VOYAGE OF THE "PERA" AND " AERNEM " 29 



close to the wind as ever you can, so as not to be driven too far west by the south- 

 easterly winds which generally prevail in these waters. You may therefore run on 

 as far as the thirty-second or thirty-third degree if you do not before that fall in 

 with the land. If you should have sailed so far, and yet have seen no land, you may 

 conclude x that you have fallen off too far westward, for sundry ships coming from the 

 fatherland have accidentally come upon the South Land before these latitudes. In 

 this case, you will have to shape your course eastward and run on in that direction 

 until you sight land. 



" In running over to the South Land aforesaid, you will have to keep a careful 

 lookout, as soon as you get in 14 or 15, seeing that the said English ship * Triall* 

 when in 20 10' S. lat., got on certain sunken rocks, which, according to the observation 

 of the English pilot, extend for 7 miles north-east and south-west, although no dry 

 land was visible. Nevertheless, the men who saved themselves in the pinnace and 

 boat and arrived here stated that about 13 or 14 they had seen masses of reeds, wood 

 and other drift floating about in the sea, from which they concluded that there must 

 be land or islands somewhere in the neighbourhood. The aforesaid sunken rocks on 

 which the ' Triall ' was wrecked ought, according to the report of the Englishmen, 

 to be due south of the west cape of Java. 



" Having reached the South Land in the said latitude or near it, you will then 

 sail along the same as far as lat. 50, in case the land extends so far south, but if the 

 land should come to an end before you have oversailed the said latitude, and should 

 be found to trend eastward, you may follow it in that direction for a little, but if you 

 find no further southward extension possible, you had better turn back. You will 

 do the same if the land should turn westward. On the return voyage you will run 

 along the coast as far as it extends to the north, and next eastward or otherwise as 

 the land goes, and thus follow the land as close and as far as possible and as you 

 judge your provisions will suffice for the return home, even if, in so doing, you should 

 sail round the whole land and emerge to southward. 



" The main object for which you are dispatched on this occasion is that from 

 45 or 50 degrees, or from the furthest point to which the said land shall be found to 

 extend southward between these latitudes, up to the northmost end of the South 

 Land, you are to discover and survey all capes, forelands, bays, lands, islands, rocks, 

 reefs, sandbanks, deeps, shallows, roadsteads, winds, currents and whatever else 

 appertains to the same, so that they may be charted and noted, with their true 

 latitudes, longitudes, bearings and conditions. You will moreover land in various 

 places and carefully observe whether they are inhabited, and what sort of people 

 and country there are, what towns and villages there are, their government, their 

 religion, their policy, their war-equipment, their waters, their vessels, their fisheries, 

 and their commodities and manufactures, and more especially what minerals they 

 have, such as gold, silver, tin, iron, lead and copper, as well as precious stones and 

 pearls, and what vegetables, animals and fruits these lands afford. 



" To all of which particulars and whatever else may be worth noting you will 

 pay diligent attention, keeping a careful record or journal with reference thereto, 

 that we may get full information of all your doings and experiences and the Company 

 may obtain due and perfect knowledge of the natural resources of these lands in return 

 for their heavy outlay. 



" To all the places which you touch at, you will give appropriate names, choosing 

 for the same either the names of the United Provinces or of the towns therein, or any 

 other dignified names. Of all which places, lands and islands, the Commander and 

 Officers of the said yachts will, by order and pursuant to the Commission of The 

 Honourable the Governor-General, Jan Peterszoon Coen, sent out there [*.<?., to the 

 East Indies] by their High Mightinesses the States General of the United Netherlands, 

 together with Messieurs the Directors of the General Chartered United East India 

 Company in these parts, by solemn declaration signed by the Ships' Councils, take 

 formal possession, and in token thereof, besides, erect a stone column in such places as 



1 It will be observed that no direct observation for longitude is suggested. 



