Inscriptions left by Early European Navigators. 33 



S. van der Hagen and P. van Caerden in 1599 ; of J. van Neck 

 in 1600. 



The Dutch East India Company, the full title of which was 

 " De Vereenigde Nederlandtsche Geoctroyeerde Oost - Indische 

 Compagnie," was founded in 1602, but that the ventures were 

 proving remunerative is shown by the increasing number of vessels 

 sent from April, 1601, to 1606 (old reckoning). The expeditions 

 which left Holland from that date are as follows: April, 1601, W. 

 Harmansen, 5 ships ; J. van Heemskerk, 9 ships ; May, 1601, 

 J. van Spielbergen, 3 ships ; June, 1602, W. van Warwyk, 14 ships ; 

 Matalief, 11 ships ; April, 1606, P. van Caerden, 8 ships ; December, 

 1607, P. W. Verhoever, 13 ships, etc., etc. 



It is not known if all these fleets touched at Table Bay. Sailing 

 at first with Portuguese maps they would make for St. Helena Bay 

 and Mossel Bay ; but after the visit of Spielbergen to Table Bay, 

 they made that place for some time a port of call. 



Cornells Houtman is the first Dutch navigator who landed in 

 South Africa. He came to St. Helena Bay, where he bartered 

 cattle for iron, and had some dispute with the Hottentots. The 

 quarrel was, however, made up, and the fleet departed after nine 

 days' stay. It may be the same fleet, sailed by " Portingalles sea 

 cards" which came to Mossel Bay, where the inhabitants (Hotten- 

 tots) spoke very strangely clocking like turkey cocks. The Com- 

 mander says " the natives seem savage, yet with us they used all 

 kinds of friendship." 



This friendship was not to be of long duration, for in his second 

 voyage Houtman, in November, 1598, anchored in Table Bay 

 with two ships, the Leeuw and the Lccuwin, but their crew fared 

 badly at the hands of the natives, as narrated by John Davis of 

 Arctic fame, who was the pilot of the ship. " We came to Saldanha 

 Bay on the llth November, and traded with the natives at very easy 

 rates, obtaining fat oxen and sheep for old nails and pieces of iron. 

 The Dutch having done them some injuries they absented them- 

 selves for three days, and having in the meantime alarmed the 

 country by fires from the mountains, they returned again on the 

 19th bringing a large number of cattle with them. But while 

 the Dutch were bartering with them, they made a sudden and 

 furious assault upon them, slaying thirteen in a moment with hand 

 darts. The rest of the Dutch saved themselves by flight. They 

 embarked and went under way the same evening." 



The Dutch Captain, Paulus van Caerden, came, in the year 1599, 

 to a bay situated a few miles to the eastward of Table Bay, where he 



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