lxxvi INTRODUCTION. [Prior Discoveries. 
Preliminary « ever since been considered as a great curiosity ; and as such, has 
Observations . ° J 
" been translated into many languages."* 
If a judgment may be formed from the translations, Rembrantz 
must have omitted great part of the nautical details concerning Van 
Diemen's Land, a defect which is remedied in the following account. 
It is taken from a journal containing, besides the daily transactions 
and observations throughout the whole voyage, a series of thirty- 
eight manuscript charts, views, and figures. The expression by me, 
which often occurs in it, and followed by the signature Abel Jansz 
Tasman, shews that if this were not his original journal, it is a copy 
from it : probably one made on board for the governor and council 
of Batavia. With this interesting document, and a translation made 
in 1776, by Mr. C. G. Woide, chaplain of His Majesty's Dutch 
chapel at St. James's, I was favoured by the Right Hon. Sir Joseph 
Banks. -f» 
T i642 N " Captain Abel Jansz Tasman sailed from Batavia on Aug. 14, 
1642, with the yacht Heemskerk and fly-boat Zeehaan ; and, after 
touching at Mauritius, steered south and eastward upon discovery. 
Nov. 24, at four p. m., high land was seen in the E. by N., supposed 
to be distant forty miles. The ships steered towards it till the evening ; 
when there were high mountains visible in the E. S. E., and two 
smaller ones in the N. E. They sounded in 100 fathoms, and then 
stood off from the land, with the wind at south-east. 
In the morning of Nov. 25., it was calm ; but on a breeze spring- 
* Complete Collection of Voyages and Travels, originally published by John Harris, 
D. D. and F. JR. S. London, 1744. Vol. I. page 325. 
f I am proud to take this opportunity of publicly expressing my obligations to the 
Right Hon. President of the Royal Society ; and of thus adding my voice to the many 
who, in the pursuit of science, have found in him a friend and patron. Sueh he proved 
in the commencement of my voyage, and in the whole course of its duration ; in the dis- 
tresses which tyranny heaped upon those of accident ; and after they were overcome. His 
extensive and valuable library has been laid open ; and has furnished much that no time 
or expense, within my reach, could otherwise have procured. 
Atlas 
Plate VII. 
