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
by an extract from the Burgomaster Witsen’s _Noord en Oost Tartarye_,
descriptive of the west coast, a portion of which is plainly derived
from the account of Abraham Leeman, the mate of the _Waeckende Boey_.
We must not here omit to mention, that in the year 1693, appeared a work
bearing the following title: Les Avantures de Jaques Sadeur dans la
découverte et le voyage de la Terre Australe, contenant les coutumes et
les mœurs des Australiens, leur religion, leurs exercises, leurs études,
leurs guerres, leurs animaux, particuliers à ce pays et toutes les
raretez curieuses qui s’y trouvent. À Paris, chez Claude Barbin, au
Palais, sur le second perron de la Sainte Chapelle, 1693. In the Vannes
edition, p. 3, the author’s Christian name is given Nicolas. An English
translation appeared in the same year, entitled “A new discovery of
Terra Incognita Australis, or the Southern World, by James Sadeur, a
Frenchman, who, being cast there by a shipwreck, lived thirty-five years
in that country, and gives a particular description of the manners,
customs, religion, laws, studies and wars of those southern people, and
of some animals peculiar to that place, with several other rarities.
These memoirs were thought so curious, that they were kept secret in the
closet of a late great minister of state, and never published till now,
since his death. Translated from the French copy printed at Paris by
publick authority, April 8. Imprimatur, Charles Hern, London. Printed
for John Dunton, at the Raven, in the Poultry, 1693.” The work is purely
fictitious throughout.
The next Dutch voyage of which we have succeeded in finding an account,
is that of Willem de Vlamingh, in 1696, which also owed its origin to
the loss of a ship, the _Ridderschap van Hollandt_. This vessel had been
missing from the time she had left the Cape of Good Hope in 1684 or
1685, and it was thought probable she might have been wrecked upon the
great South Land, and that some of the crew might, even after this lapse
of time, be still living. The commodore, Willem de Vlaming, who was
going out to India with the _Geelvink_, _Nyptang_, and _Wezel_, was,
therefore, ordered to make a search for them. The account of this
voyage, which was printed at Amsterdam in 1701, 4to, is exceedingly
scarce; and after many years enquiry, the editor deemed himself
fortunate in procuring it through the medium of Mr. Müller, of
Amsterdam, and a translation of it is here given. The search of De
Vlaming was, however, fruitless, and the two principal points of
interest were the finding of the plate already described, with the
inscription commemorating the arrival and departure of Dirk Hartog, in
1616, and the discovery of Swan River, where the embodiment of the
poet’s notion of a _rara avis in terris_ was for the first time
encountered, and two of the black swans were taken alive to Batavia.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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