We also found such multitudes of flies here, which perched on our mouths and crept into our eyes, that we could not keep them off our persons.  We likewise saw 8 blacks here, each of them carrying a stick in his hand; they came within a musketshot’s distance of us, but when we went up to them, they ran off, and we could not get them to stop, that we might come near them.  Towards noon, when we found there was no more water to be had, we set sail again, and passed through another opening of the reef a little more to northward.  We were here in 22 deg. 17’ Lat.  I intended to run on to Jacop Remessens river, but the wind went round to North-east, so that we could not keep near the land, and seeing that we were now more than {Page 58} 100 miles from those we had left behind on the island-rocks, and that up to now we had not found water enough to assist them all, but only so much as would afford two mutchkins daily to ourselves, we were compelled to resolve to do our best in order with God’s help to continue our voyage to Batavia as expeditiously as possible, that the Hon. Lord Governor-general might order measures to be taken for the succour of those we had left behind...

On the 7 th do. [of July] we arrived in the road-stead of Batavia at nightfall.

God be thanked and praised.

B.

Diurnal anotations on my [PELSAERT’S] second voyage to the South-land, by order of the Hon. Lord Governor-general Jan Pietersen Coen, with the Yacht Sardam, for the purpose of rescuing and bringing hither the men belonging to our lost ship Batavia, together with the ready money and the goods that it shall be found possible to salve.

This day the 15th Of July We set sail in the morning with the land-wind...

This day the 1st of September at noon we were in 29 deg. 16’ Southern Latitude [*], with a variable wind, so that we found it impossible to get to eastward.

[* The ship had already sailed farther south than Houtman’s Abrolhos.]

On the 2nd do. the wind went round to the north with a top-gallant gale; at noon we were in 30 deg. 16’ S.L. and found we had drifted a long way to southward; in the evening the wind turned to the north-west; course held N.E. by north.

On the 3rd do. in the morning the wind was blowing from the west; we saw a good deal of rock-weed floating about and also a number of cuttle-bones.  We therefore turned our course to eastward, and at noon we saw the mainland of the South-land, extending N.N.W. and S.S.E.; we were at about 3 miles’ distance from it and saw the land extending southward for 4 miles by estimation, where it was bounded by the horizon.  We sounded here in 25 fathom, fine sandy bottom.  It is a treeless, barren coast with a few sandy dunes, the same as to northward; we were in 29 deg. 16’ Southern Latitude, turned our course to north-west, the wind being W.S.W., but the hollow seas threw us close to the land, so that in the evening we had to drop anchor at one mile’s distance from it; at two glasses in the first watch our anchor was broken in two, so that we had to bring out another in great haste.