Page:Early voyages to Terra Australis.djvu/109

 Rh Histoire des Navigations aux Terres Australes, tom. i, p. 432; and copied by Callander in his unacknowledged translation from De Brosses, to the effect that in the year 1618, one Zeachen, a native of Arnheim, discovered the land called Arnheim's Land, and Van Diemen's Land on the N. coast of Australia, in about the latitude of 14°. He proceeds to say that Diemen's Land owes its name to Anthony Van Diemen, at that time general of the Dutch East India Company, who returned to Europe with vast riches in 1631. The blunder is easily demonstrable. Zeachen, or as it is also given, Zechaen, is a form of word plainly irreconcileable with the genius of the Dutch language, and is an evident misspelling for Zeehaen, which is the name not of a man, but of a ship, the Sea-hen.

No such voyage is mentioned in the recital of discoveries which preface the instructions to Tasman, nor is there any notice of the north coast of New Holland having been visited by the Dutch in that year. Moreover Van Diemen, as we learn from the Vies des Gouverneur's Généraux avec l'abrégé de l'histoire des établissemens Hollandois by Dubois, was not governor general until January 1st, 1636, and it is observable that one of the ships employed in Tasman's voyage in 1642, in which he discovered the island now known as Tasmania, but to which he, out of compliment, gave the name of the governor general, Van Diemen, was called the Zeehaen, from which in all probability, by some complication of mistakes, the mis-statement here made has originated.