Page:Early voyages to Terra Australis.djvu/113

 Rh The next discovery upon the western coasts was that of the ship Vianen, one of the seven which returned to Europe under the command of the Governor-General, Carpenter. In this year, the Dutch recital informs us that the coast was seen again accidentally, in the year 1628, on the north side, in the latitude 21° south, by the ship Vianen, homeward bound from India, when they coasted two hundred miles without gaining any knowledge of this great country; only observing "a foul and barren shore, green fields, and very wild, black, barbarous inhabitants."

This was the part called De Witt's Land; but whether the name were applied by the captain of the Vianen does not appear. The President De Brosses, whose account, however, is too full of blunders to follow very implicitly, says, "William de Witt gave his own name to the country which he saw in 1628 to the north of Remessen's River; and which Vianen, a Dutch captain, had, to his misfortune, discovered in the month of January in the same year, when he was driven upon this coast of De Witt, in 21° of latitude, and lost all his riches." The name of De Witt was subsequently retained on this part of the coast in all the maps.

In Thevenot's Recueil de divers Voyages curieux, 1663, is given an account, translated from the Dutch, of the shipwreck of the Batavia, Captain Francis Pelsart, in the night of June 4, 1629, on the reef still known as Houtman's Abrolhos, lying between 28° and 29° S. lat., on the west coast of Australia. A loose and incorrect translation of this account, is