was the north-east coast of New Guinea, after which they got among the Spice Islands and thus eventually reached Batavia, where they were so severely punished by their fellow countrymen for their splendid adventure that Le Maire ultimately died before he could reach Holland. Previous to this date, however, the Dutch had evidently known something about the Australian Continent[45] (of which it was generally believed that New Guinea was a portion), and they no doubt derived this knowledge from information given to them by Malay pilots, and picked up from the Portuguese; for in a work published in 1598 by the Dutch historian, Cornelius Wytfliet, the following passage occurs: "The Terra Australis is the most southern of all lands, and is separated from New Guinea by a narrow strait.... It is ascertained by some to be of so great an extent that if it were thoroughly explored it would be regarded as a fifth part of the world." There is a tradition also that in 1606 a Dutch ship, the Duyfken or Little Dove, which was on its way from Java to the western part of New Guinea, was driven out of her course by a typhoon and sighted the north-east coast of Australia (Cape York Peninsula) as far south as Cape Turnagain. Some of the crew landed, but were repulsed by the savage natives. In the year following the arrival of le Maire at Batavia, a Dutch ship, the Eendracht, under the command of a navigator called Hertoge, or Hartog, by a similar cause was blown out of his course and touched the north-west coast of Australia at points now known as Shark Bay and Hartog Island. In 1622-3 the Leeuwin (Lioness), another Dutch vessel, penetrated along the west coast of Australia about as far south as Cape Leeuwin. In 1623 an expedition, under a captain named Cartenz, set out for the Southern Continent and explored and named the Gulf of Carpentaria, in north Australia, the name being derived from Carpentar, who was then the Governor of the Dutch East Indies (the authority says "West" Indies). Between 1622 and 1628 other Dutch expeditions, one of them under Pieter Nuyts, explored the South Australian coast ("Nuytsland") as far as the Eyre Peninsula. But from here to Cape York the east coast of Australia remained absolutely unknown till the coming of Captain Cook.

Abel Janszoon Tasman, the greatest Dutch explorer of Australasia (his middle name was equivalent in English to Johnson), was born about 1603 at Lutjegast, near Groningen, in Friesland, not far from the modern German boundary. He was married twice, first when a young man (the second time when he was twenty-nine years old), and about the age of twenty-one joined the service of the Dutch East India Company and started for Java. He revisited Holland in 1637 and returned to the Malay Archipelago in 1638. Although he had started in life as a common sailor he must have acquired a good education by some means or other, for his journals show him to have been possessed of a singularly beautiful and even handwriting, he was a clever draughtsman (assuming the many sketches in the logbook to be by him), and he had thoroughly mastered the science of navigation, so much so, that soon after his arrival in the East Indies in 1634 he was singled out for work of importance and responsibility. In 1638 he made, in company with another commander, a remarkable voyage of exploration to Japan along the coasts of China, and in 1642 he was selected to command the expedition which was to make such important discoveries in Australasia.

His principal vessel, the Heemskerk[46], described as a yacht, was probably of only 150 tons capacity; the second of the two ships, the Zeehaen (Seahen) was a third smaller than the Heemskerk. With these two small ships he left Batavia (Java) on 14 August, 1642, and sailed right across the Indian Ocean to the Island of Mauritius (the home of the Dodo), then occupied by the Dutch, wishing, no doubt, to take as wide a scope as possible for the discovery of the great Southern Continent. From Mauritius he sailed east and south, and did not sight the West Australian coast at all, his course trending so much to the south that instead he crossed the great Australian Bight[47] and first saw land off the west coast of Tasmania, in the vicinity of what is now known as Macquarie Harbour. He at once conferred on this land the name of Anthonij Van Diemen, the Governor-General of the Dutch Indies, and the principal promoter of this exploring expedition. He overlooked the passage to the north (Bass's Strait), and directed his course southwards. On 25 November, 1642, the two ships came to an anchor off the west coast of Tasmania for consultations between the commanders. On the succeeding days they sailed round the south coast of Tasmania, and on 2 December stopped again and sent a pilot in a pinnace with four musketeers and six rowers (all of them well armed) together with another boat commanded by an officer, and containing six more musketeers, to the shore of a large bay (probably Storm Bay) to see if fresh water, vegetables, and timber could be obtained. On the return of these boats the officers reported that they found the land covered with vegetation, but with no signs of cultivation. They brought back with them various wild vegetable products which seemed suited for use as pot-herbs, besides a good supply of fresh water. They reported that they had heard certain human sounds, and noises resembling the music of a trumpet or small gong, but they saw no human beings, though there were notched trees, the notches having been made with implements of sharpened stone, to form steps enabling persons to climb the trees and take the birds' nests. These notched steps (very wide apart) were so fresh and new that they could only have been cut a few days before. On the ground they saw the footprints of clawed animals and other traces showing that there were beasts in the forest. In the interior numerous trees were observed which had deep holes burnt into them, as if to make of them fireplaces and shelters. They also saw smoke rising in clouds from natives' fires. On 3 December a flagstaff was set up on the shore of Frederick Henry Bay, and possession of this new land was solemnly taken on behalf of the Dutch East India Company.

Then they sailed away from what they believed to be the southernmost extremity of Australia, and on 13 December, 1642, they saw "a large high-lying land bearing south-east ... at about 16 miles distance". This was the great southern island of New Zealand,[48] but it was encountered by Tasman at its northernmost extremity and close to the North Island. He sailed, in fact, right into the gulf (then named the Zeehaen's Bight) between two islands, which finds its outlet to the south in Cook's Strait. He overlooked this outlet and believed the gulf to be only a great indentation. Ultimately he sailed northwards past the west coast of the North Island to its northernmost extremity, which he named Cape Maria Van Diemen. At some distance from this were three tiny islets, the size of which he exaggerated. He named them the Three Kings' Islands. On 18 December the two ships came to an anchor about a mile from the shore, off the coast of what is now called Massacre or Golden Bay, not far from the modern settlement of Waitapu. It was sunset, and calm, and as the twilight faded they saw lights on shore and two native boats coming towards them, the men in which began to call to them in rough, "hollow" voices. This people also blew several times on an instrument (probably a conch shell), the sound from which was like that of a Moorish trumpet. The seamen from the ships trumpeted back to them in reply, but when it was dark the native canoes paddled back to the shore. Early the next morning a canoe manned by fifteen natives approached to within a short distance of the ships and called out several times. But the Dutchmen could not understand their language, as it bore no resemblance to the vocabulary of words used in the Solomon Islands, which had been collected through the industry of Anthonij Van Diemen and supplied to Tasman with his other instructions.[49] As far as they could observe, these New Zealanders were of ordinary height, with rough voices and strong bones, the colour of their skin being between brown and yellow. They wore tufts of black hair right on the tops of their heads, tied fast in the manner of the Japanese, but somewhat longer and thicker, each topknot of hair being surmounted by a large white feather. Each of their boats consisted of two long, narrow canoes fastened side by side. Over these twin canoes were placed planks on which the paddlers sat. The New Zealanders, though naked from the shoulders to the waist, wore some kind of clothing (in contrast to the nearly always naked Melanesians). This seemed to be made of a stuff something like woven cotton, or else matting.

In spite of offered presents and friendly greetings these two boats would not come alongside the ship. Later on, seven more canoes came off from the shore, one of which was high and pointed in front. With these nine canoes paddling round and round the two ships, and manned by a number of able-bodied armed men, the Dutchmen became a little uneasy, and the skipper of the Zeehaen sent out his quartermaster in a small boat with six seamen to advise the officers of the Heemskerk not to allow too many natives to come on board, if they wished to do so. But suddenly the little boat of the Zeehaen was violently attacked by one of the New Zealand canoes, with the result that one Dutch seamen was knocked overboard, four were killed, while the remainder, thrown into the sea, swam back to their ship. The natives then started for the shore, taking one of the dead bodies with them (which they no doubt afterwards ate in a cannibal feast). None of the shots fired from the Zeehaen or Heemskerk took effect. The small boat of the Zeehaen was recovered, and the two Dutch ships then set sail, despairing of entering into any friendly relations with these people, or getting fresh water at this place. As they sailed out of the bay they saw twenty-two canoes near the shore, of which eleven, swarming with people, were making for the ships. They kept quiet until some of the foremost canoes were within reach of the guns, and then fired one or two shots without doing much damage, though the natives at once turned their canoes back, hoisted a kind of sail, and made with all speed for the shore. "To this murderous spot we have accordingly given the name of Moordenaers Bay."[50]

TASMAN'S MEN ATTACKED BY NATIVES OFF THE COAST OF NEW ZEALAND

On this same day, 19 December, 1642, Tasman bestowed on this new country the name of Staten Landt, "in honour of their high mightinesses the States-General of Holland". This name seems really to have been bestowed on account of the much earlier discovery by the Dutch navigator, le Maire, of an island off the south-easternmost extremity of South America (Tierra del Fuego), which Tasman seems to have thought to be the beginning of an Antarctic continent, of which New Zealand was the north-westernmost extremity. But after Tasman's return to Java the Governor-General considered that the two regions were too far separated and distinct to be parts of the same land surface; so he changed the named to Nieuw Zeeland (New Zealand), in honour of the Zeeland (Sealand) province of south-west Holland.

On 5 January, 1643, they attempted to land on one of the Three Kings' Islands to fill their water casks before directing their course once more across a wide stretch of unknown ocean, but the heavy surf and the rocks made such an attempt too dangerous. The natives, moreover, were very threatening, standing about on the high land armed with long sticks shaped like pikes, and shouting every now and again what seemed to be hostile utterances. So it was decided to do without the fresh water, in the hope that they might reach other islands farther north where it could be obtained. Accordingly, on 6 January the two ships once more set sail across the Pacific Ocean, directing their course as nearly as possible for the Solomon Islands. On 19 and 20 January they sighted Tropic Bird Island, and two other small islands, which they named Amsterdam and Middelburgh. These were the southernmost islands of the Tonga or Friendly group, probably those which are now known by the names of Tongatabu (Amsterdam, "because of the abundance of refreshments we got there"), Eua (Middelburgh), and Cattow.

"About noon", wrote Tasman on 21 January, "a small canoe with three men in it put off from land and came near our ship. These men were naked, of a brown colour, and slightly above the ordinary stature; two of them had long, thick hair on their heads." The Dutchmen showed white linen to these Polynesians, throwing overboard a piece of 2½ yards. Seeing this, the natives paddled towards it; but as it had sunk to a considerable depth under the water the foremost man in the canoe jumped out and dived for it. He remained under water for a very long time, but at last reappeared with the linen, and when back in the canoe put this several times on the top of his head in sign of gratitude. The natives then came nearer and received from the ships' crews a few more presents, amongst which was a small looking-glass. The Dutchmen then showed them an old coconut and a fowl, and attempted to make enquiries about water, pigs, &c. At last they understood, to a certain extent, and after returning on shore a canoe came back with a white flag, the occupants of which were painted black from the waist to the thighs, and wore necklaces of large leaves. A white flag was fastened to the stern of one of the Dutch boats. The Dutchmen filled a rummer with wine, of which they first drank a little themselves, to show that it was not poison. The Polynesians, however, drank the wine without hesitation, and took the cask back with them on shore. Soon afterwards a great number of canoes came alongside with coconuts, which they bartered for old nails. Other natives swam the whole way from the land to the ships with coconuts for trade. At last an old man came on board one of the Dutch ships who was thought to be a chief. He paid reverence to the Dutchmen by bowing his head down to their feet. They showed him a cup containing fresh water; the native chief implied by signs that plenty of water could be obtained on shore. Meantime other natives had come on board the ship, and exhibited the same shameless thievishness as had angered Magellan. Among other things they stole a pistol and a pair of slippers. The Dutchmen wisely took these articles away from their dishonest visitors without any display of anger. Towards evening twenty canoes came up to the ship, making a great deal of noise and crying out repeatedly: "Wu, wu, wu!" They had brought a present from the king consisting of a pig, a number of coconuts, and some yams. The Dutchmen gave as a return present a common dish and a piece of copper wire.

The next day a quantity of canoes came off with coconuts, yams, bananas, plantains, pigs, and fowls. There also came on board a leper and a bearded woman. The natives were at first frightened by the discharge of the big guns, but soon reassured when they saw that no harm came from this noise. They were entertained with Dutch and German music, at which they were greatly astonished. At last the Dutchmen decided to send a party on shore to get fresh water, and, although the natives seemed to be so friendly, they took the precaution of adding a number of musketeers to defend the watering party. Nothing disagreeable happened, however. Wells were pointed out to them, and they were most hospitably entertained in what seemed to be pleasure houses, where they were invited to sit down on handsome mats. However, the amount of water supplied was perfectly trivial. 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. The women wore their hair shorter than the men, and the latter, as a rule, grew beards about 4 inches long, with very short moustaches, the hair of which was kept clipped. No arms were worn by these people, and all seemed peace and amity in their lives (the "Friendly Isles"). Starting away again on 24 January the two ships passed through the rest of the Tonga Islands, one of which, Nanuka, was named by Tasman the Island of Rotterdam. On one of the islands of the Haapai group the Dutchmen again landed to get fresh water. The party sent to the beach reported on landing that they had seen about seventy persons, apparently the entire male population of the island; they had no arms, and seemed kind and peaceable, and there were many women and children. Nevertheless, these people were very thievish, for they stole everything they could lay hands on—men and women alike. This was a characteristic of nearly all the Pacific islanders when these lands were first discovered, and was a trait which gave rise to many troubles between them and the European explorers, who did not view this practice—not regarded by the natives as being very wrong—with sufficient patience.

At the watering place they saw numbers of wild duck swimming, not at all shy or afraid of men. On this island were noticed many enclosures or gardens, with plots elegantly squared and planted with all sorts of fruits and vegetables. There were groves of bananas and other fruit trees, most of them growing so straight that they were a pleasure to look on (to a Dutch eye enamoured of tidiness), while they gave forth a most agreeable odour and fragrance. Though the natives of these Friendly Islands did not seem to have any well-defined religion, they were very superstitious. Tasman noticed one of them take up a water snake which came floating alongside his canoe, lay it on his head with reverence, and put it back on the water. Above all, they had a great dislike to killing flies, though they were so abundant here as to cause considerable trouble. Whilst the Dutchmen were at anchor one of them had the misfortune to kill a fly in the presence of a native chief, who showed himself greatly angered and upset.

On 2 February the voyage was continued, the ships being now well supplied with fresh water and fresh provisions. A period of rough winds followed, and although the outlying islands of the north-eastern part of the Fiji group (which Tasman named after Prince Willem of Orange) were sighted, the weather was too dangerous for any attempt at landing or investigation. Desirous of reaching New Guinea, the course of the vessels was directed to the north-west. It was not until 15 March that they sailed into smooth water and sunshine, after many days of rain, fog, and rough, south-westerly wind. On 22 March they saw land straight ahead of them at four miles distance—about thirty small islands surrounded by reefs. These, and others farther west, were little archipelagos of minute islands to the north of the Solomon group and near the great island of Bougainville. Probably owing to the very stormy, thick, rainy, and misty weather, Tasman's expedition saw nothing of the islands or islets of the Santa Cruz and New Hebrides groups, or the Solomon Islands, very near to which he must have passed.

On 25 March, 1643, the two vessels anchored off one of these islands of Oceanic Negroes. A canoe came alongside with a number of men whose skins were nearly black and who went quite naked. Some of them had their hair cut short, or wore feathers arranged like horns on the top of their heads. One had a ring through his nose. They carried bows and arrows. From another island on the following day came off more of these black people, "with curly hair like that of the Kafirs", but not so woolly, nor were their noses quite so flat as those of true Negroes. They wore white bracelets, probably of pigs' tusks. Their faces were daubed with lime, and a small piece of tree bark was worn on the forehead. For arms they had bows, arrows, and javelins or stabbing spears. At last Tasman got one of the words of his Melanesian vocabularies recognized; it was the word for coconut (lamas).

By 1 April the Dutchmen were sailing along the coast of New Mecklenburg (then thought to be part of New Guinea). Already Tasman had recognized islands and capes seen and named by his predecessor, le Maire. Every now and again they anchored to buy coconuts. The people who came off from the shore were black skinned and naked. They seemed already somewhat acquainted with Europeans and their ways and to be afraid of guns. They had little or nothing to sell except the pith of the sago palm. Some of these people at a later date (from the island which we now know as New Hanover) came on board and were rendered very dizzy—"intoxicated"—by the motion of the ships, though they never suffered from seasickness in their own canoes. They brought with them a shark and some small fish.

Turning southwards after rounding New Hanover the expedition sighted the real north coast of New Guinea, ignorant, of course, of the fact that hitherto they had only been following large and small islands now known as the Bismarck Archipelago. Off the north coast of what is now German New Guinea they noted a volcanic island with an active volcano, round which there were clouds of smoke. As they coasted along New Guinea, touching at the islands for fresh water and provisions, they observed that the black Papuan natives could imitate whatever words they heard the Dutchmen pronounce, and were remarkable themselves for the number of "r's" which their own speech contained.

Tasman overlooked the deep indentation of Geelvink Bay, which makes a jagged peninsula of nearly half Dutch New Guinea; and rounding the Island of Waigiu his ships passed through the Spice Islands to the Island of Buru, where he found himself once more within the limits of Dutch influence. The two vessels safely regained Batavia, where their crews were received with much honour and rejoicing. "God be praised and thanked for this happy voyage. Amen", wrote Tasman at the end of his journal on 15 June, 1643.

In the opinion of the Dutch East India Company Tasman's wonderful voyage was too imperfect in its results to merit their complete approbation, though he and his companions received a reward in money for their achievements as "Southland Navigators". But it was realized by the Council of the Dutch East Indies that the actual configuration and extent of the Southland was very little known on the eastern side, though there remained above all things the important fact that a passage well within the South Temperate Zone existed between the Indian and the Pacific Oceans. In 1644 Tasman and Visscher started on another great voyage of discovery for the special purpose of surveying the regions between what was known of New Guinea and what was already placed on the map as Nieuw Holland, or Nieuw Nederland. This region (New Holland) was only what we now call Western Australia, and was thought perhaps to be an independent island. Eastern Australia, which terminated in Tasmania, was called Zuidland or Southland. If there was a still more easterly Australia it was thought to be united with New Zealand under the name of Nieuw Zeeland, and it was conjectured there might also be a separate island to the south, which in that case would be called Nuytsland. Tasman's first expedition had thrown no light on the products of the countries behind these strips of coast line. All these lands in the south might be of great value, or they might be valueless, consequently much more detailed exploration was necessary. The vessels told off for this expedition "for the true and complete discovery of the Southland" consisted of two large schooners or yachts, the Limmen and the Zeemeeuw (Mew or Seagull), and a much smaller boat, Bracq, called a galliot. On 29 January, 1644, these vessels started, "in the name of God" and under the command of Tasman, assisted by Visscher and other officers, including a draughtsman to make maps of the coast and drawings of any remarkable objects or peoples. Directing his course to the little Banda Islands south of the big island of Ceram, so as to commence his new venture from the westernmost limits of New Guinea, Tasman skirted pretty closely the southern coast of that enormous island, sailing eastwards with the express purpose of finding if it was separated from the mainland of New Holland by a strait of water. In fact—knowing nothing of the previous voyage of Torres—he was in search of the celebrated Torres' Straits, and yet, amazing to relate, though he pushed his ships into the beginning of Torres' Straits he allowed himself to be deceived, by the somewhat numerous islands and islets which dot the waters of this not particularly narrow passage, into believing that the gulf before him was land-locked and not worth further investigations. The strait is in reality about 140 miles wide at its narrowest. Nor is it so thickly covered with islands as to be devoid here and there of far sea horizons, suggesting the existence of wider waters beyond. It is therefore very difficult to understand how Tasman can have allowed himself to be so easly misled. It recalls the similar blunder which so long impeded access to Canada, when Jacques Cartier and others overlooked the Cabot Straits between Cape Breton and Newfoundland, and laboriously sailed all the way north of the last-named territory in order to get into the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

The rest of Tasman's voyage, consequently, is not of very great interest to us as regards his pioneering work in Australasia. He made a fairly accurate survey of the Gulf of Carpentaria and of the northern coast of Australia (Arnhem Land), and passing to the west connected this up with the West Australian coast, whence he sailed due north to Java.

The rest of his active life was spent in voyages to the Philippine Islands and Indo-China. He got into disgrace on one of these expeditions by losing his temper and trying to hang several of the seamen who had disobeyed orders. For this he was punished in various ways, amongst others by being obliged to resign his position as one of the elders of the Church. Eventually, however, his affairs righted themselves, and he retained the respect of his fellow countrymen in Java till the time of his death, which occurred probably in the year 1659, at Batavia. In his will he remembered the poor people of his native village, Lutjegast, in Friesland, and left them out of his property a sum equivalent to about £10 each.

Why the Dutch should have discontinued their explorations of Australasia after the return of Tasman in 1644 is not easily understood, since their appetite for a colonial empire was enormous. But, so far as records go, no further ships were sent for a considerable time in that direction, and the Dutch interested themselves a good deal more either in the settlement of South Africa or attempts to secure a monopoly of the trade with China and Japan. It should be mentioned, however, that in 1696 an expedition was sent to search for a missing East India Company's ship which had sailed twelve years previously from the Cape of Good Hope for Java, and this expedition, under Commander Willem de Vlamingh, in examining the West Australian coast for traces of the ship, made a far more thorough survey of that region than had been effected by the chance visits of Dutchmen in the early part of the seventeenth century. It penetrated as far south as the Swan River (on which the West Australian capital of Perth now stands); and de Vlamingh thus named the river because on it he saw wonderful black swans, thought until then to be such an impossibility that amongst Latin writers a black swan was regarded as a symbol of improbability.

Previous to de Vlamingh's voyage, however, the West Australian coast had been visited by an English ship in 1688, the Cygnet, a vessel practically manned by pirates, though they bore the more polite designation of buccaneers, and hailed from the coasts of Tropical America, where they had been plundering the Spaniards. On board this ship was a remarkable pioneer, William Dampier, who held the post of supercargo, and who spent all his spare time in examining the natural history and native races of the regions he visited as an associate of the pirates.