Page:Early voyages to Terra Australis.djvu/108

 lxxxiv est arrivé ici le navire l'Endraght d' Amsterdam: premier marchand, Gilles Miebais Van Luck; capitaine, Dirck Hartighs d'Amsterdam; il remit sous voile le 27 du même mois; Bantum étoit sous marchand; Janstins premier pilote: Pieter Ecoores Van-Bu ..... Anne 1616."

Thus it will be seen, that Bantam, in Java, for which they set sail, is transformed into the undermerchant, and the person who really held that post is converted into chief pilot, while poor Pieter Dockes, whose name, perhaps more feebly scratched at the close of the inscription, had become obliterated by more than a century's rough usage, is deprived of the honour of holding any post whatever. Even this rendering of the inscription is however highly interesting, as giving some indications of the degree of obliteration effected by the weather in this long space of time.

In 1617 appeared a work, the title of which renders some mention of it in this place necessary. It was entitled "Mundus alter et idem, sive Terra Australis antehac semper incognita longis itineribus peregrini academici nuperrime lustrata. Hanau, 1617." The book bearing this delusive title was by Bishop Joseph Hall. It was in reality an invective against the characteristic vices of various nations, from which it is said that Swift borrowed the idea of Gulliver's Travels.

A strange blunder has been made by the Abbé Prevost, tom. ii, p. 201, of his Histoire des Voyages, 4to. ed., and by the President de Brosses, in his