The next,
and a greater than these, at least greater in his navigating
successes, was Abel Janz Tasman, in 1642. Tasman was instructed to
inquire from the native inhabitants for Pelsart's two convicts, and to
bring them away with him, IF THEY ENTREATED HIM; but they were never
heard of again. Tasman sailed round a great portion of the Australian
coast, discovered what he named Van Diemen's land, now Tasmania, and
New Zealand. He it was who called the whole, believing it to be one,
New Holland, after the land of his birth. Next we have Dampier, an
English buccaneer--though the name sounds very like Dutch; it was
probably by chance only that he and his roving crew visited these
shores. Then came Wilhelm Vlaming with three ships. God save the mark
to call such things ships. How the men performed the feats they did,
wandering over vast and unknown oceans, visiting unknown coasts with
iron-bound shores, beset with sunken reefs, subsisting on food not fit
for human beings, suffering from scurvy caused by salted diet and
rotten biscuit, with a short allowance of water, in torrid zones, and
liable to be attacked and killed by hostile natives, it is difficult
for us to conceive. They suffered all the hardships it is possible to
imagine upon the sea, and for what? for fame, for glory? That their
names and achievements might be handed down to us; and this seems to
have been their only reward; for there was no Geographical Society's
medal in those days with its motto to spur them on.
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