en's Land. His voyage from Batavia in 1642,
undertaken by order of the then Governor-General of Dutch India, Anthony
Van Diemen, was one of the most important and successful ever undertaken,
for it was during this voyage that New Holland was discovered, of which
Van Diemen's Land was then supposed to form a part, the extensive island
of New Zealand being supposed to form another portion.[1]

The slight intercourse of the discoverers with the natives had so
calamitous a termination, and the exaggerated accounts it was then a kind
of fashion to give of savages, stigmatised the New Zealanders with such a
character for treachery and cruelty, that their island was not visited
again for upwards of a century, when the immortal Cook drew aside the
veil of error and obscurity from this unexplored land, and rescued the
character of its inhabitants from the ignominy which its original
discoverers, the Dutch, had thrown upon them. This immense tract of land
was imagined by Tasman to form but one island, and he most unaptly gave
it the name of New Zealand, from its great resemblance (as was stated) to
his own country.[2]

In 1770 Cook discovered a strait of easy access and safe navigation,
cutting the island nearly in half, thus making two islands of what had
before been imagined but one. This strait bears his name, and is often
traversed by vessels from New South Wales returning home by way of Cape
Horn.

In 1827 His Majesty's ship Warsprite passed through this strait in
company with the Volage, twenty-eight guns, being the first English line
of battleship which had ever made the attempt. A few years since, Captain
Stewart, commanding a colonial vessel out of Port Jackson, discovered
another strait, which cut off the extreme southern point, making it a
separate island that bears his name, and now almost every year our
sealers and whalers are making additional and useful discoveries along
its coasts.

These islands lie between lat. 34 deg. and 48 deg.S. and long. 166 deg. and 180 deg.E.
The opening of the land to which we were now opposite, and which was our
destined port, the accurate eye of Cook had observed, but did not attempt
the entrance; and it is only about ten years since, when the two store
ships, the Dromedary and Coromandel, loaded with spars on the coast, that
a small vessel attending on those ships first crossed the bar; but
although they took soundings and laid down buoys, the commanders of the
large vessels were