Long before Cook reached Botany Bay, Dutch yachts out of Batavia were charting a hostile South Land. Edited for the Hakluyt Society in 1859, this collection gathers ships’ instructions, journals and map extracts: the voyage of Gerrit Pool, Willem de Vlamingh’s visit to New Holland, crew lists of the Limmen and Zeemeuw, and Major’s long introduction weighing the evidence for earlier Portuguese discovery.
Primary sources for anyone curious about how Australia slowly emerged from the blank southern edge of the world map. Download the free EPUB.