407 
AUSTRALIAN TOPOGRAPHY: EDEL’S LAND, DE 
WITT’S LAND, AND CARPENTARIA. 
By James R. McCriymont, M.A., Eprn. 
/ 
[Read November 16, 1885. | 
In the Letter of Instructions issued to Tasman in 1644, 
as edited by Mr. Swart in the Verhandelingen en Berigten 
betrekkelijk het Zeewezen, Jaargang 1844, bl. 65, occurs the 
foliowing reference to an early Dutch expedition for the fuller 
discovery of New Guinea and the unknown south land :— 
“ De tweede voyagie met seecker jacht, in den jare 1617, 
onder ’t berleyt van den fiscael D’EpE1, met weynich vrucht 
gedaen, van welck bejegeningh en ondervindingh tegen woor- 
dich (inits’t verlies van de journaele aenteyckeningen) geen 
seeckere contschap te vinden is.” 
“The second voyage in a certain yacht in 1617, under 
command of the Fiscal D’Eprt, was attended with meagre 
results, concerning which undertaking and discovery no 
certain account can now be found, in consequence of the loss 
of the journals and observations.” 
A comparison of this passage with others in the same 
Letter and with the maps of Tasman and Visscher and the 
Stadhuys map, leads to the opinion that the Edel’s Land of 
western Australia was approximately the goal of this voyage, 
and that the date 1619, generally ascribed to its discovery, 
should be regarded as that of a subsequent visit. Harris’ 
voyages ed. Campbell. i, p 325. 
In support of this opinion, it will be remembered that a 
discovery of land far south of the turning-point of the 
Duyffken was reported in Java towards the end of 1616 on 
the arrival of the outward-bound ship Hendracht, and that a 
lively interest was awakened in the minds of the Dutch 
authorities by the news of this and subsequent glimpses of 
the western coast of the new south land. This is evident from 
the fact that in September 1622, the then Governor-General, 
Jan Pietersz Coen, authorised an expedition for the express 
purpose of reporting upon this and other chance discoveries, 
and equipped thereto the yachts Haeringh and Hasewindt. 
It may be presumed that this expedition, six years after the 
discovery of the Hendracht, was not the first attempt made 
to authenticate the same by an official survey, for the dis- 
covery was important to the Dutch East India Company 
from a commercial point of view, since the crews of their 
outward-bound ships frequently fell a prey to sickness and 
scurvy about the time of their reaching these latitudes, for 
whose relief Gerrit Pool was enjoined in 1636 to find a con- 
