Good Captain Bontekoe paid everybody what he or she had a right to ask, and finally, on the twenty-fifth of November of the year 1625, he reached home. Bontekoe went to live quietly in his native city of Hoorn. He had written a short account of his voyage, but he had never printed it because he did not think that he could write well enough. But one of his fellow-townsmen wanted to write a large volume upon the noble deeds of the people of Hoorn, and he asked Bontekoe to write down the main events of his famous voyage, and he promised to edit the little book for the benefit of the reading public.
And behold! this same public, saturated with stories of wild men and wild animals and terrible storms and uninhabited islands and treacherous Portuguese and hairbreadth escapes, took such a fancy to the simple recital of Bontekoe's pious trip toward heaven and the patience with which he had accepted the vicissitudes of life that they read his little book long after the more ponderous volumes had been left to the kind ministrations of the meritorious book-worm.
CHAPTER IX
SCHOUTEN AND LE MAIRE DISCOVER A NEW STRAIT
This is the story of a voyage to a country which did not exist. The men who risked their capital in this expedition hoped to reach a territory which we now call Australia. It was not exactly the Australia which we know from our modern geography. It was a mysterious continent of which there had been heard many rumors for more than half a century. What the contemporary traveler really hoped to find we do not know, but we have the details of an expedition to this new land called "Terra Australis incognita" or "the unknown southern land," an expedition which left the harbor of Hoorn on the fifteenth of June of the year 1615.
Hoorn is a little city on the Zuyder Zee, just such a little city as Enkhuizen, from whi ch Linschoten had set out upon his memorable voyage. This voyage had a short preface which has little to do with navigation, but much with provincial politics and commercial rivalry. The original idea of allowing everybody to found his own little Indian trading company after his own wishes had been a bad one from an economic point of view. There was so much competition between the three dozen little companies that all were threatened with bankruptcy. Therefore a financial genius, the eminent leader of the province of Holland, John of Barneveldt, took matters into his own capable hands and combined all the little companies into one large East India Trading Company, a commercial body which existed until the year 1795 and was a great success from start to finish.
Among the original investors there had been a certain Jacques le Maire, a native of the town of Antwerp who had fled when the Spaniards took that city for the second time, and who now lived in Amsterdam with his wife and his twenty-two children. He was res pected for his ability, and was chosen into the body of directors who managed the affairs of the East India Company. But Le Maire was not the sort of man to stay in the harness with others for a very long time. He complained that the company cared only fo r dividends and immediate profits. He wanted to see the ships of his adopted country make war upon the Spaniards, besides trying to steal their colonies.
After a few years Le Maire quarreled openly with several of the other directors, and he planned to form an Indian company of his own. In Amsterdam, however, he was so strongly opposed by his enemies, who were still in the old company, that he was forced to leave the city. He went to live in a small village near by and continued to work upon his schemes. With Hendrik Hudson he discussed a plan of reaching the Indies by way of the Northwestern Route—a route which was as yet untried. To King Henry IV of France he made the offer of establishing a new French company as a rival of the mighty Dutch institution. All these many ideas came to nothing. Henry IV was murdered, and Hudson went into the service of another employer.
Le Maire was obliged to invent something new. He was in a very difficult position. The Estates General of the Dutch Republic had given to their one East India Company a practical monopoly of the entire Indian trade. They decided that no Dutch ships should be allowed to travel to the Indies except through the Strait of Magellan or by way of the Cape of Good Hope. That meant that the entrance t o the Indian spice islands was closed at both sides. It was of course easy enough to sail through the strait or past the cape. There was nobody to prevent one from doing so. But when one tried to trade in India on his own account, the Dutch company sent t heir men-of-war after the intruder. These wanted to know who he was and how he came within the domain of the company. Since there were only two roads, he must have trespassed in one way or the other upon the privileges of the company. Therefore the company, which was the sovereign ruler of all the Indian islands, had the right to confiscate his ships.
If Le Maire could only find a new road to India, he would not interfere with the strict rules of the Estates General. His ships could then trade in the Pac ific and in the Indian Ocean, and he would be the most dangerous rival of the old company, which he had learned to hate since the days when he had first invested sixty thousand guilders and had been one of the directors. For a long time Le Maire studied b ooks and maps and atlases, and finally came to the conclusion that there must be another way of getting from the Atlantic into the Pacific besides the long and tortuous Strait of Magellan. And if there were a strait, there must be land on the other side of it. If only this could be discovered, Le Maire would be rich again, and could laugh at the pretentions of the East India Company.
Le Maire did not go to Amsterdam to get the necessary funds for his expedition. He interested the good people of the little town of Hoorn, and with a fine prospectus about his "Unknown Southern Land" he soon got all the money he needed. The Estates General were willing to give him all the privileges he asked for provided he did not touch the monopolies of their beloved East Indi a Company. Even Prince Maurice interested himself sufficiently in this voyage to a new continent to give Le Maire a letter of introduction which put the expedition upon more official footing.
Two small ships were bought, and eighty-seven men were engaged for two years. On the largest ship of the two, called the Eendracht, there were sixty-five men, and on the small yacht the Hoorn there were twenty-two. William Cornelisz Schouten was commander-in-chief. He had made three trips to India by way of the cape. Two sons of Le Maire, one called Jacques, the other Daniel, went with the expedition to keep a watchful eye upon everything and to see to it that their father's wishes were carefully executed. The ships were forbidden to enter the Strait of Magellan. In case of need they might return by way of the Cape, but they must be careful not to trade with any of the Indian princes who now recognized the rule of the East India Company. The main purpose of the expedition was to find the unknown continent in the Pacific. For this main purpose they must sacrifice everything else. And so they left Hoorn, and they sailed toward the south.
It was more than twenty years since the first
The cleaning of the smaller of the two vessels, however, was done so carelessly that it caught fire. Since it had been placed on a high bank at high tide and the water had ebbed, there was no water with which to extinguish the conflagration. Except for the guns, the entire ship and its contents were lost.
The sailors were taken on board the Eendracht, and on the thirteenth of January of the year 1616 the ship passed by the entrance of the Strait of Magellan and began to search for a new thoroughfare into the Pacific farther toward the South. On the twenty-third of January the most eastern pr omontory of Tierra del Fuego was seen. The next day the high mountains of another little island further toward the east appeared in the distance. Evidently Le Maire had been right in his calculations. There was another strait, and the Eendracht had discovered it. Such big events are usually very simple affairs. The southernmost point of Tierra del Fuego was easily reached and was called Cape Hoorn, after the town which had equipped the expedition. The Eendracht now sailed further westward, and in less than two weeks found herself in the Pacific Ocean. On the twelfth of February the great discovery was celebrated with a party for the benefit of the sailors. They had been the first to pass through the Strait of Jacques le Ma
ire and the dangerous route discovered by Magellan ninety-five years before could now be given up for the safer and shorter passage through Strait le Maire and the open water south of Tierra del Fuego.
T'eylandt van Guan Fernando
The ship had an easy voyage until it dropped its anchors before Juan Fernandez, the famous island of Robinson Crusoe. It was found to be the little paradise which De Foe afterward painted in his entertaining novel. Fresh water was taken on board, and the voyage was continued. After a month of rapid progress, wi th a good eastern wind, land was seen. It was a small coral island, probably one of the Paomuta group. Some men swam ashore, for it was impossible to use the boat on account of the heavy surf. They saw nothing but a flat, naked island and three strange dogs that did not bark. They found some fresh fruit, which they brought back to the ship for the sick people. Of course there were sick people. That was a part of every voyage. But the illness was not serious. Four days later they discovered a second island s omewhat larger. This was inhabited. A canoe with painted savages came out to the Dutch ship. Since the savages spoke neither Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, nor Malay, and the Dutch sailors did not know the Papua dialect, it was impossible to have conversatio n with these ignorant people who refused to come on board. Captain Schouten was not in need of anything, and he went on his way to try his luck at the next island. The natives had now discovered that there was no harm in this strange, large floating object. They came climbing over all the sides of the ship. They stole brass nails and small metal objects, hid them in their wooly and long hair, and then jumped overboard. Everywhere the same thing happened. Schouten sailed from one island to the next, but of any new continent, however, he found no sign. When you look at the map you will notice that this part of the Pacific is thickly dotted with small islands. Their inhabitants are great mariners, and in their little boats travel long distances. Schouten with his big ship caused great consternation among these simple fishermen, who hastily fled whenever they saw this strange big devil bearing down upon them.
The trip was very pleasant, but it grew tiresome to discover nothing but little islands. At last, however, on the tenth of May, a big one with high mountains and forests was reached. It was called Cocos Island because there were many cocoanut-trees near the shore. The inhabitants of the island, being unfamiliar with white people, were very hospitable and were willing to trade fresh cocoanuts and other eatable things for a few gifts of trinkets and perhaps a small pocket-knife. But jealousy was not unknown even in this distant part of the South Seas. Soon there was a quarrel between those canoes nearest to the ship which had obtained presents and others too far away to receive anything. Also there was a good deal of annoyance caused by the fact that the natives insisted upon stealing everything they could find on the ship. Finally Schouten was obliged to appoint a temporary police of Hollanders armed with heavy canes to keep the natives in their proper place. Otherwise they might have stolen the ship itself, just as they had once tried to make away with all the boats. Upon that occasion they had made their firs t acquaintance of fire-arms. When they saw what a little bullet could do they respected the mysterious lead pipes which made a sudden loud noise and killed a man at a hundred yards. Near Cocos Island there appeared to be more mountainous land, and Schouten decided to visit it. The king came out in state in his canoe to greet the Dutch captain. He was entertained royally with a concert. To show how much he appreciated the lovely music which he had just heard the king yelled and shrieked as loudly as he could. It was very funny, and everybody was happy. But this pleasant relation did not last long, for when the Hollanders were about to reciprocate the visit their ship was attacked, and several volleys from the large cannon were necessary to drive the natives away. These islands were called the Islands of the Traitors, because the king had tried to kill the people whom he had invited as his guests, and they are known to-day as the Ladrones.
The Eendracht was now sixteen hundred miles to the west of Peru, and as yet the unknown
Sailing along the coast of New Guinea, they at last reached the port of Ternate on the seventeenth of September. Here they found a large Dutch fleet which had just reached the Indies by way of the Strait of Magellan. This fleet was under command of Admiral van Spilbergen, who was much surprised to hear that the Eendracht had reached the Pacific through a new strait. He showed that he did not believe the story which Schouten told of his new discoveries. If there were such a strait, then why had it taken the Eendracht such a long time to reach Ternate? etc. The admiral suspected that this ship was a mere interloper sent by Le Maire to trade in a region where, according to the instr uctions of the East Indian Company, no other ships than those of the company were allowed to engage in commerce.
This suspicion was very unpleasant for the brave Schouten, but there were other things to worry him. Before the expedition started old Le Maire, a shrewd trader, had thought of the possibility that his ships might not be able to find this unknown continent. In that case he did not want them to come home without some profit to himself, and he had invented a scheme by which he might perhaps beat the company at her own game. The governor-general of the Dutch colonies at that time was a certain Gerard Reynst, who was known to be an avaricious and dishonest official. Le Maire counted upon this, and to his eldest son he had given secret instructions whi ch told him what to do in such circumstances. The idea was very simple. Young Le Maire must bribe Reynst with an offer of money or whatever would be most acceptable to the governor. In return for this Reynst would not be too particular if the Eendracht went to some out-of-the-way island and bought a few hundred thousand pounds worth of spices.
It was a very happy idea, and it undoubtedly would have worked. Unfortunately Reynst had just died. His successor was no one less than Jan Pietersz Coen, the man of iron who was to hammer the few isolated settlements into one strong colonial empire. Coen could not be bribed. To him the law was the law. The Eendracht did not belong to the East India Company; therefore, it had no right to be in India according to Coen's positive instructions. The ship was confiscated. The men were allowed to return to Holland. And the owners were told that they could start a lawsuit in the Dutch courts to decide whether the governor-general had acted within his rights or not.
Young Le Ma ire sailed for Holland very much dejected. He had lost his father's ship, and nobody would believe him when he told of his great discovery of the new and short connection between the Pacific and the Atlantic. He died on the way home, died of disappointmen t. His hopes had been so great. He had done his task faithfully, and he and Schouten had found a large number of new islands and had added many thousands of miles of geographical information to that part of the map which was still covered with the ominous letters of terra incognita. Yet through an ordinance which many people did not recognize as just he was deprived of the glory which ought to have come to him. His younger brother reached Holland on the second of July of the year 1617, and a week later he appeared in the meeting of the Estates General. This time the story which he told was believed by his hearers. The idea of an old man being the chief mover in equipping such a wonderful enterprise with the help of his sons and only a small capital against all sorts of odds assured Le Maire the sympathy of the man in the street. For a while Governor-General Coen was highly unpopular.
Old Le Maire started a suit for the recovery of his ship and its contents. After two years of pleading he won his case. The Eas t India Company was ordered to pay back the value of the ship and the goods confiscated. All his official papers were returned to Le Maire. His name and that of the little town of Hoorn, given to the most southern point of the American continent and to th e shortest route from the Atlantic to the Pacific, tell of this great voyage of the year 1618.
CHAPTER X
TASMAN EXPLORES AUSTRALIA
It often happened that ships of the Dutch East India Company on their way to the Indies were blown out of their course or were carried by the currents in a southern direction. Then they were driven into a part of the map wh
ich was as yet unknown, and they had to find their way about very much as a stranger might do who has left the well-known track of the desert. Sometimes these ships were lost. More often they reached a low, flat coast which seemed to extend both east and west as far as the eye could reach, which offered very little food and very little water, and appeared to be the shore-line of a vast continent which was remarkably poor in both plants and animals. Indeed, so unattractive was this big island, as it was then supposed to be, to the captains of the company that not a single one of them had ever taken the trouble to explore it. They had followed the coast-line until once more they reached the well-known regions of their map, and then they had hastened northward to the comfortable waters of the ir own Indian Ocean. But of course people talked about this mysterious big island, and they wondered. They wondered whether, perhaps, the stories of the Old Testament, the stories of the golden land of Ophir, which had never yet been found, might not yet be proved true in that large part of the map which showed a blank space and was covered with the letters of terra incognita.
If there were any such land still to be discovered by any European people, the Dutch East India Company decided that they ought to benefit by it. Therefore their directors studied the question with great care and deliberation.
A number of expeditions were sent out one after the other. In the year 1636 two small vessels were ordered to make a careful examination of the island of New Gui nea, which was supposed to be the peninsula part of the unknown Southern continent. But New Guinea itself is so large that the two vessels, after spending a very long time along the coast, were obliged to return without any definite information.
The Golden Book of the Dutch Navigators Page 13