Abel Tasman

Abel Tasman

Abel Janszoon Tasman (1603 – 10 October 1659) was a Dutch seafarer and explorer, best known for his voyages of 1642 and 1644 in the service of the Dutch East India Company (VOC). He was the first European to reach New Zealand, which he named Staten Landt. He also discovered and was the eponym of Tasmania.

Quotes

• I anchored on the 1st of December, in a bay which I called the Bay of Frederick 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 roots to the branches. They had cut with a flint a sort of steps in the bark, in order to climb up to the birds'-nests. These steps were at the distance of five feet from each other; so that we must conclude that either these people are of 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 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.
  • Extract from his journal (1 December 1642). Reported in James Bonwick, The Last of the Tasmanians (1870), ch. 1, pp. 1–2

External links

• Encyclopedic article on Abel Tasman on Wikipedia