Like our Captain Cook, he was of lowly origin, and commenced his sea life with the Dutch fishermen in the North Sea. He joined the service of the Dutch East India company as a common sailor, and rose rapidly to the position of a master of a vessel, or skipper, as the Dutch term it. He had already commanded in two important trading expeditions from Batavia to Japan and the North Pacific, and proved himself a capable seaman and bold leader of men. Some of his maps are still extant, and show considerable knowledge of cartography. Dr. Thomson, Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society of Australasia, Queensland, relates in his "Round the World," having seen, in the possession of Prince Roland Bonaparte, President of the French Geographical Society, Paris, Tasman's original manuscript map of Australia.
In 1642, when forty years of age, Tasman was commissioned by the Council of Batavia to discover the extent of the unknown South Continent. Very little of this land was then known. There was no conception of its extent or configuration. The planet Mars, in our own day, with its reputed canals, is not more mysterious.
The existence of a great Southern continent—Terra Australis Incognita—had long been the belief of cosmographers. As there were large continents in the Northern Hemisphere, it was argued that, in accordance with the usual natural law of compensation, there should be equally large continents in the Southern Hemisphere.
It was not until Captain Cook had sailed over the site of those imaginary lands that the theory was finally dissipated.
Since the Dutch had established themselves in the East, this unknown land had engaged their attention. They had visited, but not explored, the Gulf of Carpentaria. They had also touched on the West and South coasts, but only in an accidental manner. There is no authentic record of the east coast having been visited by them.
At this time the great Australian Continent, the future empire of the South, was lying, like Tennyson's sleeping princess, waiting for the discoverer to wake her into animated life.
Two vessels were commissioned for the voyage. They were bluff bowed galliots—the "Heemskirk" and the "Zeehaan." The "Heemskirk" was in that day classified as a yacht. Quite the opposite in everything to our modern aristocratic vessel of that name. The "Zeehaan" ranked in size and equipment as a fly-boat, and was smaller than her consort, the "Heemskirk."
The expedition was not purely exploratory. The very practical and hard-headed directors of the Dutch East India Company were never actuated by any adventurous ideals; neither did they believe that the honour of exploration, like the practice of virtue, was it own reward. Profitable dividends were tho chief ends in view.
