On the 24th of the same month, being in the
latitude of 42 degrees 25 minutes south, and in the longitude of 163 degrees 50
minutes, I discovered land, which lay east-south-east at the distance of ten
miles, which I called Van Diemen’s Land. The compass pointed right towards this
land. The weather being bad, I steered south and by east along the coast, to the
height of 44 degrees south, where the land runs away east, and afterwards
north-east and by north. In the latitude of 43 degrees 10 minutes south, and in
the longitude of 167 degrees 55 minutes, I anchored on the 1st of December, in a
bay, which I called the Bay of Frederic Henry. I heard, or at least fancied I
heard, the sound of people upon the shore; but I saw nobody. All I met with
worth observing was two trees, which were two fathoms or two fathoms and a half
in girth, and sixty or sixty-five feet high from the root to the branches: they
had cut with a flint a kind of steps in the bark, in order to climb up to the
birds’ nests: these steps were the distance of five feet from each other; so
that we must conclude that either these people are of a prodigious size, or that
they have some way of climbing trees that we are not used to; in one of the
trees the steps were so fresh, that we judged they could not have been cut above
four days.
The noise we heard resembled the noise of some sort of trumpet; it seemed to be
at no great distance, but we saw no living creature notwithstanding. I perceived
also in the sand the marks of wild beasts’ feet, resembling those of a tiger, or
some such creature; I gathered also some gum from the trees, and likewise some
lack. The tide ebbs and flows there about three feet. The trees in this country
do not grow very close, nor are they encumbered with bushes or underwood. I
observed smoke in several places; however, we did nothing more than set up a
post, on which every one cut his name, or his mark, and upon which I hoisted a
flag. I observed that in this place the variation was changed to 3 degrees
eastward. On December 5th, being then, by observation, in the latitude of 41
degrees 34 minutes, and in the longitude 169 degrees, I quitted Van Diemen’s
Land, and resolved to steer east to the longitude of 195 degrees, in hopes of
discovering the Islands of Solomon.
Early Australian Voyages, 1886, John Pinkerton |
