That the narrative of Tasman's voyage was at [Sidenote: 1638-1697]
that time in existence there is little doubt, and an outline of the coasts
visited by him was given in an atlas presented to Charles II. of England,
in 1660, by Klencke, of Amsterdam, and now in the British Museum. Major
also found in the British Museum copies of charts and a quantity of MS.
describing Tasman's 1644 voyage, which, there is reason to believe, were
made from Tasman's originals by one Captain Bowrey in 1688, who had spent
fourteen years before that date trading in the Dutch East Indies. These
documents are all that have been found, and a diligent search of
geographers still leaves undiscovered Tasman's original narrative. The
1688 copies were probably known to Dampier when he sailed in the
_Roebuck_, and he was, likely enough, supplied with specially made
duplicates by the naval authorities. In 1697 a translation of a French
book was published in England by John Dunton, of the Poultry, London, with
the title _A New Discovery of Terra Incognita Australis, or the Southern
World, by James Sadeur, a Frenchman._ The Frenchman told a story of
thirty-five years' adventures in New Holland; but his tale was a lie from
beginning to end. Coming so close to the date of Dampier's voyage, it is
worth noting that he does not allude to the book, and so probably,
notwithstanding the little knowledge Englishmen then had of the southern
continent, Dampier was shrewd enough to detect the imposture.
The _Roebuck_ struck soundings on the night of August 1st, 1699, upon the
northern part of the Abrolhos. Dampier then cautiously ran northward,
keeping the land in sight until he anchored in Dirk Hartog's Road, in a
sound which he named Sharks' Bay, for the reason that his men caught and
ate, among other things, many sharks, including one eleven feet long, and
says Dampier, "Our men eat them very savorilly." He gives us, too, a
description of the kangaroo, the first introduction of that animal to
civilization. Says the navigator, "The land animals that we saw here were
only a sort of racoons, different from those of the West Indies, chiefly
as to their legs; for these have very short fore legs, but go jumping upon
them as the others do, and, like them, are very good meat."
Sharks' Bay is in what is now called the Gascoyne division of West
Australia, after the river of that name. Its chief town is Carnarvon,
situated at the mouth of the river. Wool-growing [Sidenote: 1699]
is the principal industry, and the population is about 800.
[Illustration: CAPTAIN WILLIAM DAMPIER, R.N. From the picture in the
National Portrait Gallery painted by Thomas Murray.] _To face p_. 38.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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