s, 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 seen
fires from afar, some of the men fancying that two or three times they
have seen a number of naked blacks, whom however they have never been
able to come near to, or to come to parley with; nor have they found
there any peculiar animals or birds, excepting that especially in the
Swaene-revier [*] they have seen a species of black swans, three of which
they have brought to Batavia alive, which we should have been glad to
send over to Your Worships, but that shortly after their arrival here
they all of them died one after another. Nor, so far as we know, have
they met with any vestiges of the lost ship de Ridderschap van Hollant or
of any other bottoms, either in those parts or near the islands of
Amsterdam and St. Paulo, so that in sum nothing of any importance has
been discovered in this exploratory voyage. Only, we must not omit to
mention that in an island situated in 25 deg. S.L. near or before the
South-land, they have found fastened to a pole, which though half-rotten
stood still erect, a common pewter dish of medium size, which had been
flattened and nailed to the pole aforesaid, where they found it still
hanging; the said dish bearing the following words engraved on it, still
distinctly legible:

[* Opposite to the Rottenest island.]

"A.D. 1616, on the 25th of October there arrived here the ship den
Eendragt, of Amsterdam; supercargo Gillis Miebais, of Liege; skipper
Dirck Hartog, of Amsterdam; she set sail again for Bantam, on the 27th
do.; subcargo Jan Steyn, upper-steersman Pieter Ledocker van Bil."

This old dish which skipper Willem de Vlaming brought us, has now
likewise been handed to the Commander [*] in order to be delivered to
Your Worships, who with us will no doubt stand amazed that the same has
for so long a series of years been preserved in spite of its being
exposed to the influence of sky, rain and sun [**].

[* Viz. of the fleet with which this letter was sent to the Netherlands.]

[* The dish would seem to be no longer extant.