[* In November and December 1695 the Managers of the E.I.  Company (Resolutions of the Heeren XVII of November 10, December 8 and 10, 1695) resolved to dispatch a flotilla to the South-land or the land of d’Eendracht, this time starting from the Cape of Good Hope.  Willem De Vlamingh was appointed commander-in-chief of the expedition.  He was also instructed to inquire into the fate of the ship de Ridderschap van Holland, which had miscarried on her voyage from the Cape to Batavia in 1694.]

A.

Letter of the Governor-General and Councillors to the Managers of the E.I.C. at the Amsterdam Chamber, November 30, 1697.

...As regards the results of the voyage of the three...vessels aforesaid [de Geelvink, de Nijptang and het Wezeltje], which, pursuant to the letters of the “Heeren XVII” of November 10, 1695, and March 16, 1696, and in accordance with Your Worships’ Instructions of April 23 of the same year, have successfully accomplished their voyage by way of the Tristan de Cunha Islands and the Cape of Good Hope, furthermore via the islands of Amsterdam and St. Paulo, and along the land of d’Eendragt or the South-land, and have arrived here in good condition as regards ships and crews, we shall in the main beg leave to refer you to the journals kept on board the said ships, and to their annotations, together with the charts and a number of drawings of the said places, all which will be handed to Your Worships by the bearer of the same, Almoner Victor Victorszoon, who is now homeward bound in the ship Slants Welvaren.  The drawings are packed in a case to the number of 11, to wit: 

7 of divers places in the South-land, 1 of the island of Tristan de Cunha, 1 of the island of Amsterdam, 1 of the island of St. Paulo, and 1 of the island of Mony [*].

[* I have not found these drawings.—­In the seventeenth-century charts Mony is South-west of Java.]

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We besides beg to forward to you a number of larger and smaller disks of wood, brought over from the said South-land by skipper Willem de Vlamingh, concerning which wood he had noted in his journal at the dates December 30 and 31, 1696, and January 2, 1697, that it was odoriferous, a point which we have not been able to verify here, although we have directly ordered a small portion of it to be distilled, and beg to hand you with the rest a small bottle of the oil thus gained for Your Worships’ examination...together with a box containing shells collected on the beach, fruits, plants, etc., the whole, however, of little value and decidedly inferior to what elsewhere in India may be found of the same description; so that in general in this part of the South-land, which in conformity with their instructions they have diligently skirted, surveyed and observed, they have found little beyond an arid, barren and wild land, both near the shore and so far as they have been inland, without meeting with any human beings, though now and then they have