26 NORTHMOST AUSTRALIA 



touching a charter for the Australia Company, and a Memorandum, 

 dated 2nd August, 1618, was laid before the East India Company 

 as a basis for the reply. It is argued in this document that the 

 Australia Company should be excluded from the southern parts 

 between the meridian of the east end of Ceylon and that lying 

 100 miles east of the Solomon Islands, because the East India 

 Company had already busied itself with this part of New Guinea, 

 instancing the explorations, about 1606, by the " Duyve " 

 (" Duyjken ") by Skipper Willem Janszoon and Supercargo Jan 

 Lodovijkszoon van Rosingijn, " who made sundry discoveries on 

 the said coast of Nova Guinea, as is AMPLY SET FORTH IN THEIR 

 JOURNALS." Heeres remarks that therefore the journals of the 

 expedition must have been extant in 1618. They were extant, I 

 have no doubt, in 1623, when CARSTENSZOON sailed the " Pera " 

 along the west coast of Cape York Peninsula. Indeed, a close 

 reading of the " Pera's " log gives the impression that the 

 " Duyf kerfs " charts and journals were the daily study of the 

 officers of the " Pera." Yet there is no reference in Tasman's 

 instructions, drawn up in 1644, to the charts and journals of the 

 " Duyjken:' 



The " Perots " log, hereinafter quoted at length, contains the 

 following entry, dated nth May, 1623 : 



" In the afternoon we sailed past a large river (which the men of the ' Duyjken ' 

 went up with a boat in 1606, and where one of them was killed by the missiles thrown 

 by the blacks). To thii river, which is in lat. n 48', we have given the name of 

 REVIER DE CARPENTIER l in the new chart." 



I take this to be evidence of Carstenszoon's familiarity with the 

 " Duyfkerfs " charts and journals. 



There is no absolute certainty that any of the " Duyfkerfs " 

 men, who " went up " the Carpentier River " in a boat," set foot 

 on the land. The man killed by missiles may have been speared 

 in the boat. If any of the crew landed, this is the EARLIEST 

 RECORDED LANDING of white men in Australia. 



The exact locality of the greater disaster which, according to 

 the Kling skipper, resulted in the death of nine of the " Duyfkerfs " 

 crew, is not stated. It may, however, be presumed that the 

 slaughter took place at CAPE KEERWEER, and finally determined 

 the abandonment of the enterprise. The loss of nine men, added 

 to the loss of one at the Carpentier River, must have left a 30- 

 or even a 6o-ton vessel very short-handed. 



The probability that the " Duyjken " made still another voyage 

 to New Guinea, including possibly the Cape York Peninsula, has 

 been argued from the following passage in A Narrative and Journal 

 of the Voyage made Jrom Bantam to the Coast of Choromandel and 



1 This river is now named the SKARDON (see Queensland 4-mile Map, Sheet 21 A). 



