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Updated: June 4, 2025
He found and named the Swan River, this being the first mention ever made of black swans, two specimens of which were captured and taken to Batavia. At Dirk Hartog's Road, he found, as before-mentioned, the tin plate left by that captain, and after a careful examination of the coast so far as the North-west Cape, left for Batavia.
If one looks at the west coast of Australia one is struck by the large number of Dutch names which are jotted down the coast. There is Hoog Island, Diemen's Bay, Houtman's Abrolhos, De Wit land, and the Archipelago of Nuyts, besides Dirk Hartog's Island and Cape Leeuwin.
"It was given to me by a man I once befriended, together with the parchment you have just read. How he came by it I need not say. The man is dead, and I trust his sins are forgiven him. But I know he would not lie to me, not willingly." "It seems a wild goose chase," I said, although my doubts were rapidly dissolving under the witchery of Hartog's sanguine temperament.
The sale of the pearls which the king of Pearl Island had given Hartog had more than repaid the merchants for sending out the "Endraght", and with the "Arms of Amsterdam" they hoped to accumulate further treasure. I was influenced also by Hartog's description of the Island of Gems, and the more I thought of the offer he had made me the more I liked it.
Ten years after this visit, in 1616, Captain Dirk Hartog, in command of the ship ENDRACHT, from Amsterdam, discovered the west coast of Australia. He left a tin plate on an island in Dirk Hartog's Roads bearing the following inscription:
At the greatest depth the ship was forty miles from the land, and twenty miles at the least, which was off Dirk Hartog's Island, at the south point of Sharks Bay.
After hearing Hartog's decision we both bowed and retired, and, in the terms of our promise, resumed the ordinary routine of our duties as though nothing out of the common had occurred. But the news of the coming fight spread among the crew and became the subject of gossip throughout the ship.
Our crew, also, began to show signs of discontent, and to murmur at having been brought so far on a fool's errand. It was only Dirk Hartog's indomitable personality that prevented a mutiny. It was this same sordid greed for gain which had caused Christopher Columbus to be sent home in chains from America because he had failed to find gold.
Man is, after all, but an avaricious creature, who requires the discipline of necessity to restrain his covetous nature. The prospect of gold-getting would probably have undermined Hartog's authority, and would most likely have ended in disaster for us all. As it was, we had enough, but not more than enough, and the discipline of our ship, so necessary to our common safety, was maintained.
O'Neil's got it in the elbow he's all right for Blighty. Poor old Hartog's badly hurt a frightful gash in the thigh with the piece still in it. I hope he won't have to lose his leg. Christ, I'm glad it's all over I wouldn't like to go through that again." There was silence for a while, but soon the silence was broken by the distant muttering of anti-aircraft fire.
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