268 



THE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA 



The 



Heemskerk 



and 



Zeehaen. 



Tasman's 

 Journal. 



The ships 

 sail, 1 4th 

 Aug. 1642. 



Mauritius, 

 5th Sept. 

 to 8th Oct 



Sixty men sailed on the Heemskerk, and fifty on the 

 Zeehaen. The ships were victualled for twelve months, 

 and had rice for eighteen. Two days a week were meat 

 days, and one day was bacon day. One mutchkin and 

 a half of arrack was allowed each day. 



Tasman was instructed to keep " an ample and elabo- 

 rate journal," and the instruction was well obeyed. He 

 kept a " daily register," illustrated by careful drawings, 

 and on this record was based the " Journal or Description " 

 which he handed in, under his signature, to the Governor- 

 General and Council as the official report of his voyage. 

 Extracts from it were afterwards printed. Cook and 

 Banks had one of these extracts on board the Endeavour, 

 and highly interesting they found it. Later, Banks managed 

 to buy a complete copy of the Journal. Recently Pro- 

 fessor Heeres has published a facsimile of the original 

 manuscript which still exists in the Colonial Archives 

 at the Hague. It is written in the hand, not of Tasman, 

 but of some unknown Government official. But it bears 

 Tasman's signature, and is evidently based on the ' daily 

 register," which, it seems, has disappeared. 1 Thus it 

 begins : " Journal or Description drawn up by me Abel 

 Janssen 2 Tasman, of a voyage made from Batavia in East 

 India, for the discovery of the unknown South-land, 

 in the year of our Lord 1642, the I4th of August. May 

 God Almighty vouchsafe His blessing on this work. 

 Amen." 



They came to Mauritius on the 5th of September, having 

 accomplished in twenty-two days a voyage for which 

 Visscher had allowed at least a month. They came in 

 condition so bad that some explanation is needed beyond 

 the difficulty of getting ships for a voyage of discovery. 

 The Governor of the island wrote that " their outfit for 

 a voyage of such a nature was hopelessly unsatisfactory," 

 and that the upper work of the Zeehaen was " so rotten 

 that a great part had to be repaired and renewed." They 



1 Heeres' Tasman, p. 67. 



2 The second name is sometimes spelled Janssen, sometimes Janszoon. 

 Tasman in his signature wrote Jansz. 



