ENDING OF THE DUTCH PART 301 



great plain very barren " ; " the country twice as barren 

 as what we had seen before." They saw mountains, 

 and walked to the top, greatly fatigued by the excessive 

 heat ; it was the 25th of January. There was no water, 

 and they nearly fainted from thirst. " We could see 

 our ships, and wished a thousand times over that we were 

 on board again." At last they found a great pool of water 

 " slightly brackish " ; and made way back to the ships 

 with very sore eyes. 



Then they sailed to Dirck Hartog's Road, and found that 

 what had been thought a peninsula was an island. On 

 the island, nailed to a half-rotten post, was the " common 

 pewter dish " with the inscription recording Dirck Hartog's Dirck 

 visit on the Eendracht eighty years before. Vlamingh RQ^d 8 

 took it away for a marvel, and erected a new pole with a 

 new pewter dish, which recorded both Hartog's visit 

 and his own, and which was found by the next visitors 

 over a hundred years later. Then Vlamingh explored 

 the great Bay behind Dirck Hartog's island. Here, if 

 anywhere, one would expect to find the long-sought place 

 of refreshment for ships sailing from the Cape to Batavia. 

 The Dutch caught " three great sharks." Dampier, 

 a few years later, had a similar experience in the same 

 place and named it Sharks Bay. The Dutch also caught Sharks 

 turtles, each big enough to provide a meal for twenty- Bay * 

 four. But the coast was "rocky, dry, and forbidding." 

 They dug holes to get water, but it was so salt that it 

 could not be drunk without injury to health. Sharks Bay 

 was evidently not the place for a half-way settlement. 

 Vlamingh sailed on round North-West Cape to Willem's 

 River, where he " found ground but little suited for 

 anchoring." 



From the business point of view, the voyage was West 

 the final condemnation of West Australia. It had been A ust ^ aha 



is Si 



minutely surveyed from Swan River to North-West bare, 

 Cape, and it was an utterly hopeless country from end 

 to end. " Nothing has been discovered," report the 

 Governor-General and Council, " but a barren bare desolate 

 region. Neither have they met with any signs of habitation, 



