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. CHAPTER V Dampier's Voyages