with dawn on the morrow they again altered course and came in closer to the coast. What they saw was a vast coastline – not far from where the city of Fremantle now lies – running roughly north to south and continuing as far as they could see in both directions.
Was this the same coast reported by Dirk Hartog in 1616, of which all VOC captains were now aware? The same coast, albeit far to the south of what Hartog had seen? It would appear so, and yet, as Hartog had also reported, there was no obvious place to land, as the enormous breakers kept pounding the seemingly impregnable coast. Compounding the problem of landing was the unremitting gale, which kept pushing the two ships towards the potentially fatal shore, even breaking the anchor cables of both the Dordrecht and the Amsterdam in a passage of particularly mighty gusts on 23 July 1619.
The ships carefully continued to the north, charting the coastline all the way. On 28 July, the land to their starboard fell out of sight as their course towards the East Indies took them back into open sea.
The next day, at noon, they found themselves to be at the latitude of 29 degrees 32 minutes south, and continued north by east. These were uncharted waters, and de Houtman was proceeding carefully, which was as well. For, late that very afternoon, just three hours before dusk, the crow’s nest shouted a first sighting of what appeared to be crashing surf upon dangerous reefs and rocky islets lying dead ahead. De Houtman was able to bring his ship up into the wind, drop anchor in relatively safe, if shallow, waters and investigate the reefs and islet. As he subsequently wrote in a long report to the Heeren XVII in Amsterdam, ‘ we unexpectedly came upon a low-lying coast , a level, broken country with reefs all round it’.
For a short time, the Dutchmen upon the two ships were able to explore the area, to establish, as before, that the islets contained nothing of any value and that they appeared incapable of supporting human life. No, the true significance of the place lay not in any value they possessed but in the terrible danger they represented to any ships that would follow them to these parts. De Houtman shuddered to think what would happen to a ship that chanced across those reefs unseen in the night, and with that in mind he carefully marked down their position on his map. He recorded the exact latitude and as close to the longitude as he could estimate so others did not founder upon it as he so very nearly had. He noted in his report:
Click Here
As to a name, he called them – for modesty did not forbid – Frederick de Houtman’s Abrolhos . If the source of the first words was obvious, the origin of the last word was less so – most particularly because de Houtman was Dutch. Yet, as legend would have it, he used a contraction of a Portuguese phrase he had perhaps learned years earlier: ‘ abri vossos olhos ’, or ‘keep your eyes open’.
It was an added warning – a literary lighthouse – to all mariners that these islands were extremely dangerous. So devastating were the potential consequences of hitting them, with so many Dutch ships obviously at risk, that after de Houtman arrived in Java on 3 September 1619 the information was immediately given to Dutch cartographers to be disseminated in their ever-expanding, ever-more-detailed maps.
De Houtman, meanwhile, had arrived in the Dutch East Indies at a singularly important, and brutal, time in its history, a time that would forever be associated with the merciless but unfailingly efficient nature of one man: Jan Pieterszoon Coen.
The newly installed Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies was tall, slim and ramrod erect. He boasted strong features – deep-set eyes, a prominent nose and cruelly thin lips – and was that newest of breeds, a ‘Company man’, right down to the marrow of his Company bones. Born and raised in Hoorn in the northern quarter of the Dutch Republic, he had begun his
Was this the same coast reported by Dirk Hartog in 1616, of which all VOC captains were now aware? The same coast, albeit far to the south of what Hartog had seen? It would appear so, and yet, as Hartog had also reported, there was no obvious place to land, as the enormous breakers kept pounding the seemingly impregnable coast. Compounding the problem of landing was the unremitting gale, which kept pushing the two ships towards the potentially fatal shore, even breaking the anchor cables of both the Dordrecht and the Amsterdam in a passage of particularly mighty gusts on 23 July 1619.
The ships carefully continued to the north, charting the coastline all the way. On 28 July, the land to their starboard fell out of sight as their course towards the East Indies took them back into open sea.
The next day, at noon, they found themselves to be at the latitude of 29 degrees 32 minutes south, and continued north by east. These were uncharted waters, and de Houtman was proceeding carefully, which was as well. For, late that very afternoon, just three hours before dusk, the crow’s nest shouted a first sighting of what appeared to be crashing surf upon dangerous reefs and rocky islets lying dead ahead. De Houtman was able to bring his ship up into the wind, drop anchor in relatively safe, if shallow, waters and investigate the reefs and islet. As he subsequently wrote in a long report to the Heeren XVII in Amsterdam, ‘ we unexpectedly came upon a low-lying coast , a level, broken country with reefs all round it’.
For a short time, the Dutchmen upon the two ships were able to explore the area, to establish, as before, that the islets contained nothing of any value and that they appeared incapable of supporting human life. No, the true significance of the place lay not in any value they possessed but in the terrible danger they represented to any ships that would follow them to these parts. De Houtman shuddered to think what would happen to a ship that chanced across those reefs unseen in the night, and with that in mind he carefully marked down their position on his map. He recorded the exact latitude and as close to the longitude as he could estimate so others did not founder upon it as he so very nearly had. He noted in his report:
Click Here
As to a name, he called them – for modesty did not forbid – Frederick de Houtman’s Abrolhos . If the source of the first words was obvious, the origin of the last word was less so – most particularly because de Houtman was Dutch. Yet, as legend would have it, he used a contraction of a Portuguese phrase he had perhaps learned years earlier: ‘ abri vossos olhos ’, or ‘keep your eyes open’.
It was an added warning – a literary lighthouse – to all mariners that these islands were extremely dangerous. So devastating were the potential consequences of hitting them, with so many Dutch ships obviously at risk, that after de Houtman arrived in Java on 3 September 1619 the information was immediately given to Dutch cartographers to be disseminated in their ever-expanding, ever-more-detailed maps.
De Houtman, meanwhile, had arrived in the Dutch East Indies at a singularly important, and brutal, time in its history, a time that would forever be associated with the merciless but unfailingly efficient nature of one man: Jan Pieterszoon Coen.
The newly installed Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies was tall, slim and ramrod erect. He boasted strong features – deep-set eyes, a prominent nose and cruelly thin lips – and was that newest of breeds, a ‘Company man’, right down to the marrow of his Company bones. Born and raised in Hoorn in the northern quarter of the Dutch Republic, he had begun his
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