28 PYGMIES AND PAPUANS 



but the account of the voj^age was not published and the 

 fact of his discovery remained unknown until after 

 1800. 



The seventeenth century was chiefly notable for the 

 explorations of the Dutch, whose East India Company 

 proclaimed a monopoly of trade in the Spice Islands 

 to the exclusion of people of other nationalities. In 

 1605, Willem Jansz sailed from Banda to New Guinea 

 in the Duyfken. The Ke and Aru Islands were visited 

 and the Cape York Peninsula of Australia was reached, 

 but the importance of that discovery was not realised. 

 On the mainland of New Guinea nine men of the ship's 

 company were killed and eaten, and the expedition 

 returned to Banda. 



Jacques Le Maire and Willem Schouten made an 

 important voyage in 1616 in the Eendracht. Sailing 

 from Europe by way of Cape Horn they crossed the 

 Pacific and discovered New Ireland, where they had 

 trouble with the natives, who (it is interesting to note) 

 gave them pigs in exchange for glass beads. The 

 Admiralty and Vulcan Islands were seen and then, 

 after reaching the coast of New Guinea, they discovered 

 the mouth of the Kaiserin Augusta River and the 

 Schouten Islands. 



The next important voyage, and in this chronicle 

 the most important of all, was that of Jan Carstcnsz 

 (or Carstenszoon) who sailed from Amboina in 1623 

 with the ships Per a and Arnhem. After visiting Ke 

 and Aru they reached the S.W. coast of New Guinea, 

 where they met with trouble. "This same day 

 " (February 11) the skipper of the yacht Arnhem, Dirck 



