whether the words "made a landing" in the passage quoted above, can be taken in the literal sense, or whether they are only meant vaguely to refer to an intention to explore the banks of the Batavia river, which was at once frustrated by a hostile attack of the natives.

How the knowledge resulting from the voyage of the Duifken was followed up by the efforts of later celebrated Dutch explorers, who gave Dutch names to a very considerable portion of Australasia, is probably too well known to need detailed mention here. What concerns us at present is the next event in Australian exploration, viz., the landing of Dirk Hartogs on the island named after him on the west coast. This event has been described in an article supplied by Mr. Malcolm A. C. Fraser in the West Australian of 4th September 1916, which I may here be permitted to quote :

"On the 25th of October next it will be exactly three hundred years since the first white men who left a definite record of their visit landed in Australia. The following quotation from the Western Australian Year Book for 1905 shows that Dirk Hartogs arrived at the island named after him on October 25th, 1616.

"In October 1616 Dirk Hartogs (Hartochsz), in command of the Dutch vessel Eendragt or Eendracht (Concord), supercargo Cornelis Buysero, outward bound from Holland to the Indies, entered Shark Bay, and gave his name to the island upon the western side of the Bay. The name 'Dor Eylandt' or 'Dorre Eylandt' (Barren Island), was then, or subsequently, given to the largest island at the entrance of the Bay. A tin plate nailed to a post erected at the north end of Dirk Hartogs' island remained for many years as a memento of his visit. His countryman, William De Vlaming, who visited the island in 1697, relates that he found the plate on the 4th of February of that year, and, taking it away with him, entrusted it to the Governor-General at Batavia, who forwarded it to the Board of Seventeen Directors of the Dutch East India Company in Holland, the president of which was, at that time, Burgomaster Nicolaas Witsen. Vlaming gave a rendering of the inscription, which, translated from the Dutch, runs as follows :

""Anno 1616, the 25th of October. - Arrived here the ship Eendracht, of Amsterdam; the first merchant Gillis Miebais of Liège. Dirk Hartogs of Amsterdam, captain.

""27th Do. - Sailed for Bantam.'

"On the lower part, cut with a knife, were to be read in Dutch the words:

""The under Merchant Jan Steyn, Upper Steersman, Pieter Ledoecker of Bil, Anno 1616.'

"Such, at least, was the wording of the duplicate plate which he caused to be substituted for the one removed. The original plate of Dirk Hartogs was discovered in 1902 by Mr. J. F. L. De Balbian Verster, in the 'Rijks-Museum' (State Museum) at Amsterdam, and it was then seen that the latter part of the inscription thereon reads as follows:

""The under merchant Jan Stins, Upper Steersman, Pieter Dockes of Bil. Anno 1616.'

"Vlaming's inscription was seen by Captain Hamelin, of the French exploring vessel Naturaliste, 1801; but the plate had disappeared in January 1822, when King caused careful search to be made for it. This disappearance can be accounted for by a statement made by De Freycinet to the effect that he had removed it and deposited it for safe keeping in the museum of the French Institute, which fact is referred to in the minutes of the society, dated March 23, 1821. In spite, however, of this statement, a careful search very recently made by the secretary of the Institute has failed to discover its present whereabouts.

"Dirk Hartogs examined the coastline between south latitude 26° 30′ and 23°, and called the intervening country 'Eendracht's Land."

The event is also referred to in the following words in The part borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia, by Professor J. E. Heeres of Leiden, already referred to :

"In the year 1616 the Dutch ship Eendracht, commanded by Dirk Hartogs, on her voyage from the Cape of Good Hope to Batavia, unexpectedly touched at 'divers islands, but uninhabited,' and thus for the first time surveyed part of the west coast of Australia. As early as 1619 this coast, thus accidentally discovered, was known by the name of 'Eendrachtsland.' The vagueness of the knowledge respecting the coastline then discovered, and its extent, is not inaptly illustrated in a small map of the world found in Gerardi Mercatoris Atlas sive Cosmographicae Meditationes de Fabrica mundi et fabricata figura. De

novo

auctus studio Judoci Hondij (Amsterodami; Sumptibus Johannis Cloppenburgij. Anno 1632. If, however, we compare this map of the world with Keppler's map of 1630, we become aware that Hondius has not recorded all that was then known in Europe respecting the light which since 1616 European explorers had thrown on the question of the western coastline of Australia. In Keppler's map, namely, besides the English discovery of the Trial Rocks (1622), and the name 'T Landt van Eendracht' in fat characters, passing from the north to the south, we meet with the following names, which the smaller letters show to have been intended to indicate subordinate parts of Eendrachtsland: 'Jac Rommer Revier,' 'Dirk Hartogs ree,' F. Houtmans aebrooleus,' and 'Dedells lant.' What is more, Keppler's map also exhibits the south-west coast of Australia.

"Whence all those names? The answer to this question, and at the same time various other new features, are furnished by the chart of Hessel Gerritsz of 1627, and by the one dated 1618, in which corrections have been introduced after date. The 1627 chart is specially interesting. Gerritsz, at the time cartographer in ordinary to the East India Company, 'put together this chart of the Landt van d'Eendracht from the journals and drawings of the steersmen,' which means that he availed himself of authentic data. He acquitted himself of the task to admiration, and has given a very lucid survey of the (accidental) discoveries made by the Dutch on the west coast of Australia. In this chart of 1627 the Land of d'Eendracht takes up a good deal of space. To the north it is found bounded by the Willemsrivier, 'discovered in July 1618 by the ship Mauritius, commanded by Willem Janszoon. According to the chart this river is in about 21° 45′ S. lat., but there are no reliable data concerning this point. If we compare Hessel Gerritsz's chart with those on which (about 1700) the results of Willem De Vlaming's expedition of 1696-7 were recorded, we readily come to the conclusion that the ship Mauritius must have been in the vicinity of Vlaming Head (N.W. Cape) on the Exmouth Gulf. From Willem Janszoon's statements it also appears that on this occasion in 22° 'an island was discovered and a landing effected.' The island extended N.N.E. and S.S.W. on the west side. The land-spit west of Exmouth Gulf may very possibly have been mistaken for an island. From this point then the Eendrachtsland of the old Dutch navigators begins to extend southward. To the question, how far it was held to extend, I answer that in the widest sense of the term (Land van Eendracht, or the Southland) it reached as far as the south coast, at all events past the Perth of our day. In a more restricted sense it extended to about 25° S. lat. In the latter sense it included the entrance to Shark Bay, afterwards entered by Dampier, and Dirk Hartogs Island, likewise discovered by Dirk Hartogs."

Here, then, in the voyage of the Duifken and the landing of Dirk Hartogs, we have the two events that ushered in the famous series of explorations subsequently made by the Dutch on the Australasian coasts. But before briefly summing up the principal results of the latter, I wish to draw attention to the cause of the numerous accidental visits paid by the Dutch sailors to the west coast of Australia. In their outward passage from the Cape of Good Hope to the Indian Archipelago they contented themselves for years with the course usually adopted by their predecessors, the Portuguese, which lay close to Madagascar in a north-easterly direction. The unfavourable winds, the intense heat, the great number of shallows, and other grave objections to this course, induced them in 1611 to take another route: from the Cape they now ran due east for a considerable number of days, in about 36° S. lat., after which they adopted a northerly course towards Java. The innovation proved so successful that the majority of Dutch vessels from that time onward adopted the new "fairway.". But one result, which they had not foreseen, was that the strong trade winds constantly created the danger of their being driven on the western coast of the Unknown Southland. This danger manifested itself to them in due course. As a set-off to the danger, however, there was also the equally unforeseen chance of their sighting that coast, and gradually adding to the civilised world's geographical knowledge. The first sailor who had the good fortune to be made aware of this was Dirk Hartogs, and we have seen what excellent use he made of his luck. After him followed in succession the Zeewolf, which in May 1618 sighted land in 21° 20'; the Mauritius, two months later, which discovered the "Willems Rivier" in lat. 21° 45′ (possibly the Ashburton); the fleet of Frederick de Houtman, which in 1619 discovered and named the Abrolhos and "d'Edelslandt," the latter after the supercargo, Jacob d'Edel; the Leeuwin, which in 1622 sighted the coast named after her: the English ship Tryal, which came to grief on the rocks named after her due west of Cossack (N.W.); the 't Wapen van Hoorn, which about the same time was in extreme peril near Eendrachtsland; the Torteldwyff (Turtledove), which in 1624 would seem to have discovered and named the Turtledove Shoal; further, in January 1627, the Gulde Zeepaerd (Golden Sea Horse), having on board Pieter Nuyts, which sighted the south coast near Leeuwin, and explored that coast for "1000 miles," as far as Nuyts' Reef; in 1628 the Batavia, wrecked on the Abrolhos Islands, in consequence of which her commander, Francis Pelsart, making the voyage to Batavia in an open boat to obtain assistance for the crew and passengers left behind, had unusual opportunities for observing the repellent aspect of the coast between the present site of Geraldton and the North-West; and finally, in the same year, the homeward bound Vianen, Captain Gerrit Fredericsz De Wit, which grounded off the Kimberley portion of the coast, and subsequently sailed along the shore for some fifty miles, that part of the continent being in consequence named "De Wit's" land. In connection with Pelsart it may still be mentioned that he refers to an already discovered "Jacob Remessens" (or "Rommers") river, about the latitude of 20° 17', which Mr. Tom Carter, formerly a resident at Point Cloates in NorthWestern Australia, no doubt quite correctly identified with what is now known as Yardie Creek.

The northern part of the continent, after the voyage of the Pera and the Arnhem, was further explored in 1636, by Gerrit Thomaszoon Pool and Piefer Pieterszoon.

But the great event in the actual explorations of these coasts by the Dutch was the arrival in Australian waters of Abel Janszoon Tasman, with the yachts Limmen, Zeemeeuw, and De Brak (The Hound). In 1642 he had explored New Zealand and Tasmania, without, however, discovering the east coast of the Australian continent. In 1644 he examined the Australian coast in the Gulf of Carpentaria, and completed our geographical knowledge of that coast, although even he did not become aware of the fact that Torres Strait separated New Guinea from the great Southland. It was he who first applied the name "New Holland" to the western portion of the continent.

The West Coast was again explored in 1648 by the ship Leeuwrik (Lark). Eight years later the loss of De Vergulde Draeck (The Gilt Dragon), in latitude 30° 40′, gave rise to repeated unsuccessful searches, which, however, brought further knowledge of the coast. In 1658 the Elburg anchored in 33° 14', on the coast of the "Land of the Leeuwin," probably in Geographe Bay.

After this the English explorer Dampier comes on the scene, and the Dutch visits become more and more infrequent. The directors of the Dutch East India Company had begun to slacken in their former zeal, finding that to them Australian exploration was an expensive enterprise without commercial returns. But towards the end of the seventeenth century Burgomaster Nicolaas Witsen, of Amsterdam, was the General Director of the Company. He, being possessed of the true student's love of geographical knowledge, was chiefly instrumental in fitting out De Vlaming's expedition. De Vlaming set out in 1696 in the Geelvinck (Yellow Bunting) with two other vessels, partly to examine the country on the west coast, and partly to look for traces of the Ridderschap van Holland (Knighthood of Holland), which had sailed two years earlier, but had not been heard of since. He explored and named the Swan river and Rottnest Island, but reported unfavourably on the country, which he coasted as far as the North-West Cape. His exploration, Burgomaster Witsen complained, was not so thorough as he had been instructed to make it.

Further visits of the Dutch were of minor importance. In March 1705 the Vossenbosch (Foxwood), De Wayer (The Fan), and the Nieuw Holland explored the North-West Coast, and an improved chart of Tasman's explorations was the result.

In 1756 the east and west coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria were visited first by Gonzal and next by Van Asschens, who came into more frequent contact with the natives than any of their predecessors.

Beyond this, however, the efforts of Dutch exploration did not extend. As Professor Heeres says: "The times of Van Diemen had failed to return; the spirit with which he was imbued no longer presided over the debates on colonial matters."

The reason why the Dutch did not colonise Australia is quite obvious. The earlier instructions given to their navigators were, undoubtedly, to take possession of such lands as they might discover, unless, of course, already occupied by too strong a power. But in Australia they found no prospects of trade, not a vestige of even so rudimentary a civilisation as might have yielded scope for lucrative barter. They had no surplus population in search of lands on which to settle for the purpose of wresting from nature the results of hard agricultural labour. They already had numerous rich colonies to satisfy their commercial needs. The incentive, then, for colonisation was wanting, and the wonder is that in spite of this their curiosity made them continue their exploratory efforts so long and with such tenacity.

As to their methods, they were an immeasurable improvement on the extreme cruelties perpetrated by the Spanish in America. Yet at the outset unscrupulous instructions were not wanting, which led to the kidnapping of defenceless savages, and to the consequent wanton provocation of hostilities. The more humane, and at the same time more diplomatic orders of Governor Van Diemen may have partly stopped this cruel and foolish policy, but even so late as the 1756 expedition the record shows that the regrettable procedure of kidnapping was again resorted to with the old results.

But I am not, in this summary of Dutch explorations, voicing either an indictment of, or an apology for, the now historical procedings of any nationality.

What mainly concerns us at present is the fact that the Dutch contributed one of the most remarkable and useful pages to modern history by their persistent voyages to these coasts, and by the scientific manner in which they conducted their geographical investigations. It may be safely claimed that they prepared the foundation of Australian

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