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Dirk Hartogs' Landing in Australia Scottish Geographical Magazine ISSN: 0036-9225 (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rsgj19 Dirk Hartogs' landing in Australia W. Siebenhaar To cite this article: W. Siebenhaar (1918) Dirk Hartogs' landing in Australia, Scottish Geographical Magazine, 34:1, 20-28, DOI: 10.1080/14702541808554750 To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14702541808554750 Published online: 30 Jan 2008. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 6 View related articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=rsgj19 Download by: [University of California, San Diego] Date: 29 June 2016, At: 13:31 20 SCOTTISH GEOGI:~APHICALMAGAZINE. Turkish-ff, ngIish Lexicon (Constantinople, 1890, page 335): " ~)~lk:, 5alyoos, (Ital. baglis), t. Title of the Venetian Ambassador at the Otto- man Court in olden times. 2. Title, sometimes vulgarly given to all consuls." DIRK HARTOGS' LANDING IN AUSTRALIA. By W. SI~,~ENHAAR, Deputy Registrar-General of Western Australia. PART I.--TttE D~RK HARTOGS TERCENTAR¥.~ BE~WEE~ the discovery of America and that of Australia there is, as regards almost every feature of the two events, the greatest dissimilarity. Yet the~e is one remarkable point of resemblance, viz., that in both cases human intelligence, having sufficient reason to be convinced of the existence of vast continents in the direction where they were ultimately found, made deliberate and strenuous efi0rts to reach these unexplored lauds, in the discovery of America the penetration and will-power of one man, Columbus, achieved success. In that of Australia, the shrewdest and most. enterprising commercial leaders of a whole nationality, the Dutc'n, saw their deliberate efforts rewarded after many attempts. Strange to say, although Columbus was probably far more imbued with the scientific than the commercial spirit, the result of his discovery was of the highest immediate commercial value. The discovery of Australia, on the other hand, although achieved no doubt principally for com- mercial ends, brought its authors the impersonal scientific reward. In speaking of the Dutch as the discoverers of Australia, I am not overlookii~g the probability that other nationalities may have sighted her coasts before ;. but as no records of real value have been left, such visits can have no more significance than the indications that vikings and other bold sailors probably reached America long before Columbus. To examine the claims put forward on behalf of other nationalities is to prove their indefiniteness. Cornelis Wytfliet's book, published in 1597, has been adduced as conclusive proof that Australia was known prior to what may be termed authenticated accounts. Now when it is Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 13:31 29 June 2016 pointed out that this book gives Teq'.ra ,4ush'alis as beginning at 2 ° or 3 ° from the Equator, it surely is evident that New Guinea was indicated, and tha~, as regards Australia, ~Vytfliet merely reproduced the vague conjectures found on other charts of the period. Old manuscripts have been found bearing in some features a slight resemblance to parts of the Australian coast, but no latitudes appear to be shown. One point alone Part [. of this article was read before the RoyM Society of Pm'th~ Western Australia, on Oct. f~5, 1916 ; Part IL was written for this 3lagazine. It should be noted that while English writers use geuerally the form Hartog, Dutch authors employ that of Fiartogs~ which is used iu Professor Heeres' boek.--Ed. S.G.M. DIRK ]:IARTOGS' LANDING IN AUSTRALIA. 21 is distinctly in favour of a Portuguese claim to discovery, the fact that the name "Abrolhos'' is given on one of these maps. On the other hand, it has been argued that this name, meaning "Look out," was used by the Portuguese for shoals and other places dangerous to navigation, and was therefore applied by then] to more than one such spot, in the same way as the Dutch gave the name '~Keerweer" repeatedly when coming to a cape which compelled them to turn about. If the Portuguese or Spanish had any real knowledge of the Australian coast, they certainly never showed any perseverance in turning that knowledge to further account. Nor, in modern times, do they appear to be seriously concerned about their claim to priority. Repeated eflbrts, on the part of Mr. Malcolm A. C. Fraser, when Registrar-General of Western Australia, to obtain information on the point from the authorities at Lisbon and Madrid, remained unsuccessful, no answer even having been vouchsafed in either case. Both France and Holland, on the contrary, have most readily responded to similar inquiries, and it does not augur well for the possibility of any records of value being ever found in the two Iberian countries, that from them no reply whatever was received. That the Dutch searched for the Unknown Southland with great deter- mination and considerable scientific acumen is amply evidenced by the instructions issued to the navigators whowere speciallysent from Java early in the seventeenth century. Further, although the subsequent discovery of Australia's west coast was due to what may be termed accident, their exploration of the Gulf of Carpentaria was carried out in so splendidly purposeful and informative a manner, that no doubt can be entertained as to the virtual certainty that, quite apart from accident, they would have ultimately succeeded in any case in making Australia known to the world. Nor is what is said to have been stated by Sir William Temple likely to be true--that they forbade their mariners to make the know- ]edge of their discoveries public property. For in 1647 was published at .~msterdam~ for all the world to buy, the circumstantial account of the voyage and wreck of the ]~atctvia, giving complete geographical detail as to laf~itudes, nature of the land, etc. Under these circumstances it can cause but little wonder that the first thoroughly reliable historian of the discovery of Australia is a Datehman, Professor Dr. J. E. Heeres of Leiden. The inaccuracies committed by other writers, as regards facts, names, and inferences, would fill a large volume. It is strange that even compilers who had Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 13:31 29 June 2016 apparently seen Professor Heeres' book, The part borne by the .Dutch i% the .Discovery of .4~s[ra[ia, should have committed such egregious errors, and reproduced, for instance, the utterly garbled spelling of Dutch names from carelessly printed publications. But in Heeres ~ book we have at last a compilation that bears the stamp of scientific investigation and conscientious deduction, and are consequently now on the terra fi~'q~a of true historical knowledge. This I will at once prove more particularly as regards the treatment of perhaps the principal claim contained in the book, that of the evidence that the ship Duifken, in 1605, actually explored part of the shores washed by the Gulf of Carpentaria. On the 28th November 1605, the .Du~ifken, commanded by Willem Jansz, put to 22 SOOTTISH GEOGRAPHIOAL MAGAZINE. sea from Bantam with New Guinea for destination. She returned to Banda before June. Unfortunately the log of her voyage has not come down to us, although referred to in official documents of 1618, so that the results achieved are only known indirectly from other records. But these records are sufficiently frequent and definite. In the instructions received by Tasman in 1644, the following passage occurs :- "The first voyage was undertaken in the year 1606 with the yacht Duyff/:en, by order of President Jan Willemsz Verschoor . and the unknown south and west coasts of Nova Guinea were discovered over a length of 220 miles from 5 to 13~ degrees southern latitude, it being only ascertained that vast regions were for the greater part uncultivated, and certain parts inhabited by savage, cruel, black barbarians, who slew some of our sailors, so that no information was obtained touching the exact situation of the country, and regarding the commodities obtainable and in demand there; our men were, through want of provisions and other necessaries, compelled to return and give up the discovery they had begun, only registering on their charts, with the name Cape Keerweer, the extreme point of the discovered land, in 133 degrees southern latitude." It is .evident that they had unconsciously entered the Gulf of Carpentaria, and it is incomprehensible to me how Mr. Collingridge can have looked for a Cape Keerweer in 13~ def/ress of southern latitude on ths coast of ~Vew G~dnea ; the definiteness of the D~dfke~'s record seems to have ]eft no room for any reasonable doubt. This, one is glad to acknowledge, has apparently been recognised by the Government, which has perpetuated the name "Keerweer" on the Queensland coast, and also named one cape "Duifhen Point," although with an unfortunate corruption of the "k" into an "h," which I trust will one of these days be corrected. ~t must, of course, all the time be clearly borne in mind that the captain of the D~iflcen did not realise, any more than his countrymen for many years afterwards, that New Guinea was separated from Australia by the Torres Straits, through which its Spanish discoverer sailed, a few months after ~Villem Jansz had passed its western entrance while probably mistaking it for a gulf. As conclusive as Tasman's instructions are the references in the log book of Jan Carstensz, the captain of the 2era in 1623, who extended the coastal explorations of the D~tifke~ in the Gulf of Carpentaria. For Downloaded by [University of California, San Diego] at 13:31 29 June 2016 instance :--" \Ve sailed past a largo river (which the men of the Duifken went up with a boat in 1606, and where one of them was killed by "throws" of the blacks); to this river, which is in 11 ° ~8'lat., we have on the new chart given the name of 'roofer de Carpentier.'" This river was subsequently re-baptized "Batavia," which name it still bears.
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