gedestineert voor Batavia."

[Translation.--On the 4th of February, 1697, arrived here the ship
GEELVINCK, of Amsterdam; Commandant Wilhelm de Vlamingh, of Welandt;
assistant, Jan van Bremen, of Copenhagen; first pilot, Michiel Bloem van
Estight, of Bremen. The hooker, the NYPTANGH, Captain Gerrit Collaert, of
Amsterdam, Assistant Theodorus Heermans, of the same place; first pilot,
Gerrit Gerritz, of Bremen; then the galliot WESELTJE, Commander Cornelis
de Vlaming, of Vlielandt; Pilot Coert Gerritz, from Bremen. Sailed from
here with our fleet on the 12th, to explore the South Land, and
afterwards bound for Batavia.]

In 1801, the boatswain of the NATURALISTE found this plate half buried in
sand, lying near an oaken post to which it had been nailed. Captain
Hamelin, with rare good taste, had a new post made, and the plate erected
in the old spot. Another outward bound ship, the MAURITIUS, touched on
the west coast in 1618, and discovered and named the Willems River, near
the Northwest Cape, probably the present Ashburton. The LEEUWIN
(Lioness), visited the west coast in 1622, and the well-known reef of
Houtman's Abrolhos was so-called after Frederick Houtman, a Dutch
navigator of distinction who, however, never personally visited
Australian shores. The next navigator to the South Land met with an
untimely end. In the year 1623, Governor Coen dispatched two yachts, the
PERA and the ARNHEM, on a voyage of discovery. Landing on the coast of
New Guinea, Captain Jan Carstens, of the ARNHEM, and eight of his crew
were murdered by the natives, but the vessels proceeded, and touched upon
the north coast of New Holland, west of the Gulf of Carpentaria, still
known as Arnhem's Land. A river, the Spult, is here laid down in the old
charts, in the vicinity of the present Liverpool River, and there is also
another opening marked the "Speult," on the eastern side of the Gulf,