that the voyage of Dirk Hartog was made.

For many months after leaving Amsterdam we sailed south, touching at
some islands to obtain vegetable food and replenish our water-casks.
Worn out with hardship, our crew more than once showed signs of mutiny.
Sometimes for weeks together we lay becalmed in the tropics, when the
air hung like a pall of vapour from the sky, and the pitch boiled and
blistered in the seams of the deck-planks. In other seasons we were
driven by storm and stress. But at length, in spite of every obstacle,
an unbroken coast stretched before us far as the eye could reach. For
three days we sailed past verdure-covered hills, white, sandy beaches,
and bluff headlands, until Hartog felt assured the Great South
Continent was at last in very truth before him.

The day upon which Hartog determined to land was bright and fine; the
place a sandy beach upon which the waves broke in frothy spume. We were
all keen to be ashore after so long a spell of the sea, and I reckoned
myself in luck to be chosen as one of the boat's crew to land the
captain.

"Let Peter come," said Hartog when the boat was alongside. "I would
have him engrave a plate to be set in some safe place, so that it may
be known that I, Dirk Hartog, landed here, to any who may come after
me."

When we had come to the shore Hartog, taking the boat's crew with him,
set off inland, leaving me to my work. The plate was soon finished,
when I fastened it to a rock out of reach of the waves.

It bore the following inscription: