CHAPTER IX 

 TASMAN'S VOYAGE OF 1644 



FlRST TO CIRCUMNAVIGATE NEW HOLLAND (1642-3). TOUCHES VAN DlEMEN ? S LAND 



(TASMANIA). BELIEVES IT TO BE SOUTHERN EXTREMITY OF NEW HOLLAND. COASTS 

 NEW ZEALAND. To BATAVIA, VIA NORTH COAST OF NEW GUINEA, WHICH HE 



BELIEVES TO BE JOINED TO AUSTRALIA. THE 1644 EXPEDITION. THREE VESSELS 



LEAVE BATAVIA. SAILING ORDERS. SATISFIED THAT THERE is NO STRAIT BETWEEN 

 NEW GUINEA AND NEW HOLLAND. REPORT, IF ANY, STILL UNDISCOVERED, BUT 

 A SKETCH-MAP SHOWS THAT TASMAN FOLLOWED COAST-LINE FROM THE " DRY 

 BIGHT " (TORRES STRAIT) ROUND THE SHORES OF GULF OF CARPENTARIA, PAST 

 ARNHEIM LAND AND ALONG THE NORTH AND WEST COAST OF AUSTRALIA TO THE 

 TROPIC OF CAPRICORN. A POOR COUNTRY, INHABITED BY MISERABLE BUT 

 MALIGNANT SAVAGES. TASMAN PROBABLY DID NOT CARRY THE " PERA " DIARY 

 OR CHARTS. HAD BEEN FURNISHED WITH AN INACCURATE " SPECIALLY PREPARED " 

 CHART. NAMES NEW INLETS IN CAPE YORK PENINSULA AND OBSERVES MOUTH OF 

 PORT MUSGRAVE ESTUARY. NAMES PRINCE INLET (PENNEFATHER RIVER). NAMES 

 VLIEGE BAIJ (ALBATROSS BAY). MISIDENTIFIES THE "PERA'S" COEN AND NASSAU 

 INLETS. ARNHEIM RIVER (= VANROOK CREEK ?). MISIDENTIFIES " PERA'S " STATEN 

 INLET. NAMES VAN DIEMEN INLET (NORMAN RIVER), VAN DER LIJN INLET 

 (BYNOE MOUTH OF FLINDERS RIVER) AND CARON INLET (MOUTH OF FLINDERS 

 RIVER). 



OF all her gallant sailors there is none of whom Holland has 

 more reason to be proud than of ABEL JANSZOON TASMAN. 

 In many voyages of discovery he rendered signal services 

 to his country. Only two of these, however, come 

 within the scope of our inquiry. 



Prior to the first of these voyages, the western and a portion of 

 the southern shores of Australia were already known, but the theory 

 that the South Land formed part of a great antarctic continent 

 had yet to be disproved. In 1642-3, Tasman demonstrated the 

 INSULARITY OF " NEW HOLLAND " by sailing round it, although 

 at a great distance, with Batavia as his starting- and finishing-post. 

 He touched TASMANIA (named by him Van Diemen's Land) and 

 rounded its southern end, believing it to be the southern limit of 

 the South Land, now to be called New Holland. Thence he sailed 

 eastward to NEW ZEALAND, which he coasted to the north. He 

 returned to Batavia via the Friendly Islands, Fiji and the north 

 coast of NEW GUINEA, which he believed to be the northmost part 

 of New Holland. Tasman's journal is extant and relates, with 

 painstaking industry, the minutest details of his remarkable 

 voyage. 



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