620 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



cois Valentyn in his publication entitled " The Old and New 

 East Indies." Here is a much fuller, though still far from 

 perfect, text of the original, and it is accompanied by copies 

 of the thirty-eight plates drawn byTasman's artist. Valentyn 

 married a daughter of the secretary to the Council at Batavia, 

 and it is readily seen how by a little piece of nepotism 

 Valentyn gained surreptitious access to this and other valuable 

 documents. His text remained long the standard. A trans- 

 lation of it appears in that splendid "Collection of Dutch 

 Voyages in the South Pacific," published by the celebrated 

 Alexander Dalrymple, Hydrographer to the Admiralty, of 

 whom more anon. It is embellished with several of Tasman's 

 quaint plates, one of which depicts the double canoe formerly 

 used by the New-Zealanders. When Mr. (afterwards Sir 

 Joseph) Banks returned from his great voyage round the world 

 with Captain Cook he assumed that position of Maecenas 

 which his great wealth, education, and tastes enabled him to 

 take, and, as we know, continued to the end of his life an 

 ardent lover and supporter of literature and science. What- 

 ever was curious or rare gravitated towards him, and thus he 

 became possessed of what was considered — but incorrectly 

 — Tasman's own long -hidden journal. This treasure was 

 brought to England about 1773 or 1774, and was offered 

 to Sir Joseph, who bought it without ado. We may be 

 sure that no too curious questions were asked or answered 

 on either side of the bargain. The services of the Eev. 

 Charles Woide, chaplain of the King's Dutch Chapel at St. 

 James's Palace, were secured to translate it, and this trans- 

 lation, with charts and illustrations, appears in Burney's 

 Voyages, vol. hi., 1813. This supplies us to the present time 

 with the most complete account we have in English of Tas- 

 man's discoveries. Mr. W T oide expressed the belief that this 

 was not the original, but an imperfect copy. This opinion 

 I am quite able to confirm, having collated Dalrymple 

 and Burney with an authentic copy of the original Dutch 

 journal in my possession, and which is here exhibited. 

 It is printed in its entirety by the old-established firm of 

 Van Keulen at Amsterdam, celebrated as cartographers 

 and nautical publishers. The book is but little known ap- 

 parently beyond Holland, perhaps because interest in the 

 subject is limited, and also because Dutch literature, unlike 

 French and German, is almost confined to its own land. 

 To Jacob Swart is due the honour of giving to the world 

 Tasman's perfect journal. This gentleman was, or is, if he 

 is still alive, a Knight of the Oaken Crown of Holland, a 

 member of various learned societies, a lecturer in the Naval 

 School, and editor of the Zeemans-Almanak, the equivalent 

 probably of our Nautical Magazine. From the introduc- 



