CHAPTER XVII 



THE ENDING OF THE DUTCH PART 



AUTHORITIES : 



HEERES' Part borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia. 

 MAJOR'S Early Voyages to Australia (Hakluyt Society). 



WITH Tasman's voyage of 1644 the interest of the Dutch 

 story ceases. The Directors adopted a policy which regarded 

 discovery as a misfortune, likely to attract the Serpent 

 probably an English Serpent into the Garden of Eden. 

 The rest must be told briefly. 

 The wreck of Dutch ships continued to sail from the Cape to Batavia 

 ^7 the route that brought them near their dangerous 

 landmark in Eendrachtsland. From time to time, ships 

 were wrecked, and more ships were sent to rescue the crews, 

 recover the freight, and chart the dangerous coasts. In 

 1656, for example, the Vergulde Drack was wrecked " on 

 the coast of the South-land, on a reef stretching out to 

 sea about a mile and a half in Latitude 30." Of one 

 hundred and ninety-three souls, only seventy-five reached 

 the shore. The news was brought to Batavia by one 

 of the boats, with a crew of seven sailors, after a month's 

 voyage. Governor-General and Council sent a quick- 

 sailing boat to rescue the sixty-eight shipwrecked men, 

 to explore the coast, and to put it down on a map with 

 its capes, inlets, bays, rocks, sands, and shoals. The 

 shipwrecked men were never found ; nor was anything 

 seen of the ship except wreckage. But exact charts 

 of the coast were made, which still exist, and have been 

 printed by modern students. 1 The usual unfavourable 



1 Major, p. 81 ; Heeres' Part borne by the Dutch, pp. 77, 78, 80. 



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