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Title: The Discovery of Van Diemen's Land in 1642
Author: James Backhouse Walker
* A Project Gutenberg of Australia eBook *
eBook No.: 0600551h.html
Edition: 1
Language: English
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EARLY TASMANIA
PAPERS
READ BEFORE THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF TASMANIA
DURING THE YEARS 1888 TO 1899
BY
JAMES BACKHOUSE WALKER, F.R.G.S.,
MEMBER OF THE COUNCIL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF TASMANIA
AND VICE-CHANCELLOR OF THE TASMANIAN UNIVERSITY.
NOTE:
THE DISCOVERY OF VAN DIEMEN'S LAND IN 1642; WITH NOTES ON THE
LOCALITIES MENTIONED IN TASMAN'S JOURNAL OF THE VOYAGE
is the only article included in this ebook. The other items are
detailed in the Contents for information only.
CONTENTS.
[Biographical Sketch (by the Rev. George Clarke)
The French in Van Diemen's Land, and the First Settlement at the Derwent
The English at the Derwent, and the Risdon Settlement The Founding of
Hobart by Lieutenant-Governor The Expedition under Lieutenant-Governor
Collins in The Discovery and Occupation of Port Dalrymple]
THE DISCOVERY OF VAN DIEMEN'S LAND IN 1642; WITH NOTES ON THE LOCALITIES
MENTIONED IN TASMAN'S JOURNAL OF THE VOYAGE
[The Deportation of the Norfolk Islanders to the Derwent in 1808
Abel Janszoon Tasman: His Life and Voyages
Notes on the Aborigines of Tasmania extracted from the Manuscript
Journals of George Washington Walker, with an Introduction by James
Backhouse Walker F.R.G.S.
Some Notes on the Tribal Divisions of the Aborigines of Tasmania
The Tasmanian Aborigines
The Cartography of the Terra Australis and New Holland
CHARTS.]
{Page: 128}
THE DISCOVERY OF VAN DIEMEN'S LAND, IN 1642; WITH NOTES ON THE
LOCALITIES MENTIONED IN TASMAN'S JOURNAL OF THE VOYAGE.
BY
JAMES BACKHOUSE WALKER.
Abel Janszoon Tasman was unquestionably one of the greatest, if
not the greatest, of the navigators between Magellan, who in the
early years of the 16th century first crossed the Pacific Ocean, and
Cook, who in the latter years of the 18th practically opened Oceania
and Australia to Europe.
Little is known of Tasman's personal history, except that he was
born about the year 1602, at Hoorn on the Zuyder Zee, a seaport which
produced many another hardy navigator. Tasman has made familiar in
our seas the name of one of these fellow townsmen, the Corneliszoon
Schouten, who in 1616 doubled the Cape, afterwards called the Horn in
honour of the birthplace of its discoverer.
That Tasman's merit has not received due recognition, and that his
fame has not been as wide as his achievements deserved, is the fault
of his own countrymen. In the 16th and 17th centuries the persistent
policy of the Dutch was to conceal the discoveries of their
navigators, and suppress their charts, for fear other nations should
reap advantage from the knowledge and rival them in the eastern seas.
In later times when this motive had lost its force, Tasman's
countrymen were strangely indifferent to the honour which their great
sailor had won for his native land. Of his second voyage in 1644--in
which he explored the northern coast of Australia, and laid down with
painstaking accuracy the shores of the Gulf of Carpentaria--we have
to this day only meagre hints and the record contained in a sketch
map. Of his more
{Page: 128}
famous voyage to the Great Southland in 1642--in which he
discovered Tasmania and New Zealand, and made a great step towards
solving the vexed problem of the fancied Terra Australis--the journal
remained unpublished for more than two centuries. It is true that a
short abstract of this voyage was published in Holland late in the
17th century, and was shortly afterwards translated into English, and
included in several collections of voyages made by English and French
editors, and that Valentyn, in his great work on the Dutch East
Indies published in 1726, gave a more extended account, illustrated
by copies of Tasman's maps and sketches. But the journal itself
remained practically unknown until a copy of it and of the original
sketches and charts was discovered in London in 1776 and purchased
for half a guinea. This MS. afterwards came into the possession of
Sir Joseph Banks, and he employed the Rev. C. G. Woide, a Dutch
clergyman living in London, to make a translation of it. Thirty years
later the substance of this translation was printed by Dr. Burney in
his "History of Discovery in the South Sea," published in 1814.
Woide's MS. is now in the British Museum, and a verbatim copy of the
part relating to our island has lately been made by Mr. Bonwick for
the Tasmanian Government. In Tasman's own country his original
journal remained neglected for more than two centuries, until in the
year 1860 it was printed in extenso at Amsterdam, under the
editorship of Mr. Jacob Swart.[1]
Tasman's expedition was probably the first systematic attempt made
by the Dutch to explore the Great South Land. In the early years of
the 17th century the Western Coast of Australia had been several
times sighted by Dutch Captains. Ships, bound for the Dutch
settlements at Batavia, had been driven to the southward by storms,
and the resulting discoveries had, therefore, been to a large extent
involuntary, or at least accidental. In the year 1642, however, the
Governor-General Anthony Van Diemen, and the Council of
Netherlands-India, determined to despatch from Batavia a properly
equipped expedition, having for its sole object the discovery of the
Great Southern Continent. The instructions
[(1)Journaal van de reis naar het onbekende Zuidland in
den Jare 1642, door Abel Jansz, Tasman; medegedeeld door Jacob Swart.
Amsterdam. 1860. ]
{Page: 129}
to the commander, prepared by their direction, have been
preserved. They contain a detailed statement of all that was then
known by the Dutch of the geography of those parts, and they
prescribe the course that the ships were to pursue. The command of
the expedition was entrusted to Tasman, then 40 years old, and the
ship Heemskerk was assigned to him for the service, with the little
fly-boat Zeehan as tender. Tasman sailed from Batavia on August 14;
reached Mauritius (then a Dutch settlement) on September 5, and
sailed thence for the South on October 5. He held a S.E. course until
on November 6 he had reached 100 deg. E. long. in lat. 49 deg. S.,
without finding any signs of the supposed continent. A council of
officers was held, and the chief pilot, Francis Jacobsen, advised
that the course should be altered, and that the ships should make for
lat. 44 deg. S. until 130 deg. E. Long. was reached, when, if no
mainland was met with, they should sail into 40 deg. E. lat., and
steer on that parallel until they reached 200 deg. E. long. By this
course he thought they would be sure to fall in with islands, and
having so far solved the problem of the great southern continent, he
advised that they should stand north for the Solomon Islands, whence
they might shape their course for home. By the middle of November
they came to the conclusion that they had passed the extreme limits
of the supposed continent, but on the 24th of the month land was seen
bearing east by north, distant 10 Dutch miles (40 miles English).
Unlike the invariable low sandy shore which former captains had
described as characteristic of the Great Southland, the country
before them was mountainous, and clothed with dark forest. Tasman
says:﹃This is the furthest land in the South Sea we met with, and as
it has not yet been known to any European we called it Anthony Van
Diemen's Land, in honour of the Governor-General, our master, who
sent us out to make discoveries. The islands round about, as many as
were known to us, we named in honour of the Council of India.﹄They
skirted the newly discovered land, and on December 1 came to an
anchor in a bay on the east coast. On December 3 they weighed anchor
and sailed north until they reached a point about St. Patrick's Head,
from whence they stood away eastward to make new discoveries. After
eight days they sighted land, which Tasman called Staten Land,
thinking that
{Page: 130}
it might be part of the Southern continent and joined to Staten
Land, east of Tierra del Fuego. (When this supposition was shortly
afterwards shown to be an error,[2] the
name was changed to that of New Zealand.) After a fatal encounter
with the Maoris, Tasman sailed along the west coast of New Zealand to
Cape Maria Van Diemen, and thence took a north-east course,
discovering Amsterdam and other islands, and after skirting the north
coast of New Guinea, he returned to Batavia. In his second voyage in
1644, Tasman again sailed from Batavia and explored the west,
north-west, and north coasts of Australia, the Gulf of Carpentaria,
and the south coast of New Guinea. Thus in the two voyages, though he
left the question of the existence of a southern continent still
unsolved, he had made the first complete circumnavigation of
Australia and New Guinea.
We may now turn our attention to identifying the parts of the
coast of our island which were sighted by Tasman. The difficulty is
that his longitudes are very uncertain, and his latitudes, though
less variable, do not agree with modern observations, being in
general some 9 or 10 miles too southerly.[3] His longitudes are quite hopeless. Their
uncertainty is shown by the fact that he makes a difference of 3 deg.
40 min. between the west coast and Frederick Henry Bay, while the
true difference is only 2 deg. 48 min.--an error of 52, or nearly a
degree in that short distance. Many of his positions are stated to
have been estimated by reckoning, and we know that in those days the
ascertainment of longitude by observation was always very
uncertain.
It is generally stated that the first land sighted by Tasman was
near Point Hibbs, and his little chart of Van Diemen's Land appears
to favour this opinion, but an examination of his journal leads us to
a different conclusion. From the entries in the journal it is evident
that his position on November 24, when he first saw the land, is not
laid down on the chart at all. The latitude
[(2) By the voyage of Brouwer round Cape Horn in 1643.
]
[(3)This conclusion is reached by a comparison of the
latitudes shown on his chart for his anchorage on the east coast, for
Maria Island, the Friars, and Maatsuyker Island. On the other hand,
he gives the latitude of the point where he approached close to shore
as 42 deg. 30 min., the true latitude of Point Hibbs being 42 deg. 38
min. ]
{Page: 131}
entered for noon that day is 42 deg. 25 min. As the weather was
clear this was probably the observed latitude, and making allowance
for the usual error we may place it some miles more to the north, say
42 deg. 20 min. or 42 deg. 15 min. From noon he sailed four hours E.
by N. before he sighted land bearing E. by N. 40 English miles
distant. When evening fell some three hours later this course would
have brought him to a latitude a little to the northward of Cape
Sorell (42 deg. 12 min.) This position would agree very well with his
description of the land as he saw it on that evening, and which he
describes as "very high." "Towards evening we saw three high
mountains to the E.S.E. and to the N.E. We also saw two mountains,
but not so high as those to the southward."
Flinders in his circumnavigation of the island identified the two
mountains to the N.E. as those named by him Heemskirk and Zeehan,
after Tasman's ships. They are visible at about 30 miles distance.
Now, with Heemskirk and Zeehan bearing N.E. at a distance of say 20
miles, Mount Sorell, the southern peaks of the West Coast Range, and
the Frenchman's Cap, would be nearly E.S.E., while the centre of the
West Coast Range, seen over the low sandy foreshore north of
Macquarie Harbour, would fit Tasman's description of the very high
land in front of him. If the land near Point Hibbs had been first
sighted, Mount Heemskirk would have been at least 50 miles distant,
and not visible. It is therefore probable that the first land seen by
the Dutch navigator was the mountainous country to the north of
Macquarie Harbour. Without further observation the point must remain
doubtful, but when we get the much-needed and long-expected Admiralty
survey of the West Coast it will doubtless be possible to fix
precisely the spot of Taman's landfall.
When the shades of evening fell over the strange shore they had
just discovered it was deemed prudent to run out to sea during the
night, and when morning broke the land was far distant. The breeze
had died away, and it was noon before they had enough wind to run in
again towards the shore. By 5 in the evening they were within 12
miles of the land, and they kept on their course until within one
Dutch mile (4 English miles) of what was without doubt Point
Hibbs.
{Page: 132}
This was the opinion of Flinders, than whom there could be no
higher authority on such a question, and Tasman's sketch, rough as it
is, seems conclusive. Point Hibbs is there laid down as an island,
but its distinctive form unlike any point lying to the northward--is
correctly shown.[4]
The ships stood out to sea again and sailed south-east in thick,
foggy weather, in which only glimpses of the coast were obtained.
Tasman took some of the high headlands and mountains about Port Davey
for islands, calling them De Witt and Sweers Islands. Then he rounded
the South-West Cape, and named the Maatsuyker Islands, passing close
to a small island about 12 miles from the mainland which looked like
a lion, and which was identified afterwards by Flinders as the rock
named by Furneaux the Mewstone. Thence he passed between the mainland
and a rock which he named Pedra Branca[5] (White Rock) from its resemblance to Pedra
Branca off the coast of China, and sailed past the entrance of
D'Entrecasteaux Channel without entering it, though in his chart he
marks an opening in the coast. Rounding the Friars (which he called
Boreels Isles) on November 29 he bore up for a large bay, intending
to anchor there. When he had almost reached his intended anchorage[6] a heavy storm arose, and he was driven
out so far to sea that next morning he could hardly discern the land.
It was from this incident that Storm Bay got its name. When the wind
moderated he continued his easterly course, and rounding Tasman's
Island (the Pillar) he turned northward along the east coast of
Tasman's and Forestier's Peninsulas until, on December 1, an hour
after sunset, he came to anchor in a good port in 22 fathoms, the
bottom fine, light-grey, sand. "Wherefore," says Tasman piously.﹃we
ought to lift up thankful hearts to Almighty God.﹄The position of
this anchorage,
[ (4)The only difficulty in reconciling the positions of
the two days (Nov. 24 and 25) lies in the fact that the difference of
latitude given in the journal is 5 min. only. The difference of
latitude between Cape Sorell, where we suppose him to have been on
the first evening, and Point Hibbs, where he certainly was on the
second, is 26 miles. The discrepancy may, however, be accounted for.
On the second day they had southerly wind and thick weather, and
probably got no observation. They had been standing off and on for 24
hours, and currents unknown to them would probably lead to error in
estimating their position. The probability of error in Tasman's
latitude is increased by the fact that he makes the latitude 42 deg.
30 min. instead of 42 deg. 38 min., the error being too northerly
instead of too southerly, as usual.]
[(5)Known to our fishermen as "Peter's Bank."
]
[(6)The anchorage he aimed at was the same where Furneaux
anchored in 1773, and which he named Adventure Bay. ]
{Page: 133}
as shown in Tasman's chart, is north-west of the rocky islet now
called Green Island, just north of the basaltic cliffs of Cape
Frederick Henry.
On December 2, early in the morning, the boat was sent to explore,
and entered a bay a good 4 miles to the north-west (Blackman's Bay).
The boat was absent all day, and returned in the evening with a
quantity of green-stuff which was found fit to cook for vegetables.
The crew reported that they had rowed some miles after passing
through the entrance to the bay (now known as the Narrows). They had
heard human voices, and a sound like a trumpet or small gong
(probably a cooey), but had seen no one. They saw trees from 12 to 15
feet round, and 60 to 65 feet up to the first branch. In the bark of
these trees steps had been hacked with a flint for the purpose of
climbing to the birds' nests. From the steps being five feet apart
they inferred that the natives were either very tall,[7] or had some unknown method of climbing. The
forest was thin and unencumbered by scrub, and many of the tree
trunks were deeply burnt by fire. In the bay were great numbers of
gulls, ducks, and geese. At various times during the day both the
boat's crews and the people on board the ships had seen smoke rising
from different points on shore, "so that without doubt in this place
must be men, and these of uncommon height."
The next day (Dec. 3) the boats went to the southeast corner of
the bay in which the ships were anchored, in order to get fresh
water, but, though they found a lagoon, the shore was so low that the
waves had broken through, and the water was too brackish for use. The
wind blew strongly from the east and south-east, and in the
afternoon, when they again tried to effect a landing with the boats,
the sea ran so high that one boat was obliged to return to the ship.
The other larger boat, under the command of Tasman himself, made for
a little bay to the W.S.W. of the ships, but the sea was too rough to
allow of a landing. The carpenter, Peter Jacobsen, volunteered to
swim ashore with a pole on which was the Prince's flag. He planted
the flag-pole in the ground on the shore of the bay, and thus Tasman
took possession of our island for the Dutch.
[ (7)The early navigators had a fixed idea that these
southern lands were inhabited by giants. At the Three Kings, north of
New Zealand, Tasman describes the men they saw walking on the shore
as being of gigantic stature.]
{Page: 134}
Next morning at daybreak (Dec. 4), the storm having subsided, and
the wind blowing off shore, they weighed anchor and stood to the
northward, passing Maria Island and Schouten Island, so named by
Tasman after his fellow-townsman of the good port of Hoorn.
On the following morning (Dec. 5), he took his departure from a
high round mountain (St. Patrick's Head) and stood away to the
eastward to make fresh discoveries.
Of the localities associated with the discovery of this island,
the one round which the chief interest centres is Frederick Henry Bay
and its neighbourhood. The name has been dislocated from its rightful
position on the map, and has been transferred to another part of the
coast, where it is now fixed by long usage. Tasman never saw what is
now popularly known as Frederick Henry Bay. The bay to which he gave
the name of the Stradtholder of Holland was in the immediate vicinity
of his anchorage on the north-east coast of Forestier's Peninsular.
Its exact locality the records of the voyage leave a little doubtful.
The journal contains no names of places, but the account of the
planting of the flag would lead to the inference that he gave the
Prince's[8] name to the bay in which his
ships lay at anchor, on the shore of which the Prince's flag was set
up, and which is now known as Marion Bay. The charts, however, lead
rather to the conclusion that it is the inner port or arm of the sea
(now Blackman's Bay) which is the true Bay of Frederik Hendrik. The
copy of the map in Burney leaves the point doubtful, the name being
written on the land between the two ports. But in the chart as
reproduced by Vallentyn, and stated to have been copied by him from
the original journal, the name is distinctly written in Blackman's
Bay. On the whole, therefore, it seems probable that this is the
Frederik Hendrik Bay of Tasman.
The eastern shore of Forestier's Peninsular is wild and rugged,
and scarcely known except to the hardy fishermen, who, in their trips
northward along the coast, fish in its quiet nooks, or run for
shelter into the beautiful inlet of Wilmot Harbour. With the
exception of a solitary shepherd's dwelling on the shore of this
harbour
[(8)Prince Frederik Hendrik of Orange was Stadtholder of
Holland from 1625 to 1647. He was the grandfather of William of
Orange, afterwards William III. of England. ]
{Page: 135}
locally known as Lagoon Bay--the eastern part of the Peninsula is
uninhabited, and so difficult of access that it is seldom visited. In
the early part of 1889 I had an opportunity of thoroughly exploring a
locality which must always be of interest as the spot where the
sailors of the great Dutchman first set foot on the island which
bears his name.
Our party--which included my friend Mr. R. M. Johnston--left East
Bay Neck in a fishing-boat to camp at Chinaman's Point just within
"The Narrows." or entrance of Blackman's Bay. During the time of our
ten days' camping we cruised in our boat over the great bay outside,
seeing the coast from the point of view which Tasman occupied when
the Heemskerk lay at anchor off rocky little Green Island. We could
thus realise the scene, unaltered after two centuries and a half,
which presented itself to the old navigator when he caught his first
near view of the picturesque shores of this outpost of the Great
South Land, the mysterious continent of his search. To the south
stood the jutting basaltic columns of Cape Frederick Henry--a lesser
Cape Raoul--backed by the high round of Humper's Bluff. Thence his
eye travelled northward round twenty miles of curving shore, its
white beaches broken here and there by dark cliffs and rocky points.
On the north, beyond the long stretch of white sand barring
Blackman's Bay, rose steep-wooded hills, buttressed at their eastern
end by the abrupt mass of Cape Bernier, thrusting its almost
precipitous slope into the ocean, and flanked by the hills of Maria
Island, shutting in the great bay on the north-east. The coast view
from the offing is fine, but if the visitor wishes to appreciate
fully the picturesqueness of the shore and to identify the spots
mentioned in the quaint old Dutch journal, he must be prepared for
some rough scrambling on the Peninsula itself. The country inland is
poor, almost without water, covered with thin gum forest, scrub, and
meagre grass. It is only the shore that is interesting. The rocky
headlands, cliffs, and islands, against which the ocean dashes, are
rent and scarred by sudden fissures and chasms, into which the waves
rush roaring and tumbling. Between the points lie a variety of lovely
bays; now a broad white beach with long rollers of breaking surf, now
a rocky nook, now a quiet and sheltered cove.
{Page: 136}
Our centre of observation was the camping ground within﹃The
Narrows.﹄from whence we looked out over the broad expanse of
Blackman's Bay. This extensive inlet or arm of the sea is shallow and
full of shoals and sandbanks, which make the navigation even of a
boat dangerous to the inexperienced. It is shut in from the sea by a
long tongue of land and by shoals, leaving only a small outlet, very
appropriately called "The Narrows," through which the tide rushes
with great force. Early on the first morning after the ships had come
to an anchor the two boats, under the command of Pilot Francis
Jacobszoon, rowed through this narrow inlet to explore the new-found
country. The Pilot's description of the watering places, where the
water trickled so slowly that they could with difficulty fill a bowl,
is thoroughly characteristic of the eastern shores of Blackman's Bay.
In the evening Pilot Jacabszoon returned on board with his collection
of strange vegetables, and his report of the well-wooded country, the
great trees scarred by fire, with marks on their bark of the steps of
gigantic climbers, whom they had not seen, but whose mysterious
voices they had heard.
The various localities mentioned in Tasman's journal were easily
reached from our camp. Outside "The Narrows" the shore rises in high
cliffs, at the foot of which a broad rocky shelf affords access to
little nooks, which in the early days of the colony, were the sites
of stations for bay whaling, and are still known as Gardiner's and
Watson's Fisheries, Some two miles from "The Narrows" is Cape Paul
Lamanon. A fishing excursion to the neighbourhood gave me an
opportunity of landing on the Cape. It is a low point, the soil of
which is stony and arid, covered with small timber and rough scrub.
From the Cape a short walk took me to the little cove marked on the
maps as Prince of Wales Bay. It was on the shore of this little cove
(cleene bochtien), situated to the west-south-west of Tasman's
anchorage, that the Dutch flag was planted two centuries and a half
ago, The shores of the bay on each side of the entrance are rocky and
broken, but further in the rocks give place to a beach of large grey
shingle. As you advance along the shore up the bay the banks of
shingle on each side
{Page: 137}
curve into two horns shelving out towards the centre of the bay,
and forming a bar extending nearly the whole way across the entrance
to the inner cove. Within the bar of shingle lies enclosed a lovely
cove, its quiet waters fringed by a curved beach of great smooth
stones. On either hand it is shut in by steep banks crowned with dark
forest, and from the steep grey beach at the bottom of the cove a
wooded valley runs inland. Standing just outside the shingle bar at
the entrance to this inner harbour it needs no great effort of the
imagination to call up the scene on that 3rd December, 1642. Away out
in the offing, near yonder grotesquely shaped Green Island, the
high-pooped old Dutch ships lie at anchor. The wind is blowing fresh
from the eastward, and two boats put off from the ships and stand for
the shore. The wind increases to half a gale, and while the smaller
boat runs back to the ships the larger boat changes her course and
heads for this bay. As she approaches we can see on board of her
Tasman himself; and some of the Heemskerk's officers; Gerrit
Janszoon, the master; Abraham Coomans, the supercargo; and Peter
Jacobszoon, the carpenter. The surf breaks violently on the shingle,
and Tasman finds that to land in such a sea is impossible without
great danger of wrecking the boat. Must he, then, after all, sail
away without taking formal possession of the newly-discovered land?
There is a short deliberation as the rowers rest on their oars, and
then the carpenter, Jacobszoon, hastily throws off his clothes,
plunges into the sea, and, pushing his flag-pole before him, strikes
out for the shore. Making his way through the breaking surf he lands
on the shingle beach, and there, at the foot of the steep slope,
where four stately gums stand in a crescent on the hill side, he
plants the flag of the Prince Stadtholder. We can imagine the cheer
which greeted the raising of the flag as the carpenter, in the name
of the States-General, thus took possession of the new territory of
the Great South Land. Then the boat is brought as close in to the
shore as possible, the carpenter swims out to her again through the
surf, and they return on board the Heemskerk. "Leaving the flag,"
says Tasman, "as a memento to posterity and to the inhabitants of the
country, who, though they did not show themselves, we thought were
not far off, carefully watching the proceedings of the invaders of
their territory."
{Page: 138}
Another place of interest on this coast to which we paid a visit
is Wilmot Harbour, locally known as Lagoon Bay, a deep cove to the
south of the basaltic promontory of Cape Frederick Henry. Here is the
one solitary dwelling on this part of the Peninsula. It is probably
the only locality which has altered much in appearance since the time
of Tasman. Everywhere else the wild bush remains untouched, but here
is green pasture, and even a small cornfield or two. The southern
headland of the harbour is one of the wildest and most picturesque of
spots. Standing on the grassy surface of its narrow extremity, which
is rent into chasms and fissures, you look down upon the sea breaking
tumultuously into a deep gulf below. On the other side of the gulf,
to the south, there rises abruptly out of the water the grassy and
wooded steep of the headland, with bold outline like Mount Direction.
Turning to the north you see at your feet two rocky islands, their
precipices crowned with wood and scrub, the waves heaving and
swirling round their bases. Across the mouth of the harbour stand the
basaltic columns of Cape Frederick Henry--a lesser Cape Raoul.
Beyond, over outlying rocks and islets, is the place of Tasman's
anchorage; while in the distance, twelve or fifteen miles off across
the sea, loom the peaks of Maria Island.
On our return we took the way of the Two Mile Beach (the North Bay
of the maps). Behind the sandhills at the back of the beach lies a
large lagoon, which discharges its brackish waters by a narrow sandy
channel at the south corner of the beach. This is the spot where
Tasman's boat's crew landed--on the morning after their exploration
of Blackman's Bay--to search for water, and where they found that the
sea breaking through into the lagoon had made the water too brackish
for use. The spot is easily identified from Tasman's description, and
is probably hardly altered in appearance by the lapse of two
centuries and a half. The beach is a fine stretch of broad white sand
two miles long, on which the great ocean rollers break splendidly,
and is backed by a line of low sand hills, behind which lies the
lagoon.
For more than a century after Tasman anchored off Green Island no
navigator ventured to follow him into the stormy seas that wash the
dark cliffs of the Great South Land. The first of the moderns who
sighted the coast of Van Diemen's Land was the French captain
{Page: 139}
Marion du Fresne in 1772. Marion made the West Coast a little to
the south of Tasman's landfall, and, following almost the same course
as the earlier navigator, his ships, the Mascarin and Marquis de
Castries, on the 5th March, 1772, anchored at a spot somewhat to the
north-west of the Heemskerk's anchorage in 1642. Marion took this to
be the Frederick Henry Bay of Tasmania but, as we have already seen,
this was almost certainly an error, and since the visit of the
Mascarin the outer bay, as distinguished from the inner, has borne on
the charts the more appropriate designation of Marion Bay. The
description in the narrative of the voyage[9] is not sufficiently exact to enable us to
determine the precise spot where the French landed, but it appears to
have been on the Two Mile Beach (North Bay of our present maps). On
this beach it was that the aborigines of Tasmania first came into
contact with Europeans. The meeting was an ill-omened one. The blacks
resisted the landing, and attacked Marion's party with stones and
spears. The French, in retaliation, fired upon them, killing one man
and wounding others. The ships lay at anchor in the bay for six days,
during which the French explored the country for a considerable
distance, searching for fresh water, and timber for spars, but they
saw nothing more of the natives after this first fatal encounter.
Being unable to find either good water or timber suitable for his
needs, Marion sailed on March 10 for New Zealand, where he met his
death in a treacherous attack on his people by the Maoris.
The next navigator who visited the Tasmanian coast was Captain
Tobias Furneaux, Cook's second in command on his second voyage of
discovery.. It is to Furneaux's blunders that the confusion
respecting Frederick Henry Bay is due. The two ships, the Resolution
and the Adventure, were separated by a storm in latitude 50°
south, between the Cape and Australia. Cook, in the Resolution, kept
on his course for New Zealand; Furneaux, in the Adventure, being
short of water, bore up for the land laid down by Tasman as Van
Diemen's Land. On March 9, 1773, Furneaux sighted the land at a point
which he took to be Tasman's South Cape. The point was, in fact,
South West Cape, and from this
[(9)Nouveau voyage a la mer du Sud, commence sous les
ordres de M. Marion Redige d'apres les journaux de M. Crozet (Paris,
1783). Through the exertions of Mr. McClymont and Mr. A. Mault,
Marion's charts of Van Diemen's Land have been discovered in Paris,
and fac similes of them obtained. See the Society's Papers and
Proceedings for 1889. ]
{Page: 140}
initial error the whole course of subsequent blunders arose. From
South West Cape he sailed eastward intending to make Tasman's
anchorage in Frederick Henry Bay. Reaching the South Cape, he mistook
it for the Boreel Islands, south of Bruny, and mistook the entrance
to D'Entrecasteaux Channel for Tasman's Storm Bay. The south point of
Bruny he mistook for Tasman's Island (the Pillar), and called it
Tasman's Head. Rounding Bruny Island he stood north, under the
impression that he was sailing along the east coast of Van Diemen's
Land, and in the evening came to an anchor in a bay of which he
says--"We at first took this bay to be that which Tasman called
Frederick Henry Bay, but afterwards found that his is laid down five
leagues to the northward of this." Furneaux named his anchorage
Adventure Bay, the point to the north he called Cape Frederick
Henry--believing that Tasman's Frederick Henry Bay lay to the north
of this cape--and the opposite shore of Tasman's Peninsula he laid
down on his chart as Maria's Isles. After five days' stay in
Adventure Bay, he sailed out and rounded the Pillar, under the
impression that he was rounding the south point of Maria Island.
Thence he proceeded north as far as the Furneaux Group, and then bore
away for New Zealand to rejoin Cook.
Cook, on his third voyage, cast anchor in Adventure Bay on January
24, 1777, without detecting Furneaux's mistake or correcting his
charts.
In 1789, Captain J. H. Cox, in the brig Mercury, anchored in the
strait between Maria Island and the mainland, but, misled by the
charts of Furneaux and Cook never suspected that he was within a few
miles of Tasman's Frederick Henry Bay.
In April, 1792 Admiral D'Entrecasteaux, with the ships Recherche
and Esperance, sighted the Mewstone, and bore up for the mainland,
intending to make Cook's anchorage in Adventure Bay. Through an error
of his pilot, instead of rounding Bruny Island, he stood to the west
of it, and found that he was not in Adventure Bay, but in the
entrance of the channel, which he (like Cook) believed to be the
Storm Bay of Tasman. D'Entrecasteaux explored the channel which bears
his name, ascended our river, which he named Rivière du Nord,
and explored the wide bay to the north-east, which he named Baie du
Nord.. This bay, he thought, communicated with Tasman's Frederick
Henry Bay on the east coast, and
{Page: 141}
under this impression the land which Cook had erroneously laid
down as Maria Island he named Ile d'Abel Tasman.
In 1794, Capt. John Hayes, in the ships Duke of Clarence and
Duchess, visited Storm Bay--although the name does not appear on his
charts.[10] He evidently had only Cook's
chart, since he places Adventure Bay, Tasman's Head, and Maria's Isle
as they are laid down by Cook. Capt. Hayes re-named all the other
localities in Storm Bay, and it is to him that we owe the name of the
River Derwent. The Baie du Nord of D'Entrecasteaux he called
Henshaw's Bay.
In December, 1798, Flinders and Bass, in their first
circumnavigation of the Island in the Norfolk, sailed up Storm Bay
and explored and surveyed the Baie du Nord of D'Entrecasteaux.
Flinders says that he was at the time quite ignorant that this bay
had ever been entered before, and, misled by the errors of Furneaux
and Cook, he laid it down on his first sketch chart[11]) as Frederick Henry Bay.
In January, 1802, the French discovery expedition under Admiral
Baudin, in the ships Geographe and Naturaliste, arrived in
D'Entrecasteaux Channel. During a stay of some weeks they completed
the surveys of Admiral D'Entrecasteaux, and explored and surveyed the
Baie du Nord. They then sailed for the east coast and anchored their
ships in the passage between Maria Island and the mainland. From this
point Freycinet, Baudin's lieutenant, made the first thorough
examination of Tasman's Frederik Hendrik Bay. He explored it as far
as East Bay Neck, and was thus enabled to correct the mistakes of
former navigators. He found that D'Entrecasteaux had been mistaken in
supposing that there was a channel between Frederick Henry Bay and
the Baie du Nord, and that the supposed Ile d'Abel Tasman was a
double peninsula, to which he gave the names of Forrestier's and
Tasman's Peninsula (Presqu'ile d'Abel Tasman). He also proved that
Flinders[12] had been in error in
applying the name Frederick Henry to the Baie du Nord. The charts of
Baudin's expedition, constructed by Faure, were the first to show
this
[(10)See Mr. A. Mault's paper, with fac simile of Hay's
chart, in the Society's Papers and Proceedings for 1889.
]
[(11)See Mr. Mault's paper and f ac simile of chart,
cited above. ]
[(12)Péron's narrative of Baudin's voyage was
published in 1807. The author had, therefore, the opportunity of
comparing Flinders' charts which were seized at the Mauritius in
1803. ]
{Page: 142}
coast accurately: in them for the first time the outer port was
laid down as Baie Marion, and the inner one as Baie Frederick
Hendrick.
Many years later, after his liberation from his long Mauritius
captivity, Flinders came to write his "Voyage to Terra Australis." He
had then had the opportunity of comparing his own surveys of fifteen
years before with the French charts, and correcting his errors. In
his atlas, therefore, the Baie du Nord is correctly named North Bay,
and the name of Frederick Henry Bay is restored to its proper place
on the east coast; though Flinders applies it to the outer port and
not to the inner, which bears the name on Tasman's map.
The original error of Furneaux, perpetuated as it was by the high
authority of Cook and of Flinders' first chart, had obtained too firm
a hold to be displaced. On all the early English charts the Baie du
Nord was laid down as Frederick Henry Bay, and by this name it is
alluded to in all the early records; in Collins' despatches;[13] in Knopwood's diary; (14) as such it
continued to be known to the early settlers, and so it is universally
known to the present day.
After the publication of Flinders' atlas some of the early
map-makers endeavoured to restore the names to their proper
localities. Thus in a chart of Van Diemen's Land compiled by G.. W.
Evans. Surveyor-General and published in London in 1821. and also in
a chart published in London by Cross in 1826, North Bay is correctly
placed, and the name of Frederick Henry is in the first map applied
to the outer bay, and in the second more correctly to the inner one.
In Assistant Surveyor-General Scott's map published in Hobart by Ross
in 1830, the name Frederick Henry appears in North Bay, but in
Arrowsmith's map published in London in 1842, the alternative names
are given, viz.--Frederick Henry Bay or North Bay; while the name
Frederick Henry also appears correctly in the inner bay to which it
was originally applied by Tasman. In all modern maps, however,
D'Entrecasteaux's name of North Bay has been most inappropriately
transferred to what I have described as the Two Mile Beach, on the
east coast of Forestier's Peninsula.
The Fredrik Henrik Bay of Tasman is now known as Blackman's Bay.
On early maps the name of Blackman's
[(13)King to Collins, January 8, 1806; Collins to King,
June 24, 1805. (14)Knopwood's diary, February 12, 1804.
]
{Page: 143}
Bay is applied sometimes to the Two Miles Beach, and some times to
Wilmot Harbour. By what freak of the map-makers of our Survey
Department these names have been shuffled about so oddly I am quite
at a loss to imagine.
The names as they stand are perhaps now too firmly established to
be changed at once. But I would venture to offer to the Lands Office
two suggestions:--
(1.) As there is already a Cape Frederick Henry on the east coast
of Forestier's Peninsula, which rightly marks Tasman's anchorage, a
more appropriate name should be given to the other Cape Frederick
Henry, forming the north point of Adventure Bay on Bruny Island. Let
the last-mentioned Cape bear the name of its discoverer, and be
re-christened "Cape Furneaux." This would remove one source of
misapprehension.
(2.) Though it may not be possible at once to restore the correct
names of the bays, yet they may be indicated without causing
confusion, and indeed with distinct advantage to the popular
apprehension of our history. In all future maps let the names
originally given be added in brackets. D'Entrecasteaux's Baie du Nord
would then appear as "Frederick Henry Bay or North Bay," and in
Blackman's Bay would also be added "Fredrik Hendrik's Bay of
Tasman."
Thus to perpetuate the remembrance of the landing-place of Tasman
would be a graceful act of justice to the memory of the great seaman
who, two centuries and a half ago, first circumnavigated Australia,
and has given his illustrious name to this fair island of
Tasmania.
THE END
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