quire what materials and
goods they possess. To prevent any other European nation from reaping
the fruits of our labour in these discoveries, you are everywhere to
take possession in the name of the Dutch East India Company, to put
up some sign, erect a stone or post, and carve on them the arms of
the Netherlands. The yachts are manned with one hundred and eleven
persons, and for eight months plentifully victualled. Manage
everything well and orderly, take notice you see the ordinary portion
of two meat and two pork days, and a quarter of vinegar and a
half-quarter of sweet oil per week."

[Illustration: VAN DIEMAN'S LAND AND TWO OF TASMAN'S SHIPS. From the
map drawn by Tasman in his "Journal."]

He was to coast along New Guinea to the farthest-known spot, and to
follow the coast _despite adverse winds_, in order that the Dutch might
be sure "whether this land is not divided from the great known South
Continent or not."

What he accomplished on this voyage is best seen in "The complete map
of the Southern Continent surveyed by Captain Abel Tasman," which was
inlaid on the floor of the large hall in the Stadthouse at Amsterdam.
The Great South Land was henceforth known as New Holland.

CHAPTER XLIII

DAMPIER DISCOVERS HIS STRAIT

It was not long before the great stretch of coast-line carefully
charted by Tasman became known to the English, and while the Dutch
were yet busy exploring farther, Dampier--the first Englishman to
visit the country--had already set foot on its shores.

"We lie entirely at the mercy of the Dutch East India Company's
geography for the outline of this part of the coast of New Holland:
for it does not appear that the ships of any other nation have ever
approached it," says an old history of the period.

Some such information as this became known in South America, in which
country the English had long been harassing the Spaniards. It reached
the ears of one William Dampier, a Somersetshire man, who had lived
a life of romance and adventure with the buccaneers, pillaging and
plundering foreign ships in these remote regions of the earth. He had
run across the Southern Pacific carrying his life in his hand. He had
marched across the isthmus of Panama--one hundred and ten miles in
twenty-three days--through deep and swiftly flowing rivers, dense
growths of tropical vegetation full of snakes, his only food being
the flesh of monkeys. Such was the man who now took part in a
privateering