recited, it appears that a Dutch yacht, on a voyage of discovery in 1605-6, discovered the "South Land," mistaking it for the west side of New Guinea; that a second expedition, in 1617, met with no success; and that, in 1623, a third, consisting of the yachts Pera and Arnhem, was despatched from Amboyna, by which were discovered "the great islands of Arnhem and Spult," being, in fact, the north of Australia, which still bears the name of Arnhem's Land. Other records show that, up to 1626, the Dutch had, either accidentally or by voyages of exploration, discovered and given names to about half the coast of Australia.
Many of these names are preserved to this day, for we have not a passion for re-naming after the standard of our own language.
The Gulf of Carpentaria is still called after General Peter Carpenter, who explored it. At that period military titles were indifferently applied to commanders at sea as on land; and captains of ships then, as at present in the Russian navy, wore spurs. The names of Arnhem, Tasman, De Witt, Endrachts, and Edel, cover the whole of the coast of Northern Australia as far as Sharks' Bay.
It is curious that none of these explorations led to any permanent settlement; and that in this instance, as in many others in America, at the Cape, and in India England has reaped the fruits of Dutch industry and enterprise. That industrious people have scarcely been more fortunate than the indolent, anti-commercial Spaniard. The Dutch, of all their rich colonial possessions, retain only Java, and the Spaniards Cuba. The two new gold-fields discovered by Dutch and Spaniards, Australia and California, have fallen into the hands of an English-speaking race.
Of Tasman's voyage no account has ever been published. There was found on one of the islands forming the roadstead called Dirk Hartog's roadstead, at the entrance of Shark's Bay, in 1697, and afterwards again in 1801, a pewter plate, attached to a decayed log half sunk in earth, which bore two inscriptions in Dutch, of different dates, of which the following are translations:—
"1616. On the 25th October the ship Endracht, of Amsterdam, arrived here; first merchant, Gilles Miebais Van Luck; Captain Dirk Hartog, of Amsterdam. She sailed on the 27th of the same month for Bantam. Supercargo, Janstins; chief pilot, Peter Ecores Van Due. Year 1616."
The second inscription was—
