Page:Early voyages to Terra Australis.djvu/136

 cviii deemed himself fortunate in procuring it through the medium of Mr. Müller, of Amsterdam, and a translation of it is here given. The search of De Vlaming was, however, fruitless, and the two principal points of interest were the finding of the plate already described, with the inscription commemorating the arrival and departure of Dirk Hartog, in 1616, and the discovery of Swan River, where the embodiment of the poet's notion of a rara avis in terris was for the first time encountered, and two of the black swans were taken alive to Batavia.

Meanwhile, the shores of New Holland had been visited by a countryman of our own, the celebrated Dampier. In the buccaneering expedition in which he made a voyage round the world, he came upon the north-west coast in 16 degrees, 50 minutes due south from a shoal, whose longitude is now known to be $122 1/4$ degrees east. Running along the shore N.E. by E., twelve leagues to a bay or opening convenient for landing, a party was sent ashore to search for water, and surprised some of the natives, some of whom they tried to induce to help in filling the water casks, and conveying them to the boat. "But all the signs we could make," says Dampier, "were to no purpose; for they stood like statues, staring at one another, and grinning like so many monkeys. These poor creatures seem not accustomed to carry burdens; and I believe one of our ship's boys, of ten years old, would carry as much as one of their men." In his description of the natives, he agrees with Tasman in their being "a naked black people, with