, 6 .ICSTRALAS1A ILLUSTRATED. 



in the Southern Ocean. Van Diemen, in the year 1637, had been appointed by the Dutch 

 .is their Governor-General in the East Indies, and although no navigator himself he was 

 the cause of much exploratory navigation by others. Shortly before he set sail from 

 Europe to take up his work of administering the affairs of Asiatic Holland, it so happened 

 that there had been published at Frankfort an account in Latin of the voyages of De 

 Ouiros. It cannot be doubted that Van Diemen knew of this, and being enterprising and 

 ambitious, was resolved to signalize his period of government by the further exploration 

 of this dreamt-of Southern Continent, and it is from an account of what the Dutch had 

 already done in these waters up to the time of Tasman's second voyage, which Van 

 Diemen caused to be drawn up, and which curiously enough, was discovered only a 

 century ago, that we have derived our meagre account of the Dnyfhcn and the other 

 Dutch ships which at various times explored small portions of the coast. 



On the 1 4th of August, 1642, there set sail from Batavia two clumsy vessels, with 

 high square sterns, and sides bulging out prodigiously at the water-line, manned by 

 stolidly unromantic Dutch sailors who could at least be relied upon to do their duty. 

 These vessels were the Hccmskerck and the Zeehaen, of the expedition fitted out by 

 Antony Van Diemen, and commanded by Abel Janszen Tasman, and their mission was 

 the quest of a continent. At first they sailed south-west to the Mauritius, then turning 

 to the south-east, and encountering on their way the chilly storms from the South Pole, 

 they penetrated to latitude fifty degrees ; but they found no signs of a continent in 

 these seas, so Tasman shaped his course eastward, inclining slightly north along a line 

 that brought him in sight of a bold shore, rising a little way inland into rugged hills, 

 and behind these into deep blue mountains. As the vessels approached, Tasman, repeat- 

 ing the experience of De Ouiros off the island of Espiritu Santo, could see no pros- 

 pect of a landing-place on that iron-bound coast ; he therefore headed southwards and 

 followed the shore-line, which soon trended to the north-east. After a day or two he 

 found himself sailing between the beautiful shores of a spacious bay, and had some 

 hope of landing and finding fresh water ; but as his vessels entered the weather 

 thickened, and in a fierce hurricane they were for three days driven out to sea. When 

 the gale moderated they again stood in to the land, and anchored in an arm of the inlet 

 they had previously attempted, to which Tasman gave the name of Storm Bay. The 

 coast was well timbered, and rose before the voyagers in picturesque masses of great 

 forest-clad mountains. Two boats' crews well armed were sent on shore, and cautiously 

 explored the margin of the dense forest in all probability the first Europeans who 

 <\rr trod the lovely fern-carpeted glades of Tasmania. 



They did not meet any natives, but they heard voices and other sounds ; and on 

 some of the trees, the smooth white trunks of which rose to a great height, they saw 

 notches cut at intervals of five feet, evidently for the convenience of a climber. Having 

 no knowledge of the manner in which opossums were caught by the natives, the Dutch- 

 men concluded that these must be a giant people whose strides were five feet in 

 Next day some men were seen through the haze on a rocky promontory, and 

 the fears of the crews magnified these inoffensive blacks into the sons of Anak they 

 had already imagined them to be. The ceremony of taking possession of the land had 

 not yet been performed, and no one seemed particularly anxious to make the personal 



