TASMAN'S VOYAGE OF 1642 279 



To the passage between Van Diemen's Landt and the new 

 Staten Landt " we have given the name of Abel Tasman 

 Passage, because he has been the first to navigate it." 



The main object now was to fight a way through or Is it a Bay 

 round this block of South-land, in order to make the ora trait 

 shortest route to Chili; a matter which the rulers of the 

 Company regarded as " the main point of the voyage." l 

 For this reason it had been resolved to sail Eastward 

 along the coast. If Tasman had persisted in this resolu- 

 tion, he would have proved that he was right, and would 

 have discovered Cook's Straits. And in fact he did sail one 

 hundred and twenty miles (30 Dutch miles) into a Bay, 

 "nothing doubting that we should here find a passage to the 

 open South Sea." 2 But to his " grievous disappointment, 

 it proved quite otherwise." The land seemed to close 

 in upon them from all sides, and they concluded that 

 it was a Bay, and not a Strait. They tried to get out 

 of it Westward in order to follow the coast to the North. 

 But wind and tide baffled them, they were blown and 

 dragged forwards and backwards across the Bay, and 

 they anchored at last behind an island, in a place which 

 they called " Tasman's Road." Here Tasman noticed 

 that a strong tide was running from the South East. 

 This seemed to make it at least likely that a strait did 

 after all exist, and he proposed that, as soon as wind 

 and tide should permit, they should investigate the matter. 

 Wind and tide, however, did not permit. When the 

 weather cleared, the wind was in the East. The search 

 for the Strait was abandoned. Tasman sailed Westward 

 out of the Bay, and then steered a Northward course, 

 hoping that, since he had failed to get through the obstacle, 

 he would be able to get round it. The Dutch, then, 

 remained uncertain whether they had sailed into a Bay 

 or into the mouth of a Strait. Tasman's map made it 

 a Bay " Zeehaen Bight." But Pilot Visscher's Chart 3 - 

 showed an opening, that suggests, at all events, the pro- 

 bability of a Strait. Cook in 1770 found his extract 

 from Tasman of especial interest at this point ; and 



1 Heeres' Tasman, p. 144. 2 Ibid., p. 21. a Ibid., p. 112. 



