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Updated: May 16, 2025
But before leaving the Dutch period there are one or two voyages that, either on account of their interesting or important character, deserve brief mention. In 1623 Arnhem's Land, now the northern district of the northern territory of South Australia, was discovered by the Dutch yachts Pesa and Arnhem.
Captain Gerrit Tomaz Poole sailed from Banda in 1636, with the yachts KLYN, AMSTERDAM, and WESEL, to meet his death on the New Guinea coast, in the same place that had been fatal to Carstens, and in a like manner. The supercargo took charge, and prosecuted the voyage, revisiting Arnhem's Land. A name familiar to all is that of Abel Janz Tasman.
At three places upon which King favourably reported, namely Camden Harbour on the north-west coast, Port Essington in Arnhem's Land, and Port Cockburn in Apsley Straits, between Melville and Bathurst Islands on the north coast, military and penal settlements were established, but from want of further emigration these were abandoned.
Nor in so doing was he aided by the former successes of other explorers. He also was the one who crossed fairly in the centre of Australia, and his track extends further north, as the others made for the southern shore of the Gulf of Carpentaria, while Stuart came out at the head of Arnhem's Land.
But before leaving the Dutch period there are one or two voyages that, either on account of their interesting or important character, deserve brief mention. In 1623 Arnhem's Land, now the northern district of the Northern Territory of South Australia, was discovered by the Dutch yachts Pesa and Arnhem.
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, since determined to be the Endeavour Strait of Captain Cook, At Arnhem's Land the yachts parted, the Pera continuing the voyage alone.
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.
Arriving in Sydney in May, he sailed again a couple of months later to the northward, surveying the Great Barrier Reef, Torres Straits, the Gulf of Carpentaria, and the coast of Arnhem's Land. By this time the ship was too unseaworthy to prosecute further work, so Flinders sailed round the entire continent by way of the Leeuwin, and finally arrived in Sydney harbour again in June, 1803.
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