Batavia's Graveyard - Mike Dash [198]
The plan to turn pirate For details of the pirates’ haunts in Madagascar, see Jan Rogozinski, Honour Among Thieves: Captain Kidd, Henry Every and the Story of Pirate Island (London: Conway Maritime Press, 2000), pp. 54–68 and David Cordingly, Life Among the Pirates: The Romance and the Reality (London: Little, Brown, 1995), pp. 173–5. The center of their operations was St. Mary’s Island [Isle Sainte Marie], off the northeast coast. Jacobsz and Cornelisz planned to sail there almost three-quarters of a century before Madagascar became the principal pirate base in the Indian Ocean. They would have used St. Mary’s large natural harbor as an anchorage and sailed out from there to raid the shipping lanes that ran along the Indian coast. Two of the other possible bases they discussed, Mauritius and St. Helena, were then uninhabited, though both had been stocked with animals by passing sailors who visited infrequently and used the islands to rest and replenish their supplies of food and water.
“He would act, Ariaen predicted . . .” Interrogation of Allert Janssen, JFP 19 Sep 1629 [DB 195].
“Terra Australis Incognita” De Jode’s atlas, Speculum Orbis Terrae, notes: “This region is even today almost unknown, because after the first and second voyages all have avoided sailing thither, so that it is doubtful until even today whether it is a continent or an island. The sailors call this region New Guinea, because its coasts, state and condition are similar in many respects to the African Guinea. . . . After this region the huge Australian land follows which—as soon as it is once known—will represent a fifth continent, so vast and immense is it deemed . . .” Günter Schilder, Australia Unveiled: The Share of Dutch Navigators in the Discovery of Australia (Amsterdam: Theatrum Orbis Terrarum, 1976), pp. 268–9. The name “Terra Australis Incognita” appears on Henricus Hondius’s famous world map of 1630 (ibid. pp. 320–1). Abraham Ortelius’s Types Orbis Terrarum (ca. 1600) gives “Terra Australia Nondum Cognita” (ibid., pp. 266–7), and there were several other variants.
Early theories concerning the existence of the South-Land Ibid., pp. 7–10; Miriam Estensen, Discovery: The Quest for the Great South Land (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1998), pp. 5–9.
The discovery of Australia Aborigines arrived in Australia about 70,000 years ago, sailing rafts or crossing land bridges created by the last great Ice Age. The identity of the European discoverers of the continent remains a matter of dispute. Kenneth McIntyre, The Secret Discovery of Australia: Portuguese Ventures 200 Years Before Captain Cook (Medindie, South Australia: Souvenir Press, 1977), makes a case for the Portuguese, whose bases in Timor were only a few hundred miles to the north.
“Faulty interpretation of the works of Marco Polo” The Venetian had actually been describing Malaysia and Indochina.
Beach, Maletur and Lucach J. A. Heeres, The Part Borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia 1606–1765 (London: Luzac, 1899), p. iv; Schilder, op. cit., pp. 23, 78n; Estensen op. cit., pp. 9, 87.
The old route to the Indies Heeres, p. xiii; Estensen, p. 126.
Hendrik Brouwer Heeres, pp. xiii–xv; Estensen, pp. 126–7; Boxer, “The Dutch East-Indiamen,” p. 91.
The new Dutch route Like the Portuguese before them, the Dutch attempted to keep their new route secret. As late as 1652, the seynbrief—sailing instructions—issued to eastbound ships were handwritten rather than printed, in an attempt to keep control of this secret information. The instructions for this portion of the voyage were relatively bald—sail 1000 mijlen (about 4,600 miles) east of the Cape, and then turn north. Vessels passing close to Amsterdam or St. Paul received some intelligence of their position from the presence of seaweed in the water, but otherwise the decision as to when to make the turn was largely a matter of guesswork. The problem was exacerbated by the difficulties experienced by ships that turned north too early; those that did so found themselves on the coast of Sumatra, where the prevailing