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.Major, Richard Henry
History
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.
Major, Richard Henry
Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Discoveries in geography -- Portuguese; Voyages and travels
We also found recorded in the notes of the above-mentioned skipper,
Willem de Vlamingh, that on the island of Mony, lying 10° south latitude
and 60–70 miles without Sunda Strait, by which he steered on his way
from the South Land hither, trees are to be found fit for masts of
ships. No further explanation, however, being given as to their
abundance or scarcity, or the kind of the wood,—a small piece only,
about two spans in length and less than a finger’s breadth in thickness,
having been brought to us, and the skipper of the _Nijptang_, and the
gezaghebber of the _Weseltje_, son of the old Vlamingh, knowing nothing
whatever about the subject, we, in order to settle the point once for
all, thought it not unadvisable to set on foot a further investigation,
and accordingly once more despatched the galiot _Weseltje_ on the 11th
of May, in order that a more minute survey might be taken of the island,
adding at the same time a reinforcement of eight native soldiers, with
such instructions for the steersman Cornelis de Vlamingh, as are to be
found in the letter-book under that date, and also under Batavia.
According to the diary of the same steersman from May 12 to June 17,
kept in the journey, in which they nearly got wrecked, and owing to the
heavy breakers could nowhere effect a landing, and from the vessel and
boat could not perceive anything else but thick brushwood and a few
small crooked trees, none of which was either straight or more than
three fathoms long; so that no expectation remained of finding there
anything useful.
APPENDIX I.
EXTRACT FROM THE RESOLUTIONS OF THE XVII.
Thursday, December 8th, 1695.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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