A Book of Discovery / The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest Times to the Finding of the South Pole

CHAPTER XLII

TASMAN FINDS TASMANIA

At this time Anthony Van Diemen was governor at Batavia, and one of his most trusted commanders was Abel Tasman. In 1642, Tasman was given command of two ships "for making discoveries of the Unknown South Land," and, hoisting his flag on board the Sea-Hen, he sailed south from Batavia without sighting the coast of Australia. Despite foggy weather, "hard gales, and a rolling sea," he made his way steadily south. It was three months before land was sighted, and high mountains were seen to the southeast. The ship stood in to shore. "As the land has not been known before to any European, we called it Anthony Van Diemen's Land in honour of our Governor-General, who sent us out to make discoveries. I anchored in a bay and heard the sound of people upon the shore, but I saw nobody. I perceived in the sand the marks of wild beasts' feet, resembling those of a tiger."

Tasman anchored on the north coast of the south island of New Zealand, but canoes of warlike Maoris surrounded the ships, a conflict took place in which several Dutch seamen were killed, the weather grew stormy, and Tasman sailed away from the bay he named Murderer's Bay—rediscovered by Captain Cook about a hundred years later.

"This is the second country discovered by us," says 'Tasman. "We named it Staaten Land in honour of the States-General. It is possible that it may join the other Staaten Land (of Schouten and Le Maire to the south of Terra del Fuego), but it is uncertain; it is a very fine country, and we hope it is part of the unknown south continent." Is it necessary to add that this Staaten Land was really New Zealand, and the bay where the ships anchored is now known as Tasman Bay? When the news of Tasman's discoveries was noised abroad, all the geographers, explorers, and discoverers at once jumped to the conclusion that this was the same land on whose coast Pelsart had been wrecked. "It is most evident," they said, "that New Guinea, Carpentaria, New Holland, Van Diemen's Land make all one continent, from which New Zealand seems to be separated by a strait, and perhaps is part of another continent answering to Africa as this plainly does to America, making indeed a very large country."

After a ten months' cruise Tasman returned to Batavia. He had found Van Diemen's Land and New Zealand, without sighting Australia.

"Of all the lands, countries, islands, capes, inlets, bays, rivers, shoals, reefs, sands, cliffs, and rocks which you pass in this discovery you are to make accurate maps—be particularly careful about longitude and latitude. But be circumspect and prudent in landing with small craft, because at several times New Guinea has been found to be inhabited by cruel, wild savages. When you converse with any of these savages behave well and friendly to them, and try by all means to engage their affection to you. You are to show the samples of the goods which you carry along with you, and inquire what materials and goods they possess. To prevent any other European nation from reaping the fruits of our labour in these discoveries, you are everywhere to take possession in the name of the Dutch East India Company, to put up some sign, erect a stone or post, and carve on them the arms of the Netherlands. The yachts are manned with one hundred and eleven persons, and for eight months plentifully victualled. Manage everything well and orderly, take notice you see the ordinary portion of two meat and two pork days, and a quarter of vinegar and a half-quarter of sweet oil per week."

He was to coast along New Guinea to the farthest-known spot, and to follow the coast despite adverse winds, in order that the Dutch might be sure "whether this land is not divided from the great known South Continent or not."

What he accomplished on this voyage is best seen in "The complete map of the Southern Continent surveyed by Captain Abel Tasman," which was inlaid on the floor of the large hall in the Stadthouse at Amsterdam. The Great South Land was henceforth known as New Holland.

CHAPTER XLIII

DAMPIER DISCOVERS HIS STRAIT

It was not long before the great stretch of coast-line carefully charted by Tasman became known to the English, and while the Dutch were yet busy exploring farther, Dampier—the first Englishman to visit the country—had already set foot on its shores.

"We lie entirely at the mercy of the Dutch East India Company's geography for the outline of this part of the coast of New Holland: for it does not appear that the ships of any other nation have ever approached it," says an old history of the period.

Some such information as this became known in South America, in which country the English had long been harassing the Spaniards. It reached the ears of one William Dampier, a Somersetshire man, who had lived a life of romance and adventure with the buccaneers, pillaging and plundering foreign ships in these remote regions of the earth. He had run across the Southern Pacific carrying his life in his hand. He had marched across the isthmus of Panama—one hundred and ten miles in twenty-three days—through deep and swiftly flowing rivers, dense growths of tropical vegetation full of snakes, his only food being the flesh of monkeys. Such was the man who now took part in a privateering cruise under Captain Swan, bound for the East Indies.

"Ah, Dampier," said Captain Swan, when he and all the men had refreshed themselves with food, "you would have made but a poor meal," for Dampier was as lean as the Captain was "fat and fleshy." Soon, however, fresh trouble arose among the men. Captain Swan lost his life, and Dampier on board the little Cygnet sailed hurriedly for the Spice Islands.

He was now on the Australian parallels, "in the shadow of a world lying dark upon the face of the ocean." It was January 1688 when Dampier sighted the coast of New Holland and anchored in a bay, which they named Cygnet Bay after their ship, somewhere off the northern coast of eastern Australia. Here, while the ship was undergoing repairs, Dampier makes his observations.

"New Holland," he tells us, "is a very large tract of land. It is not yet determined whether it is an island or a main continent, but I am certain that it joins neither to Africa, Asia, or America."

"The inhabitants of this country," he tells us, "are the miserablest people in the world. They have no houses, but lie in the open air without any covering, the earth being their bed and the heaven their canopy. Their food is a small sort of fish, which they catch at low tide, while the old people that are not able to stir abroad by reason of their age and the tender infants wait their return, and what Providence has bestowed on them they presently broil on the coals and eat it in common. They are tall and thin, and of a very unpleasing aspect; their hair is black, short, and curled, like that of the negroes of Guinea."

This Englishman's first description of the Australian natives cannot fail to be interesting. "After we had been here a little while, we clothed some of the men, designing to have some service from them for it; for we found some wells of water here, and intended to carry two or three barrels of it aboard. But it being somewhat troublesome to carry to the canoes, we thought to have made these men to have carry'd it for us, and therefore we gave them some clothes; to one an old pair of breeches, to another a ragged shirt, to a third a jacket that was scarce worth owning. We put them on, thinking that this finery would have brought them to work heartily for us; and our water being filled in small, long barrels, about six gallons in each, we brought these our new servants to the wells and put a barrel on each of their shoulders. But they stood like statues, without motion, but grinn'd like so many monkeys staring one upon another. So we were forced to carry the water ourselves."

They had soon had enough of the new country, weighed anchor, and steered away to the north. Dampier returned to England even a poorer man than he had left it twelve years before. After countless adventures and hairbreadth escapes, after having sailed entirely round the world, he brought back with him nothing but one unhappy black man, "Prince Jeoly," whom he had bought for sixty dollars. He had hoped to recoup himself by showing the poor native with his rings and bracelets and painted skin, but he was in such need of money on landing that he gladly sold the poor black man on his arrival in the Thames.

As it had been with Pelsart, so now with Dampier, fresh water was the difficulty, and they sailed north-east in search of it. They fell in with a group of small rocky islands still known as Dampier's Archipelago, one island of which they named Rosemary Island, because "there grow here two or three sorts of shrubs, one just like rosemary." Once again he comes across natives—"very much the same blinking creatures, also abundance of the same kind of flesh-flies teasing them, with the same black skins and hair frizzled." Indeed, he writes as though the whole country of New Holland was a savage and worthless land inhabited by dreadful monsters.

"If it were not," he writes, "for that sort of pleasure which results from the discovery even of the barrenest spot upon the globe, this coast of New Holland would not have charmed me much." His first sight of the kangaroo—now the emblem of Australia—is interesting. He describes it as "a sort of raccoon, different from that of the West Indies, chiefly as to the legs, for these have very short fore-legs, but go jumping upon them as the others do, and like them are very good meat." This must have been the small kangaroo, for the large kind was not found till later by Captain Cook in New South Wales.

But Dampier and his mates could not find fresh water, and soon wearied of the coast of New Holland; an outbreak of scurvy, too, decided them to sail away in search of fresh foods. Dampier had spent five weeks cruising off the coast; he had sailed along some nine hundred miles of the Australian shore without making any startling discoveries. A few months later the Roebuck stood off the coast of New Guinea, "a high and mountainous country, green and beautiful with tropical vegetation, and dark with forests and groves of tall and stately trees." Innumerable dusky-faced natives peeped at the ship from behind the rocks, but they were not friendly, and this they showed by climbing the cocoanut trees and throwing down cocoanuts at the English, with passionate signs to them to depart. But with plenty of fresh water, this was unlikely, and the crews rowed ashore, killed and salted a good load of wild hogs, while the savages still peeped at them from afar.

CHAPTER XLIV

BEHRING FINDS HIS STRAIT

In the great work of Arctic exploration during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it is to England and Russia that we owe our knowledge at the present day. It is well known how Peter the Great of Russia journeyed to Amsterdam to learn shipbuilding under the Dutch, and to England to learn the same art under the English, and how the Russian fleet grew in his reign. Among the Danish shipbuilders at Petersburg was one Vitus Behring, already a bold and able commander on the high seas.

The life of the great Russian Czar was drawing to its close—he was already within a few weeks of the end—when he planned an expedition under this same Vitus Behring, for which he wrote the instructions with his own hands.

"(1) At Kamtchatka two decked boats are to be built. (2) With these you are to sail northward along the coast and, as the end of the coast is not known, this land is undoubtedly America. (3) For this reason you are to inquire where the American coast begins, and go to some European colony and, when European ships are seen, you are to ask what the coast is called, note it down, make a landing, and after having charted the coast return."

Peter the Great died on 28th January 1725. A week later Behring started for Kamtchatka. Right across snow-covered Russia to the boundary of Siberia he led his expedition. March found him at Tobolsk. With rafts and boats they then made their way by the Siberian rivers till they reached Yakutsk, where they spent their first winter. Not till the middle Of June 1726 did Behring reach the capital of East Siberia. The rest of the journey was through utterly unknown land. It was some six hundred and eighty-five miles eastwards to Okhotsk through a rough and mountainous country, cut up by deep and bridgeless streams; the path lay over dangerous swamps and through dense forest.

It was not till March 1728 that Behring reached his goal, Ostrog, a village near the sea, inhabited by a handful of Cossacks. From this point, on the bleak shores of the Arctic sea, the exploring party were ordered to start. It had taken over three years to reach this starting-point, and even now a seemingly hopeless task lay before them.

The final discovery was left for Captain Cook. As he approached the straits which he called after Behring, the sun broke suddenly through the clouds, and the continents of Asia and America were visible at a glance.

There was dissatisfaction in Russia with the result of Behring's voyage, and though five years of untold hardship in the "extremest corner of the world" had told on the Russian explorer, he was willing and anxious to start off again. He proposed to make Kamtchatka again his headquarters, to explore the western coast of America, and to chart the long Arctic coast of Siberia—a colossal task indeed.

One branch of the Great Northern Expedition under Behring was composed of professors to make a scientific investigation of Kamtchatka! These thirty learned Russians were luxuriously equipped. They carried a library with several hundred books, including Robinson Crusoe and Gulliver's Travels, seventy reams of writing-paper, and artists' materials. They had nine wagonloads of instruments, carrying telescopes fifteen feet long. A surgeon, two landscape painters, one instrument maker, five surveyors accompanied them, and "the convoy grew like an avalanche as it worked its way into Siberia." Behring seems to have moved this "cumbersome machine" safely to Yakutsk, though it took the best part of two years. Having left Russia in 1733, it was 1741 when Behring himself was ready to start from the harbour of Okhotsk for the coast of America with two ships and provisions for some months. He was now nearly sixty, his health was undermined with vexation and worry, and the climate of Okhotsk had nearly killed him.

Man after man died, and by December, Behring's own condition had become hopeless. Hunger and grief had added to his misery, and in his sand-hut he died. He was almost buried alive, for the sand rolled down from the pit in which he lay and covered his feet. He would not have it removed, for it kept him warm. Thirty more of the little expedition died during that bitter winter on the island; the survivors, some forty-five persons, built a ship from the timbers of the wreck, and in August 1742 they returned to Kamtchatka to tell the story of Behring's discoveries and of Behring's death.

CHAPTER XLV

COOK DISCOVERS NEW ZEALAND

But while the names of Torres, Carpenter, Tasman, and Dampier are still to be found on our modern maps of Australia, it is the name of Captain Cook that we must always connect most closely with the discovery of the great island continent—the Great South Land which only became known to Europe one hundred and fifty years ago.

Dampier had returned to England in 1701 from his voyage to New Holland, but nearly seventy years passed before the English were prepared to send another expedition to investigate further the mysterious land in the south.

It was an interesting party on board, joined at the last moment by Mr. Joseph Banks, a very rich member of the Royal Society and a student of Natural History. He had requested leave to sail in "the ship that carries the English astronomers to the new-discovered country in the South Sea." "No people ever went to sea better fitted out for the purpose of Natural History, nor more elegantly," says a contemporary writer. "They have a fine library, they have all sorts of machines for catching and preserving insects, they have two painters and draughtsmen—in short, this expedition will cost Mr. Banks £10,000."

After a stay of three months they left the island, taking Tupia, a native, with them. Among other accomplishments this Tupia roasted dogs to perfection, and Cook declares that dogs' flesh is "next only to English lamb."

They visited other islands in the group—now known as the Society Islands and belonging to France—and took possession of all in the name of His Britannic Majesty, George III.

All through the month of September they sailed south, till on 7th October land was sighted. It proved to be the North Island of New Zealand, never before approached by Europeans from the east. It was one hundred and twenty-seven years since Tasman had discovered the west coast and called it Staaten Land, but no European had ever set foot on its soil. Indeed, it was still held to be part of the Terra Australis Incognita.

The first to sight land was a boy named Nicholas Young, hence the point was called "Young Nick's Head," which may be seen on our maps to-day, covering Poverty Bay. The natives here were unfriendly, and Cook was obliged to use firearms to prevent an attack. The Maoris had never seen a great ship before, and at first thought it was a very large bird, being struck by the size and beauty of its wings (sails). When a small boat was let down from the ship's side they thought it must be a young unfledged bird, but when the white men in their bright-coloured clothes rowed off in the boat they concluded these were gods.

The New Year of 1770 found Cook off Cape Maria van Diemen, sailing south along the western coast of the North Island, till the Endeavour was anchored in Ship Cove, Queen Charlotte's Sound, only about seventy miles from the spot where Tasman first sighted land.

Here the English explorer landed. The country was thickly wooded, but he climbed a hill, and away to the eastward he saw that the seas washing both east and west coasts of the northern island were united. He had solved one problem. Tasman's Staaten Land was not part of a great southern continent. He now resolved to push through his newly discovered straits between the two islands, and, having done this, he sailed north till he reached Cape Turnagain. And so he proved beyond a doubt that this was an island. The men thought they had done enough. But Cook, with the true instinct of an explorer, turned a deaf ear to the murmurings of his crew for roast beef and Old England, and directed his course again south. From the natives he had learned of the existence of two islands, and he must needs sail round the southern as he had sailed round the northern isle. Storms and gales harassed the navigators through the month of February as they made their way slowly southwards. Indeed, they had a very narrow escape from death towards the end of the month, when in a two days' gale, with heavy squalls of rain, their foresail was split to pieces and they lost sight of land for seven days, nearly running on to submerged rocks which Cook named The Traps.

It was nearly dark on 14th March when they entered a bay which they suitably christened Dusky Bay, from which they sailed to Cascade Point, named from the four streams that fell over its face.

"No country upon earth," remarks Cook, "can appear with a more rugged and barren aspect than this does from the sea, for, as far inland as the eye can reach, nothing is to be seen but the summit of these rocky mountains." At last on 24th March they rounded the north point of the South Island. Before them lay the familiar waters of Massacre Bay, Tasman Bay, and Queen Charlotte Sound.

"As we have now circumnavigated the whole of this country, it is time for me to think of quitting it," Cook remarks simply enough.

Running into Admiralty Bay, the Endeavour was repaired for her coming voyage home. Her sails, "ill-provided from the first," says Banks, "were now worn and damaged by the rough work they had gone through, particularly on the coast of New Zealand, and they gave no little trouble to get into order again."

While Banks searched for insects and plants, Cook sat writing up his Journal of the circumnavigation. He loyally gives Tasman the honour of the first discovery, but clearly shows his error in supposing it to be part of the great southern land.

The ship was now ready and, naming the last point of land Cape Farewell, they sailed away to the west, "till we fall in with the east coast of New Holland." They had spent six and a half months sailing about in New Zealand waters, and had coasted some two thousand four hundred miles.

Nineteen days' sail brought them to the eagerly sought coast, and on 28th April, Cook anchored for the first time in the bay known afterwards to history as Botany Bay, so named from the quantity of plants found in the neighbourhood by Mr. Banks. Cutting an inscription on one of the trees, with the date and name of the ship, Cook sailed north early in May, surveying the coast as he passed and giving names to the various bays and capes. Thus Port Jackson, at the entrance of Sydney harbour, undiscovered by Cook, was so named after one of the Secretaries of the Admiralty—Smoky Cape from smoke arising from native dwellings—Point Danger by reason of a narrow escape on some shoals—while Moreton Bay, on which Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, now stands, was named after the President of the Royal Society. As they advanced, the coast became steep, rocky, and unpromising.

"Hitherto," reports Cook, "we had safely navigated this dangerous coast, where the sea in all parts conceals shores that project suddenly from the shore and rocks that rise abruptly like a pyramid from the bottom more than one thousand three hundred miles. But here we became acquainted with misfortune, and we therefore called the point which we had just seen farthest to the northward, Cape Tribulation."

The prospect of further exploration was not encouraging. "In whatever direction we looked, the sea was covered with shoals as far as the eye could see." As they sailed out of their little river, they could see the surf breaking on the "Great Barrier Reef." Navigation now became very difficult, and, more than once, even Cook himself almost gave up hope. Great, then, was their joy when they found themselves at the northern promontory of the land which "I have named York Cape in honour of His late Royal Highness the Duke of York. We were in great hopes that we had at last found out a passage into the Indian Seas." And he adds an important paragraph: "As I was now about to quit the eastern coast of New Holland, which I am confident no European had ever seen before, I once more hoisted the English colours, and I now took possession of the whole eastern coast in right of His Majesty King George III., by the name of New South Wales, with all the bays, harbours, rivers, and islands situated upon it."

This part of the new land was called by the name of New South Wales.

So the Endeavour sailed through the straits that Torres had accidentally passed one hundred and sixty-four years before, and, just sighting New Guinea, Cook made his way to Java, for his crew were sickly and "pretty far gone with longing for home." The ship, too, was in bad condition; she had to be pumped night and day to keep her free from water, and her sails would hardly stand the least puff of wind. They reached Batavia in safety and were kindly received by the Dutch there.

Glad, indeed, they were to leave at Christmas time, and gladder still to anchor in the Downs and to reach London after their three years' absence. The news of his arrival and great discoveries seems to have been taken very quietly by those at home. "Lieutenant Cook of the Navy," says the Annual Register for 1771, "who sailed round the globe, was introduced to His Majesty at St. James's, and presented to His Majesty his Journal of his voyage, with some curious maps and charts of different places that he had drawn during the voyage; he was presented with a captain's commission."