Page:Early voyages to Terra Australis.djvu/192

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greatest part desert, but in some places inhabited by wild, cruel, black savages, by whom some of the crew were mur- dered ; for which reason they could not learn anything of the land or waters, as had been desired of them, and, by want of provisions and other necessaries, they were obliged to leave the discovery unfinished : the furthest point of the land was called in their map Cape Keer-Weer,^ situated in 13f° S.

The second voyage was undertaken with a yacht, in the year 1617, by order of the Fiscal D'Edel, with little success, of which adventures and discoveries, through the loss of their journals and remarks, nothing certain is to be found.

From this time the further discoveries of the unknown east and south countries were postponed until the year 1623, on account of there being no ships to spare ; but in the interim, in the year 1619, a ship, named the Arms of Am- sterdam, destined to Banda, drove past that place and touched iit the south coast of Nova Guinea, where some of the crew were murdered by the savage inhabitants, where- fore they acquired no certain knowledge of the country.

But in the meantime, in the years 1616, 1618, 1619, and 1622, the west coast of this great unknown sov;th land, from 35° to 22° S. latitude, was discovered by outM'ard bound ships, and among them by the ship Endraght ; for the nearer discovery of which the governor-general, Jan Pietersz Coen (of worthy memory), in September 1622, dispatched the yachts De Haring and Haretvmd ; but this voyage was ren- dered abortive by meeting the ship Mauritius, and searching after the ship Rotterdam.

In consequence of which, by order of His Excellency, the third voyage was undertaken in the month of January 1623, with the yachts Pera and Arnhem, out of Amboina, under the command of Jan Carstens ; with order to make a nearer friendship with the inhabitants of the islands Key, Aroum, ' Cape Turn-again.