Batavia's Graveyard - Mike Dash [164]
*18White Bear.
*19The Little Seagull and the Great Moon.
*20So freely did the townsmen engage in vicious tavern brawls that in seventeenth-century Holland the act of smashing a glass of beer over an opponent’s head was known as a “Monnickendam Kiss.”
*21A member of the Dutch nobility.
*22At this time the Dutch surgeon’s guild possessed the right to dissect one executed criminal annually for the instruction of its members, so that—as its charter put it—“they would not cut veins instead of nerves, or nerves instead of veins, and would not work as the blind work in wood.”
*23Strong taste was frequently thought to be a guarantee of potency at this time.
*24A contemporary Dutch phrase meaning “to have a right royal time.”
*25Concord.
*26Seawolf.
*27She was named after a lordship in the southern part of the United Provinces.
*28Turtledove.
*29This brutal internecine conflict had raged throughout the Holy Roman Empire since 1618. It was notable not merely for its battles, but for the unusually appalling treatment meted out to the civilians on either side. The slaughter of women, children, and other noncombatants was commonplace throughout the war. It is not impossible that men such as Hendricxsz, Beer, and the other German mercenaries who joined Cornelisz may have been hardened by participation in such massacres.
*30The indications are that Ariaen Ariaensz somehow escaped and contrived to make his way to Wiebbe Hayes’s Island.
*31The word draijer means “turner” and thus denotes Hendricxen’s profession.
*32A species of petrel, common throughout Western Australia.
*33Modern Liège.
*34Present-day Yardie Creek, at the southern end of Exmouth Gulf.
*35A little later in the century one in seven of the entire European population of Batavia, excluding merchants and soldiers, were tavern-keepers. “I think it no exaggeration,” writes the historian C. R. Boxer, “to say that most of the Dutch and English males who died in the tropics died of drink, even making due allowance for the heavy toll taken by malaria and dysentery.”
*36Coen was also capable of serious mistakes. The most spectacular came in 1621–22, when he decided to attempt the conquest of China. His tiny fleet of eight ships and just over 1,000 men got no further than the gates of Portuguese Macao, where they were comprehensively defeated.
*37Coen had been so enraged when he heard of this that “his face turned white, and his chair and the table trembled.”
*38“Weapon of Hoorn.”
*39French trimming, usually of gold or silver lace.
*40Wool of exceptional quality.
*41Another Soldier, and one of the minor mutineers.
*42In this instance, the phrase appears to denote Australia.
*43Some of these men have been met before. “Lucas the steward’s mate” was Lucas Gerritsz, whom Allert Janssen had attacked on his way to the liquor stores when the Batavia was wrecked. “Cornelis the assistant” was Cornelis Jansz, and “Ariaen the gunner” may have been Ariaen Ariaensz, who had tapped a barrel of wine with Abraham Hendricx at the beginning of July and set the whole mutiny in motion.
*44By now they numbered 47: 31 mutineers, 6 women, and 10 other men and boys.
*45Pelsaert here confuses the ranks of these two mutineers. Van Os was the cadet, and Beer the soldier.
*46“Wooden man,” a prototype surname adopted to distinguish him from his many namesakes; his was one of the most common names in the Dutch Republic at this time.
*47Allert Janssen. Assendelft was the gunner’s hometown.
*48The lance corporal and member of Cornelisz’s council also known as “Stone-Cutter.” “Cosyn” (cosijn), his other nickname, means “window-frame.”
*49The spot has been identified as Wittecarra Gully, which lies just south of the mouth of the Murchison River near modern Kalbarri.
*50Weapon of Enkhuizen.
*51A valuable scarlet dye, made from the crushed bodies of insects.
*52Weapon of Rotterdam.
*53He gave his name to Tasmania.
*54Gilt Dragon.
*55South