78 ACCOUNT OF THE WRECK
Batavia. The General and Council resolved, for the rescue both of the above-mentioned unfortunate men, and also of the Company's specie and merchandise, to get ready without delay a quick-sailing fly-boat, the Witte Valck, provisioned for five months, with some further supplies for the above-mentioned men at the Southland ; as also some expert divers, with hatchets and other necessary implements. This they or- dered to join company with the yacht the Goede Hoop, then cruizing in the Straits of Sunda, with instructions that they should both proceed together without loss of time from the Straits southwards, as far as 32° or 33° latitude, or until they met a strong westerly trade-wind, in which case they would steer towards the coast of the Southland. They were, moreover, to explore the said coast with particular attention, near the part where the ship had been wrecked, further than it had been already known, and to lay it down on a map, with its capes, inlets, bays, rocks, sands, and shoals.
The Witte Valck set sail on the 8th of June, in order to join company with th.e yacht Goede Hoop, in the Sunda Straits. They sailed out together, but returned Avithout having succeeded in their object ; the former, on the 14th of September, and the yacht a month afterwards, having been forced by a severe storm to part company on the 18th of July, on their way out. According to the captain's journals lying at Batavia, they had reached the coast just in the winter time, during which season the sea is so boisterous there, that an approach to the coast is a matter of extreme danger. Thus, as these documents inform us, they were com- pelled, after experiencing great danger and exhausting every effort, to put off from the coast and to return to Batavia, leaving behind them eleven men of the yacht Hoop, three of them having wandered too far into the woods and eight having been sent in search of them, but not one of the number returned. As the boat in which they had rowed to land was found dashed to pieces on the shore, the whole
