<tw-story style="padding:0%;"> <center><big>'MUTINY ON THE BATAVIA'</big> <span style= "font-size: 20px;">Compiled by a Dilettante from Various Sources</span> </center><img src="https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/a-dutch-ship-running-onto-a-rocky-coast-matthieu-van-plattenberg-16071608e280931660-national-maritime-museum.jpeg"><center><span style= "font-size: 20px;">A Dutch Ship Running onto a Rocky Coast, Matthieu van Plattenberg (1607/1608–1660) National Maritime Museum, London.</span></center> <center><div style="float: left"><u>[[Advice for the Reader->Advice for the Reader]]</u>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</div><div style="float: right"><u>[[Continue->Portrait Page]]</u></div><div style="clear: both;"></center>==> 2% ==> October, 1628. <== <span class="B"> <center> <p>A sail! A veil awave upon the waves.</p> </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F3]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B3]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A3]] </center></u>==> 3% ==> November, 1628. <== <span class="B"> <center> <p>//Lost. Throstle fluted. All is lost now.//</p> </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F4]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B4]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A4]] </center></u>==> 4% ==> November, 1628. <== <span class="B"> <center> <p>//Continue the beginning. The deeps are cold.//</p> </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F5]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B5]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A5]] </center></u>==> 5% ==> November, 1628. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Below the thunders of the upper deep,</p><p>Far far beneath in the abysmal sea</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F6]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B6]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A6]] </center></u>==> 1% ==> October, 1628. <== <span class="B"> <center> <p>//And what is the ocean doing?//</p> </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F2]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B2]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A2]] </center></u>'Advice to the Reader' 'Mutiny on the Batavia' is a creative historical account of the voyage, and eventual wreck and salvage, of the VOC ship //Batavia// and its crew and passengers from October 1628 to December 1629. What it is at its essense, and why it was sensible to include a kind of manual beforehand, is a kind of novel divided into six strands – that is, six versions of the same events during those 14 months from the points of view of six contemporary sets of eyes. Some of these texts consist of historical accounts from the period, transliterated into English, edited to length and set alongside fictional, imagined voices of real or composite people on that same voyage. There is little indication of these juxtapositions in the text, though each strand has its own distint style, and there are also pictures courtesy of MidJourney's image AI, and preceding historical notes on each of these six characters and their context in the record. The affordances of this idiosyncratic digital format I have adopted enable a kind of ensemble synchronisation throughout this span of time, as it would be experienced by each person. The text is short, therefore, but also broad, as each page bears a 1-to-1-to-1 time relationship to the simultaneous pages of the other voices, and can be moved through sideways ('between minds', as it were) between adjacent character strands, as well as forwards. You may return to the start at the end, since only a portion of the terrible events described can be observed in a single run, and traverse the whole at your own leisure. I may warn you that there are gruesome subjects tackled within that short time and space– including but not limited to murder, torture, animal cruelty, rape, gross sexual assault and capitalism. I really believe that fiction in all forms can re-imagine and recreate history evocatively, rather than containing or decreeing it as so-called fact – but rather portray it as the sum total of all lived experience during a particular duration, a continuous succession of moments of which we normally glimpse only a tiny, biased part. It can also illuminate the inner lives of those lost, silenced or unknowable to us now. Imagination can shine a light even and especially into those things seen to be ugly or repugnant to us, to understand those things and to recognise ourselves in others. I hope it works. You be the judge, I guess. – HPC, 2022. [[Continue->Portrait Page]]<center><big>Mutiny on the Batavia – Contents</big></center> <div style="float: left">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;[[<img src="https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/screen-shot-2022-12-06-at-11.32.00-am.png?resize=219%2C219"/>->A0 – 'The Tale of Jormundgandr']]</div>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;[[<img src="https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_seventeenth_century_old_dutch_merchant_rich_jewelr_aad8eb93-a71b-40d1-8cd3-896c4b3360c0.png?resize=219%2C219"/>->B0 - 'The Journal of Francisco Pelseart']]&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;[[<img src="https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/jeronimus_triptych.png?resize=219%2C219"/>->C0 - 'The Theodicy of Jeronimus Corneliesz']]</div> <span style="font-size: 75%">Part A – The Tale of Jormundgandr &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Part B – The Journal of Francisco Pelseart &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Part C - The Theodicy of Jeronimus Corneliesz</span> <div style="float: left">&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;[[<img src="https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/creesje3.png?resize=219%2C219"/>->D0 - 'The Letters of Lucretia Jansdochter']]</div>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;[[<img src="https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_cabin_boy_seventeenth_century_charcoal_portrait_sa_9957eebb-6b2f-41d7-b5b6-53dd38d3d2b0.png?resize=219%2C219"/>->E0 - 'The Life of Bean']]&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp[[<img src="https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/progress_image_100_0201fb8c-a2e5-4e1b-a588-225f75ed1ed2.webp?resize=219%2C219"/>->F0 - 'The Land of Kalbarri']]</div> <span style="font-size: 75%">Part D – The Letters of Lucretia Jansdochter &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Part E – The Life of Bean &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Part F - The Land of Kalbarri</span><center>The Tale of Jormundgandr <img src="https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/screen-shot-2022-12-06-at-11.32.00-am.png"/> <u>[[About->A0]]</u> <u>[[Begin->A1]]</u> </center><center>The Journal of Francisco Pelseart, 1628-9. <img src="https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_seventeenth_century_old_dutch_merchant_rich_jewelr_aad8eb93-a71b-40d1-8cd3-896c4b3360c0.png"/> <u>[[About->B0]]</u> <u>[[Begin->B1]]</u> </center>==> 1% ==> October, 1628. <== <span class="A"> <p>REMONSTRATIE</p><p>On the present condition of the trade of this country of India,</p><p>as ascertained by me, Francisco Pelsaert, Senior Factor,</p><p>by careful enquiry and close observation in the seven years</p><p>during which I have transacted the business of the</p><p>UNITED EAST INDIA COMPANY at the factory in Agra</p><p>and elsewhere, under the control of Commander</p><p>Pieter van den Broeke, set out briefly as follows: <p>FIRSTLY, of the City of Agra, which is situated in 28° 45' latitude –</p><p>The city is exceedingly large, but decayed, open, and unwalled. The streets and houses are built without any regular plan. There are, indeed, many palaces belonging to great princes and lords, but they are hidden away in alleys and corners. This is due to the sudden growth of the city, which was a mere village, lying in the jurisdiction of Bayana, until King Akbar chose it for his residence in the year 1566, and built the magnificent fort on the Jumna, which flows past the city, and is a musket-shot broad. The luxuriance of the groves all round makes it resemble a royal park rather than city, and everyone acquired and purchased the plot land which suited or pleased him best. Consequently there are remarkable market places or bazaars, as there are in Lahore, Burhanpur, Ahmadabad or other cities, but the whole place is closely built over and inhabited, Hindus mingled with Moslems, the rich with the poor; and if the present King Jahangir had fixed his residence here his father did, the city would have become one of the wonders of the world, for the gates which Akbar built for security (Madari darwaza, Chaharsu darwaz, Nim darwaza, Puttu darwaza, Nuri darwaza), now stand in the middle of the city, and the area of buildings outside them is fully three times greater in extent.</p><p>The breadth of the city is by no means so great as the length, because everyone has tried to be close to the river bank, and consequently the water-front is occupied by the costly palaces of all the famous lords, which make it appear very gay and magnificent, and extend for a distance of 6 kos or 3½ Holland miles.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A2]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz > ->C2]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B2]] </center></u>==> 2% ==> October, 1628. <== <span class="A"> <p>I will record the chief of these palaces in order:</p><p>Beginning from the north, there is the palace of Bahadur Khan, who was formerly king of the fortress of Asir (5 kos from Burhanpur). Next is the palace of Raja Bhoj, father of the present Rai Ratan, Governor of Burhanpur (rank 5000 horse). Then come Ibrahim Khan (3000 horse); Rustam Kandahari (5000 horse); Raja Kishan Das (3000 horse); Itiqad Khan, the youngest brother of Asaf Khan (5000 horse); Shahzada Khanam, sister of the present king, who was married to Muzaffar Khan (formerly King of Gujarat); Goulziaer Begam, this king's mother; Khwaja Muhammad Thakaar (2000 horse); Khwaja Bansi, formerly steward of Sultan Khurram (1000 horse); Wazir Khan (5000 horse); Tzoaeghpoera, a large enclosure, inhabited by the widows of the late King Akbar; the palaces of Ehtibar Khan the eunuch, who was Governor of Agra city at his death; Baqar Khan (3000 horse); Mirza Aboussagiet (1500 horse); the exceedingly handsome and costly palace of Asaf Khan (8000 horse); Itimad-ud Daula (5000 horse); Khwaja Abdul Hasan (5000 horse); Rochia Sultan Begam, the present King’s sister, but unmarried.</p><p>Then begins the Shahburj, or royal bastion, of the Fort, the walls of which are built of red cut stone, 25 ells high, and 2 kos in perimeter; in appearance, as well as in cost, it surpasses many of the most famous structures in the world. It is situated on a moderate elevation with a pleasing prospect on all sides, but especially towards the river, where it is magnificently adorned with stone lattice work and gilded windows, and here the King was accustomed to when he made his elephants fight.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A3]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz > ->C3]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B3]] </center></u>==> 3% ==> November, 1628. <== <span class="A"> <p>A short distance within stands his Ghusalkhana, which very richly decked with alabaster, and has four angles and raised seats the domes over which are plated the outside with gold, so that the look of it is not only royal on a close view, but Imperial from a distance. Beyond this is a palace of Nurjahan Begam, the present Queen. There is little or no room within the Fort, it being occupied by various princely edifices and residences, as well as mahals, or palaces for ladies. Among these is the palace of Maryam Makani, wife of Akbar and mother of Jahangir, as well as three other mahals, named respectively Itwar (Sunday), Mangal (Tuesday) and Sanichar (Saturday), in which the King used to sleep on the day denoted by the name, and a fifth, the Bengali Mahal, occupied by ladies of various nations. Internally then the Fort is built over like a city with streets and shops, and has very little resemblance to a fortress, but from the outside anyone would regard it as impregnable. </p><p>After passing the Fort, there is the Nakhas, a great market, where in the morning horses, camels, oxen, tents, cotton goods, and many other things are sold. On the other side of the river is a city named Sikandra, well-built and populated, but chiefly by banian merchants, for through must pass all the merchandise brought from Porop and Bengalen purop and the Bhutan mountains, namely, cotton goods from Bengal, raw silk from Patna, spikenard, borax, verdigris, ginger, fennel and thousands of sorts of drugs, too numerous to detail in this place. Here the officers of Nur Jahan Begam, who built their sarai there, collect duties on all these goods before they can be shipped across the river; and also on innumerable kinds of grain, butter and other provisions, which are produced in the Eastern provinces, and imported thence. Without these supplies this country could not be provided with food, and would almost die of hunger, so that this is a place of great traffic; it is fully two kos long, but not so broad, and contains many very handsome gardens, with buildings as delightful as the groves, among them those of Sultan Parviz, Nurjahan Begam, and the late Itimad-ud Daula, father of Asaf Khan and of the Queen. He was buried here, and his tomb has already cost fully 350,000 rupees, and will cost 1,000,000 more before it is finished. </p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A4]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C4]]</div> <center> [[Continue->Agra]] </center></u>==> 4% ==> November, 1628. <== <span class="A"> <p>There are also two gardens belonging to the King, one named Charbagh, the other Moti Mahal, and very many more, with handsome walls and great gateways, more like forts than gardens, so that the city is most pleasantly adorned. Here the great lords far surpass ours in magnificence, for their gardens serve for their enjoyment while they are alive, and after death for their tombs, which during their lifetime they build with great magnificence in the middle of the garden. The number of these is consequently so great that I shall abandon the attempt to describe them in detail, and turn to the trade of the country and the city.</p><p>Commerce flourished here in the time of Akbar, and also in the beginning of the present reign, while Jahangir still possessed a vigorous intellect, but since this King devoted his life to enjoyment, violence has taken the place of justice. Whereas each governor ought to protect the people under him, they have in fact by subtle means drained the people dry, because they know very well that poor suppliants cannot get a hearing at the King's Court; and consequently the country is impoverished, and the citizens have lost heart, and the city has now nothing left of the glory, colour and splendour which formerly shone throughout the whole world. The survival of a certain amount of commerce is due to the situation of the city at the junction of all the roads from distant countries. All goods must pass this way from Gujarat, Tatta, or Sind; from Kabul, Kandahar, or Multan, to the Deccan; from the Deccan or Burhanpur to those places, or to Lahore; and from Bengal and the whole East country there are no practicable alternative routes, and the roads carry indescribable quantities of merchandise, especially cotton goods.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A5]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz > ->C5]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B5]] </center></u>==> 5% ==> December, 1628. <== <span class="A"> <p>The year here is divided into three seasons. In April, May and June the heat is intolerable, and men can scarcely breathe. More than that, hot winds blow continuously, as stifling as if they came straight from the furnace of hell. The air is filled with the dust raised by violent whirlwinds from the sandy soil, making day like the darkest night that human eyes have seen or that can be grasped by the imagination. The months of June, July, August, September and October are reckoned as the rainy season, during which it sometimes rains steadily. The days are still very hot, but the rain brings a pleasant and refreshing coolness. In November, December, January, February and March it is tolerably cool, and the climate is pleasant. </p><p>The East country (<i>Pourop</i>) extends to Jagannath, a distance reckoned 600 kos, and contains many large cities, among them the following:</p><p><i>ALLAHABAD</i> (150 kos) produces commodities and has very little trade but is rather a pleasure resort. King Akbar built a very fine fort here, because it is the meeting place of the three famous rivers, the <i>Ganges</i>, the <i>Jumna</i>, and the <i>Sarasvati</i>.</p> <p><i>JAUNPUR</i> (25 kos further), produces and exports large quantities of cotton goods, such as turbans, girdles, white <i>chelas, zelal, t'sey</i>, and coarse carpets.</p> <p><i>BENARES</i> (5 kos further) also produces girdles turbans, clothes for Hindu women, <i>t’soekhamber, gangazil </i>(a white cloth); also copper pots, dishes, basins and other articles for use in Hindu houses.</p> <p><i>CHABASPUR</i> and <i>SONARGAON</i> with the surrounding villages, and indeed as far as <i>Jagannath</i>, live by the weaving industry and the produce has the highest reputation and quality, especially the fine muslin (<i>cassa</i> and <i>malmal</i>) which also much longer and wider than elsewhere.</p><p><i>JAGANNATH</i> (600 kos from here) is where the East country (<i>Pourop</i>) ends and <i>Bengal</i> begins. It produces fine muslin (cassa and malmal), also hamaium and tsehen, a superior wide cloth suitable for bed-sheets, but little of it is brought here owing to the high quality and cost. </p></p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A6]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz > ->C6]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B6]] </center></u>==> 2% ==> October, 1628. <== <span class="C"> My first duties in the service of the great Jan Company were as menial as could be expected. In place of the commandeur and Captain, I was to oversee the last of the loading of such goods as may be trafficked in the East, the hoisting and loading up of so many cooking pots and barrel hoops, psalm books, armaments, hand grenades and shot by the feckless crew. The Orient prizes such paltry things, enough to part with sugar and spices thrice the value of our ship and cargo together. Little good may it do any but those on high. The crew I minded were as sun-swart and oily as Christmas hams with their early work, and as the last cargo, a great stone gateway bound for the Castle of Batavia itself, was hauled aboard and stowed underdecks with many tugs and shouts from all hands, I could at last make for my quarters at the stern, and breathe anew outside of their rank air. It is a beauteous machine at the least, she is beautiful. The finest of man’s creations I have ever seen in motion. The fine joinery of pine and oak, the hull sheathed triple-thick by horse-hair and cattle-hide. The three great masts that quarter these four decks along her one-hundred-and-fifty feet reach up as high again, the whole trimmed in green and gold raiment and set afire by the morning sun. She could be the steed of God. I don’t doubt the heathens of the East will see her so, and be suitably awed. I am a man twice forsworn, I think, as I watch the Perperwerf shipyards and the tall, tallowed houses that line the docks withdraw into bleak silhouettes, followed steadily by the many jachts and yawls that dot the harbour. And yet one cannot have two masters. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B3]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D3]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C3]] </center></u>==> 3% ==> November, 1628. <== <span class="C"> The One takes precedence over and above such mortal ties. By His hand was all else carried through. It was He who untied such knots of flesh that held us to this city, He suffered my poor apothecary shop its hardships and disgraces. He ordained the scorn and indifference that hies me from this fetid place. As I watched them strip my shop on the Grote Houtstraat of its furnishing and furniture for my creditors, my drugs and pewter bowls and balances, from the stuffed crocodile abovemy door that signs the apothecary’s trade to my sheets and blankets and marriage-bed all. So has He ordained that I watch once again as such things are loaded up for trade to line some foreign bordello. It is He who sends me hence amongst such a rabble, He who stole away my worldly goods for others’ spite. A man cannot keep two masters. Though she may be a fine ship, the grauw that man her are a hoary bunch from the orlops to the nest, as is apparent to me. The crew hardly know the proper obsequies as they pass an officer of the VOC, or else they little care. They scurry to and fro amongst coiled ropes and planking in varying states of undress to barked orders I cannot understand. I, for my part, would just as well the ship were crewed by so many barbary apes, much that might they be fit for the task. Even the lowest lice have their purposes, so He sees. I do not exempt the commandeur from their ilk. He is an unpolished man, and I knew his grubbing mind from the first. Before my forays aboard he bid me attend him in the opulence of the stern’s Great Cabin, wherein I found him at the long Captain’s table bestrewn with such convoluted mapping charts to see our safe passage about the Cape and beyond. He was staring down at them as a heathen must peruse the Bible, with such credulous misunderstanding that ekes out reverence for the obscure, as the Captain at his elbow made plain their passage in so many gruff gestures and elaborations upon the stars. Pelseart greeted me and bid me sit, though the Captain scarcely deflected from his indications, raising only a perfunctory eye while he surged on with a task he clearly wished already accomplished. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B4]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D4]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C4]] </center></u>==> 1% ==> October, 1628. <== <span class="C"> We are pushed off, at last. The wharf and its load of hurrying, urgent people recede, so slowly it is almost as if there is no motion at all save for the slap of waves at our wooden hull. The calls of the ship’s mates permeate a thickening mist, and then all at once the ship and all its crew seem suddenly quite alone, suspended on harbour waters that seem glassy-smooth as though stilled with oil. At last I may bid my last adieu at a new beginning. I am free of these United Provinces, this city, the Fatherland itself. It would not do to fray the parting. I have done with Amsterdam, and she with me. There are no more pleasantries to be made. The Batavia is bound for the city of its name, on Java, some ghastly spit of sand on the very brink of God’s love, I imagine, two-thirds of the way across the globe. I for one would just as well we were bound for the crack of doom, for all I care. It only matters that it be away, and that right soon. Hence from this city, this land, all land. That is what I have indentured to. This is what I must endure, at the Company’s bidding, to grate my days away into the chores of an under-merchant. Two long years spent at the whim of the waves and winds, to be blown about the world all to turn a tun of coin for the nobles’ spending. And yet, in this moment – for the moment only, perhaps – I am content. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B2]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D2]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C2]] </center></u>==> 2% ==> October, 1628. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C3]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E3]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D3]] </center></u><center>The Theodicy of Jeronimus Corneliesz. <img src="https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/jeronimus_triptych.png"/> <u>[[About->C0]]</u> <u>[[Begin->C1]]</u> </center><center>The Letters of Lucretia Jansdochter, 1628-9. <img src="https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/creesje3.png"/> <u>[[About->D0]]</u> <u>[[Begin->D1]]</u> </center>==> 1% ==> October, 1628. <== <span class="D"> <p>Worshipful HUSBAND –</p> <p>All awaits departure. I make sail on the retourship Batavia to join you in your post at the East Indies. It is a large, new ship, and I know little of its contents as of yet – yet how fitting it should bear our destination with us, by name and by spirit!– I take with myself but little of our former home and former life – I have done with the city, and its people, as you did yourself before me. I impart this missive to LUCA as the final endeavour to my household to find the neater route – be you in any but the expected berth when I arrive to deliver the fact of my voyage in my own person.</p> GOD speed to his most honest servants, and may GOD bless our voyage! <p>– Your CREESJE. on the Twenty-eighth day of October, y.o. 1628.</p> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C2]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E2]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D2]] </center></u><center>The Life of Bean, 1617-29. <img src="https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_cabin_boy_seventeenth_century_charcoal_portrait_sa_9957eebb-6b2f-41d7-b5b6-53dd38d3d2b0.png"/> <u>[[About->E0]]</u> <u>[[Begin->E1]]</u> </center><center>The Land of Kalbarri. <img src="https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/progress_image_100_0201fb8c-a2e5-4e1b-a588-225f75ed1ed2.webp"/> <u>[[About->F0]]</u> <u>[[Begin->F1]]</u> </center>==> 3% ==> November, 1628. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C4]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E4]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D4]] </center></u>==> 4% ==> November, 1628. <== <span class="C"> Thus were both men presented to me, or I to them, for I received no fairer introduction to their relative competencies. Nor made I any attempt to impose my own understanding on proceedings, as is the under-merchant’s prerogative. On firmer ground and at fairer times might I have outranked both men many times over, yet is deference as a shield that can conceal and exempt one from assertion. Little would it have aided to sully strategy by such hollow boasting. Captain Jacobsz, for his own part, seemed to see little use for such niceties, and clearly would just as well have set sail from the Lowlands without further ado – indeed, would just as well crewed the Batavia to world’s end and back again without such pointless elaboration. Our superior clearly has little mind for the petty things under his command – yet it was Commandeur Pelseart alone who had overseen the loading aboard of so many solid strong-boxes of silver guilders that morning under the watchful eye of one of the Company’s high and mighty Seventeen, and personally escorted the bullion to its locked safe room beneath the Great Cabin. You could still smell the metal on him, gilding the fingers that tapped arbitrary points along our route and making such superior mistakes on meaty breath for the Captain to answer and amend impatiently. We are to keep to the wagenspoor and its predictable winds all the way to the Cape, and to mind close to the fleet, Pelseart pressed, not to lose approximation of his other charges of the Dordrecht and Gravenhage that made far better time from port yesterday, for there remained a risk we might lag behind were we to encounter poorer weather on their tails. This too was answered with such minimal gruff assent. Pelseart had chafed at every moment wasted ashore while the last of the hold was loaded, and had seemed as relieved as any man aboard to be parted from the shore. Yet there was a self-importance to such assertions that suffused the Captain and gave an invisible edge to each of his answers. We were best to wait, he said, for the onset of bad weather may ground his new retourship on the Walteren beyond the harbour wall and end his commission at its very outset. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B5]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D5]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C5]] </center></u>==> 4% ==> November, 1628. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C5]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E5]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D5]] </center></u>==> 5% ==> November, 1628. <== <span class="C"> The commandeur has a mind of tables and balances, and when the Captain speaks of the ship’s draw and list, it arrives in Pelseart’s mind in so many loads and conversions, so many heaps of silver and their match in spice sacks for the return. The Company has its prizes for a swift arrival, and he resents even the need to set in at the Cape for supply, or suffer any delay that might draw out the eight-months’ passage to the Indies. Jacobsz would clearly as soon have the comforts of the Cape ahead as so many guilders in his pockets – but I am content to leave it for the Lord to plot our course, and for his mortal tools to make approximation beforehand. Time seems such little issue, with so much to come and so much to spare. The ship moves forward heavily and without grace beyond the harbour walls, heaving the sea aside. The wake it casts from its prow strikes again along its flanks and begins throwing water busily even up to the high quarterdeck at its rear where Pelseart and I stand by to make our observations of Jacobsz’ readings of the instruments and crew. It is hardly a day before we are hit by terrific winds amidst the Walcheren Banks. The storm the commandeur had feared soon swallows up our world and makes navigation perilous to clear the shore. Now the Captain musters the crew and rages about the deck shouting orders lest we be caught on the shallows and be sunk so soon. For a day and more the wind and rain lash through my cabin porthole like nothing known on land and rock the Batavia like God’s mock, the chortles of thunder rolling through the air, through everything. I retire below decks and do not stir from my bunk at such times, and only listen to its roars, and wait for it all to pass. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B6]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D6]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C6]] </center></u>==> 5% ==> December, 1628. <== <span class="D"> <p>Dearest HUSBAND –</p> I must confess I had heard much talk before setting sail that the employ who are drawn to the VOC and its ships these days to be of the absolute lowest sort; Jan Company long having been notorious as the refuge of the bankrupt; the dissolute; the spoilt brats of the nobility; the cashiers, brokers, tenants and bailiffs, informers and suchlike scoundrels and rakes driven out from the Fatherland; but – happily may I say that since taking my quarters on the Batavia I have received most courteous treatment by such members of its crew as I had need of assistance. Whatever calamities may have beset them on land, her crew seem admirably suited to their tasks for stowing and retrieving all manner of goods from harbour and making her fit enough for sail; and what violent and feckless soldiery we have aboard bound for the garrisons in Java I believe by the word of our commandeur’s Hr. Pelseart to be confined belowdecks for the duration; and what disgraced debtors or feckless students I had taken for the company’s merchant class have yet, at the least, to reveal themselves to me. I may only hope my last missive found you well and thriving in your post in Batavia, and hope for some word from you to greet me when me make port in Africa, and once this letter reaches you in the East this letter I pray may indicate in itself that we aboard are not all drowned quite yet. Now, to further ease your mind, perhaps I may describe some of the events besetting our ship Batavia since setting out from Amsterdam port – </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C6]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E6]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D6]] </center></u>==> 2% ==> October, 1628. <== <span class="E"> so I’s gets a belt an’ a rag an’ first thing bos’n says let me coil ropes an’ that the second thing right ‘nough an’ the third thing an’ I’s to coil ropes all in the sun an’ cold an’ wet an’ wind ‘til I’s got no ropes on the L-E-Y-D-E-N left to make steady an’ then I’s starts again at the first an’ all so I’s learn ‘em nots an’ all what hold the riggin’ fast but last an’ first an’ all not done slipped an’ slipped like I in’t known an’ I does it best I could but ‘til I’s dog-tired an’ fagged an’ fashed an’ all an’ I’s stuck to my sleepin’ mat by the sweat what I’s hear a crash an’ bad noise from the crew an’ all an’ ‘fore I’s able to get away I’s catch a fair one from the bos’n an’ bos’n have him by the scruff an’ tellin’ like he’s teach Bean to be clumsy but in’t I need no teachin’ see ‘cos I knows clumsy through an’ through an’ I told bos’n so an’ he says he teach me a civil tung an’ right ‘nough that an’ Bean fast but bos’n an’ all ‘em ‘sons is catching him an’ cuffs him an’ throws him in hell an’ leave him rot but I’s knows in meself I coulds’ve done made that not if bos’n let me ‘cos I’s learnin’ an’ all but bos’n in’t let him no more ‘cos he says the deck is for mens an’ mens lonesome an’ not whore-son rat boys what’s scurried their way aboard through the gun holes ‘cos L-E-Y-D-E-N a indiaman he says an’ not no yot nor sloop made for crab-tackle an’ herrin’-bone an’ there be plenty rats aboard as it be an’ in’ they need no more work o’ their own squashin’ ‘em an’ ballin’ ‘em an’ droppin’ ‘em rats overboard an’ that you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; so Bean spends the night in hell all packed up tight in the lil’ hole up front the gundeck like to shape to fit the space ‘tween hull an’ hull not one paces by one an’ hearin’ the wind what scream through its slits an’ can’t stretch me achin’ bones nor see for the screamin’ dark nor turn to stifle up my’s face raw red stingin’ from the salt-chill spray with the manacles on’ em nor can’t stand nor lie proper neither an’ only hunch an’ scuttle like I’s made to ‘til they’s sees fit to fetch him an’ send him back scrubbin’ so Bean only thinks his thought in words ‘gainst the madnin’ whistle an’ wash an’ keeps smilin’ for the world endin’ every minite so I’s says an’ those what’s done read books says too right ‘nough an’ the light comes up harsh an’ black to those who don’t see o’ it an’ know the day is comin’ when he stands an’ sees it like new you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D3]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F3]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E3]] </center></u>==> 3% ==> November, 1628. <== <span class="E"> so they lets me out right ‘nough an’ soon ‘cos won’t a turnity in hell be ‘nough to kill ol’ Bean an’ I knows that I’s earned that a turnity right ‘nough when I’s been killed so in’t no lil’ ol’ pain give Bean cause to gripe ‘fore that you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; an’ they gets me back to me duties right ‘nough ‘cos in’t a hour o’ leisure for a cabin-boy not after or before an’ the ol’ rag I’s keeps in my belt bein’ rinsed nicely by our lil’ stay in the bow-hell I’s no need fresh up an’ right ‘nough I’s strait away back to my scrubbin’ an’ fetchin’ an’ all but in ‘em days weren’t Bean so well suited for a ships life an’ the tossin’ an’ pitchin’ an’ that done given me all kinds o’ grief keepin’ the ol’ tack down an’ not goin’ blastin’ strait to the steers-man an’ get a burst ear or to a bunch o’ nettin’ or mast-post or stack o’ crates or what-ever else I don’t know what I in’t see then in the inky thick dark on the cow-deck or the hold ‘cos didn’t Bean have his cabin-eyes then an’ couldn’t Bean cope so well the suffacatin’ thick dark when he’s sent down to fetch this or that nor the damned sick’nin’ smell down there what with the sweat an’ garlick reek what the men gives out an’ the shit-pit stink o’ the bilges an’ the coal an’ vinigar what I’s use to scrub the decks with an’ all it mixed so bad up Bean’s nose what he almost lose his tack twice over an’ all what I’s ‘members well an’ all in those days but don’t Bean suffer so bad from now I’s come to know it an’ abide it ‘cos in’t nothin’ can’t be abidden what a body knows ‘cos in’t nothin’ but the unaccustomary what gives it the colly-wobbles an’that but it gets accustomary right soon you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D4]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F4]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E4]] </center></u>==> 4% ==> November, 1628. <== <span class="E"> and so I’s right ‘nough accustoms meself to what tack there is in the mess ‘cos in’t no whore-son get his rations when he pilchin’ ‘bout the docks so ‘em first nights I’s thinkin’ I’s have the right ticket an’ all what with me groats an’ white-pea an’ prunes an’ a can o’ beer a day with a sleepin’ mat all set next to ‘em men what in’t got no special cause to slit him ear to ear in the night an’ I’s keep thinkin’ that then an’ every day an’ every mornin’ after that even ‘til the indiaman ‘round the horn an’ the water an’ beer what I’s haul up from below get all green after the first months an’ the water pour out hot from the hold like boilin’ an’ all floatin’ full o’ ‘em worms what you got sieve out through the teeth an’ all an’ I’s told ‘em sausage crumbs in the broth in’t sausage an’ I learns the diff’rence ‘tween ‘em crunchy bitter weevils in the tack an’ ‘em cold maggots like sponge an’ ‘em meaty sweet cock-roaches an’ all but in’t I’s mind ‘em an’ all I’s never raise a word nor a eye an’ not for fear o’ the bos’n neither ‘cos I’s knows like I says that in’t no beer nor meat handin’ ‘round free to whore-son rats what don’t have a half a name in this world an’ what in’t work all day an’ all night to keep theys ship an’ keep theys passage-place on it an’ sees a new ol’ world in each mornin’ light so in’t ol’ Bean ever be the first to raise a word nor complain ‘bout nothing you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; but even after all scrubbin’ an’ fetchin’ an’ tyin’ up ‘em loose nots is done in’t there no finer way spendin’ ‘em idle hours but sit an’ watch the sea-waters go an’ think what they bringin’ with ‘em an’ what they puttin’ behind and think on what the surface put ‘tween you cos what is under-foot don’t see what’s over-head but ‘em fishies an’ slip-weeds an’ the cow’s-hide on our belly an’ what Bean recall from when ‘em cabin-boys dip him in’t no noise down there nor colour nor sky nor sun-shine but nothin’ but the likes o’ hell isself an’ in’t nothing make you loyl like floatin’ atop o’ hell isself you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D5]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F5]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E5]] </center></u>==> 5% ==> November, 1628. <== <span class="E"> but in’t Bean get but half a idle hour a day an’ none in the evenin’s neither when bos’n tell Bean on his second jaunt he got serve wine in the great cabin an’ all on top o’ the rest o’ an’ in’t Bean feel none too chuffed on it at first ‘cos in’t any closer ol’ Bean get to bein’ still ‘til he sleep or dead as when he standin’ to in the corner where in’t none can see him ‘til he’s called an’ that for long as pourin’ takes an’ all ‘tween I’s to stand to an’ not mind nothin’ but the waitin’ ‘cos in’t nothin’ in that talk for ol’ Bean but I’s got ears on my head for all the bos’n tries to cuff ‘em off so I’s stands to an’ hears ‘em all in the dark talkin’ ‘bout the ship an’ ‘em lives on shore an’ talkin’ ‘bout theys lives past an’ lives to come an’ talkin’ for the sake o’ talk but in’t Bean miss that neither I s’pose ‘cos as I’s said in’t nothin’ there for Bean but the dark an’ the pourin’ an’ in’t it worth half the wondrin’ to hear what they’s to say at cap’n’s table like I’s to listen or make remarks nor in’t it worth the wondrin’ to see ‘em fancy quarters what they’s go to or try they’s fine wine for bos’n smell on me an’ split me lip an’ another night in his lil’ hell with ‘em waves an’ salt-spit pourin’ ‘pon him but in’t Bean earn it after his second trip ‘round the horn ‘cos I’s a dab hand at the ol’ ‘scuses so I says an’ Bean got a tung in his head too jus’ like the bos’n an’ a God what says use it in his service so I’s use it like ‘nough I’s use me language when I’s in a spot ‘cos in’t no getting out a spot with these here arms an’ legs ‘cos in’t no-where on board to scurry where they in’t fetch him else he squeeze in with ‘em rats to get stuffed in an’ chewed up an’ all an’ in’t no use o’ these arms on ‘em big basterds what let me catch a fair one when I’s swabbin’ where in’t no swabbin’ needed or I’s fetches the wrong buckets up from the hold or they’s jus’ take a bad eye to Bean an’ see he in need o’ beatin’ an’ in’t nothing tell ‘em other-wise but tung it out the ways I sees it in’t no harm made nor wrong done or nothing from me thinkin’ or in’t I to blame so much as what ‘em other rats done an’ in’t told you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D6]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F6]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E6]] </center></u>==> 1% ==> October, 1628. <== <span class="E"> so I’s tells it strait you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; an’ yous all won’t have no reasons for doubtin’ nothin’ ‘bout nothin’ an’ I’s start right from the tippy-top what bos’n says an’ won’t make no mistakes what I’s seen an’ done meself I’s have no reason mistakin’ after an’ in’t no good now mistakin’ on purpose ‘cos then yous all see how they done stitched Bean up good an’ proper ‘cos in’t ol’ Bean ever have no cause to get done the way they done him an’s in’t no half-quarter up to him what was done ‘cos it was all the rest what done it so I says an’ in’t I’s do nothin’ all ‘long but sit an’ listen an’ that the best any o’ ‘em can say an’ in’t nothin’ get purposed to no one the way it got did on that ship you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;so from the tippy-top I’s born an’ all an’ that be the first mistake for me so the bos’n says so I’s best include it an’ all but in’t no one seem too keen on ol’ Bean since the drop ‘cos mam done left him with the dock whores an’ went where in’t no one seen her an’ since in’t Bean seen nothin’ but where he dropped in shitter after shitter ‘til I’s find meself bundled up in a box o’ plums by the rest o’ ‘em whore-sons an’ they done oped ol’ Bean up a week out at sea an’ half-suffocated from all ‘em dock crates what been loaded on the L-E-Y-D-E-N for the cape an’ L-E-Y-D-E-N bos’n done counted six-duz’ plum stones on his planks an’ that make as many years under his mast I’s due an’ Bean for one b’lieve him since he too fashed now say for sure how many it was an’ so he sets ‘bout learnin’ how to make it right you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D2]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F2]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E2]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_west_australian_coastal_landscape_with_wallaby_3d270ae4-7a03-40d7-8d47-181071c94f97.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E2]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A2]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F2]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_west_australian_coastal_landscape_f32693fe-432c-4528-93f1-47497eb406c6.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E3]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A3]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F3]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_west_australian_coastal_landscape_d3433b5d-dc24-4ebc-8445-50795edaf782.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E4]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A4]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F4]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_west_australian_coastal_landscape_0aa3257b-c53a-4fb9-9a11-9be7ca307bc9.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E5]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A5]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F5]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/progress_image_100_19c303fc-9219-490d-8336-05dd77936a1d.webp?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E6]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A6]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F6]] </center></u><center> Mrgnao-! [[Continue->C7]]</center><center> !-Rgnaowwwwwrw-! [[Continue->C7]]</center><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_billabong_with_red_sand_and_dead_grass_2cbdfe26-bb62-42bd-9e37-233074444a54.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E7]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A7]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F7]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_billabong_with_red_sand_and_dead_grass_4a1a4045-e520-4891-80e6-fd490e6b0587.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E8]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A8]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F8]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_red_sand_desert_landscape_3cc266f1-7d56-4efb-a6f7-19a2223f400e.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E9]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A9]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F9]] </center></u>==> 9% ==> December, 1628. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Labyrinth of many a round self-rolled, my head the midst.</p> //</center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F10]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B10]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A10]] </center></u>==> 10% ==> January, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>O foul descent. That I who erst contended </p><p>With gods to sit the highest, am now constrained</p><p>and mixt with bestial slime.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F11]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B11]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A11]] </center></u>==> 8% ==> December, 1628. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Full fathom five thy father lies. Deeper than did ever plummet sound.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F9]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B9]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A9]] </center></u>==> 6% ==> November, 1628. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>A pair of ragged claws</p><p>Scuttling along the floors </p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F7]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B7]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A7]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_red_sand_desert_landscape_eaecaa3a-5493-44b6-b60b-51ffe4b9c946.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E11]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A11]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F11]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/progress_image_100_0201fb8c-a2e5-4e1b-a588-225f75ed1ed2.webp?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E10]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A10]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F10]] </center></u>==> 7% ==> December, 1628. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>No sand nor sea nor cool waves, earth nowhere nor the sky above. Void of yawning chaos.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F8]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B8]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A8]] </center></u>==> 6% ==> December, 1628. <== <span class="A"> <p>Further on, <i>Dacca, Tsettagham, Bipil bander orixa </i>are all under this King’s rule; in these places the Portuguese used to have an extensive trade, for they have here cities inhabited by their own people, but they are now subject to the Moguls, because this King has built forts everywhere to keep them in subjection. Many of their trading vessels used to come annually from Malacca and Macao; they brought spices, cloth, lead, tin, quicksilver and vermillon; and for the return voyage purchased many kinds of white cotton cloth as well as Bengal muslin, or loaded their frigates with butter, rice, gingelly seed, and such goods, making large profits. The local muslins are not woven smoothly, because the yarn is rough and harsh, and consequently the cloth is not soft or pleasant to handle.</p><p>All these countries are very fertile, and yield immense quantities of grain, such as wheat or rice, sugar, and butter, large quantities of which are brought up the river <i>Jumna</i>, or carried by oxen overland, to provision this country and the King's army. In the other direction shallow-draught vessels carry from here much <i>Sambhar</i> salt (as there is little or no local salt), also opium, <i>assafætida</i>, painted cloth called <i>chintz</i>, red salu from Burhanpur, ormesines from Lahore, horses, and large quantities of cotton, which is grown largely between Surat and Burhanpur, and supports an extensive trade to <i>Agra</i>.</p><p>In <i>Agra</i>, and in <i>Fathpur (Sikri)</i>, 12 kos from here, carpets are woven in moderate quantities, and can be obtained to order, fine or coarse as required, but the quality usually made sells at the rate of 2¼ to 3 rupees the square <i>gaz</i>. There is no other noteworthy local produce, since everything is brought from a distance; but the city contains all sorts of artisans in great numbers, who can imitate neatly whatever they see, but design nothing by themselves. We will therefore describe at some length the cultivation, manufacture and sale of the indigo of <i>Koil, Mewat</i> and the most distant villages of <i>Agra</i> and <i>Bayana</i>, which is an important article of commerce throughout the world.</p> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A7]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C7]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B7]] </center></u>==> 6% ==> November, 1628. <== <span class="C"> Then comes this terrific grinding in the depths of one night, and upon arising with difficulty to the deck I find it canted up at a steep angle, all a flurry with seamen and the Captain roaring orders at the helm and steersmen. We are struck upon a sand bank as he predicted, battered by waves that threaten to whelm us and crash in the ship’s sides while our passengers cower helpless in their cabins below in the rush and roar of it all. Pelseart can do nothing but wait atop with us and wring his bejewelled hands until the tide rises and we are floated free. He makes little of this at dinner that evening, heeding his Captain’s estimations as little as before and bluffly proclaiming that the Batavia should hereon be free of incident for a fine smooth sail to the Cape. We but lag now far behind the rest of his precious fleet, who had long cleared the stormfront and will surely ride their fortune further and further from us each day. Little is the under-merchant’s world in the confines of his cabin. Short on space, but long on time. Nothing in all that empty space but this little light, the little air trapped between these walls, the rock and yaw of the hull that punctuates this endless infinity and the candle on my desk and the little calico mouser that has taken to coiling atop my bunk at night. My familiar eyes me even now, slits agape, rasping her nose-breaths over the howl of wind at the porthole. Rapturous and transfixed, the face of a saint at acclamation. Beasts. They stargaze at people. So little shell from the depths. Lost, but for the hand’s span of board and hide that bounds and binds up this vessel. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->T8]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D7]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C7]] </center></u>==> 6% ==> December, 1628. <== <span class="D"> I had hardly become accustomed to my own close quarters in the ship’s rear; hardly, may I say, enough room to get dressed in the morning; when I was bid confine to these narrow confines for a great while, for there was at the very outset of our voyage a terrific storm that assailed us almost at the moment our boat had cleared port; and what a terror of a full day and night the ship had while it was stranded on the rocks being lashed at by wind and rain I can hardly relate, except to say I am as relieved now that we have cleared the worst of the harbour weather that I feel almost as if I should never fear again on such a voyage, or perhaps never voyage again from fear; and being now likewise relieved of the terrible nausea that had kept me confined to my bed by the rocking of the ship and the uproar it caused within my person, I am now sufficiently prepared to make some account of our long voyage without the tedium that such brief agonies well up in the retelling. Nevertheless, I have had yet another certain and lasting shock in acclimatising to the desultory conditions here aboard our Batavia, so far removed it seems from the lodgings we kept in the city where there was no such rationing of washing-water and such an abundance of amenable latrines; yet I am of a mind to confine such complaints as I have to my own person, and not to hearken too much for the style we have left behind, in such company and luxury as did make me miserable, more stuffy and confined than the smallest cabin aboard this ship; for here at least is the promise of voyage, the promise of worlds and fresh changes, whose sufferance is paltry when bourne aloft and along by such new, fresh hopes. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C7]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E7]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D7]] </center></u>==> 6% ==> November, 1628. <== <span class="E"> then more’n not they gives ol’ Bean a beatin’ harder an’ all ‘cos theys thinks I’s tellin’ fibs an’ all when it in’t nothin’ but what I’s seen but in’t makin’ no one understand what they in’t seen nor heard ‘emselfs or in’t willin’ to b’lieve from the likes o’ Bean but I’s keeps me truth all the same ‘cos in’t the rod hurt so much when I’s know for a fact I in’t earnt it you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; so get a way with words get away with murder so the bos’n say an’ from what I sees in’t no cause not to b’lieve him ‘cos the way I sees things an’ the way what it is I’s found meself in the way o’ bein’ a cabin-boy an’ if in’t no-one nor god neither says it be so then it be ‘cos I’s done brung upon meself from getting’ up with ‘em whore-sons in the docks to begin with an’ sending me mam from me for shame at me bein’ born an’ that an’ so I’s the one what got meself trapped up in ‘em plums an’ brung aboard an’ that so I’s the one what brung me be what I is so I’s the one what’s got make it out best as what I do an’ all ‘cos in’t Bean s’posed to ‘scape what’s comin’ to him ‘cos in’t nothin’ comin’ to him he in’t earnt you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D7]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F7]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E7]] </center></u>==> 7% ==> December, 1628. <== <span class="A"> <p>Indigo is sown in June, when the first rain has fallen, at the rate of 14 or 15 lb of seed to the <i>bigha</i>, or square of 60 Holland ells. If the rains are moderate, the crop grows an ell high in the course of four months, and usually cut at the end September or early October, when it is fully ripe. The leaves of indigo are round, not unlike the rue our country. The cold weather sometimes sets in so suddenly that, if the cutting is postponed too long, the indigo loses its colour in the course of manufacture, and comes out brown without gloss, for it cannot stand cold. It is a good sign of a heavy yield if the <i>nauti</i> (first) grass comes up plentifully, though expensive weeding is then required to prevent injury to the indigo roots, or delay in growth. At harvest, the plants are cut one handbreadth from the ground, and next year the <i>ziarie</i> (second) crop grows from the stumps. The yield of one bigha is usually put into each put and allowed steep for 16 or 17 hours, the put being about perimeter, and its depth the height ordinary man; the water is then run off into a round <i>put</i>, constructed somewhat lower level, 32 ft in circumference and 6 ft deep. Two or three men standing the put work the indigo back and forward with their arms and owing to the continuous motion the water absorbs the dark blue colour. It is then allowed stand again for 16 hours during which the matter, or substance, settles in a bowl-shaped receptacle at the bottom of the round <i>put</i>. The water is then run off through an outlet at the level of the bottom; the indigo which has sunk down is taken out, and laid on cotton cloths until it becomes as firm as soap, when it is made into balls. The bottom the put (on the ground under it) is spread with ashes, so that a crust may be formed. The contents of each <i>put</i> is then placed in an earthen vessel, which is closed tightly to exclude light and wind, so that it may not become too dry, for the indigo exposed wind even for en hour, it will become drier than were left exposed the sun for the same time. The contents each <i>put</i> (known as <i>dadera</i>) is usually from 12 to 20 ser according to the yield of the plant, that is to say, when the peasants or other dealers sell to us; it dries further by quite 5 ser in maund in the course of handling, and in the bales. This <i>nauti</i> indigo is brown in colour and coarse in quality, and can easily be recognised by the eye or by touch. It is more useful for dyeing woollens and other heavy goods, because goes further than the <i>ziarie</i>.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A7]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C7]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B8]] </center></u>==> 7% ==> December, 1628. <== <span class="C"> Lost, but for the hand that guides it through the void and flux, that moves on the surface of the deep and leaves its print through wind and water. The current and storm. The turn of the stars and the blackness of night between the guiding sparks. With us, always. There are generally fifteen or twenty of us come for the heaped meals the commandeur keeps morning noon and night in full state in the Great Cabin. On either side he keeps the Captain – who would clearly rather eat broken glass in solitude than spiced meat by his master’s side – and our most honoured passenger, a lady of considerable state and grace named Lucretia Jansdochter. This Ms. Creesje Jans is the wife of a wealthy diamond-polisher from Woerden, whom she travels now to join. I should hardly think he keeps his practise when so driven to those stinking Eastern ports, for what use have those heathens for such treasures? He will be a slaver now at best, little though she may admit it. Little though she may know. She travels not with children, but only a single maidservant, and as often as I glace down the table to her I see Jacobsz’ gaze locked on hers, or just below, whoever might be presently speaking. Keep I what company I can amongst the other lesser merchants downtable far from Pelseart’s place, where we are sometimes joined by the steersman and their deputies, and which idlers and tradesmen distinguished enough to win a place above the lesser messes. The ship’s surgeon, Herr Jansz, who keeps a frequent place at table across from mine, is a wiry and capable man, and he engages me on my former apothecary trade at the Great Table. The sawbones denounces mandragora and proclaims his St. John’s Wart for the seasickness, and would gladly bleed dry whatever women and children will lend him their veins. It was the way to heal their tempers when at sea, so he says. We differ only in practise, I suppose, and degree. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B8]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D8]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C8]] </center></u>==> 7% ==> December, 1628. <== <span class="D"> At our departure, I had bid a hasty farewell to those acquaintances with whom I had little choice but to dine in your absence; hasty by design, I need hardly add, for having never had much family or familiars to speak of, I found now I had few to speak to, nor any to make discussion or farewell when it came upon me to relinquish what little stakes I had left in the city and to set sail; for in my haste in making arrangements I made but little study of the ship, and even less of myself in anticipating such needs as may befall me on our voyage, to the extent that upon opening my small luggage I found I had retained only those items of which I had either no further need or no conceivable use in the months to come at sea, and chided myself most severely at foolishness at uncovering a silver mirror and decanter, for whose purposes of entertaining are sure to be quite lost in the cabin quarters with which I have acquainted myself since the launch. Ah, besides which, I might add, I seem already to have made a supreme misconception in my hiring of paid company, for which role of maid I had left quite unminded until almost the day of departure, whereupon I was behoved to send a search amongst the alleys of ST. JANSTRAAT for a woman as desperate for employment as I to employ; and selected on scant recommendation a wench of the Cornelissteeg by the name ZWAANTIE HENDRICX, a coarse lass and one I suspect of earthy virtues; and it is her signal unsuitability for the role which I have already come to rail against already and ascribe the blame of so many oversights in the packing and storage of my wardrobe particularly – for to what use could I put my patterned nightgown in this dank, dirty ship after all? or even alongside yourself in the damp society of Javanese natives and spice-traders! </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C8]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E8]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D8]] </center></u>==> 7% ==> December, 1628. <== <span class="E"> so I’s knows what a cabin-boy be by what a cabin-boy do an’ what a cabin-boy done so I sees I’s a cabin-boy right ‘nough an’ not no under-steersman or over-steerman nor china-man nor gentle-man nor admiral o’ the fleet right ‘nough so I’s best know my ways an’ keep my ways strait an’ all an’ in’t no point makin’ my bisness what in’t my bisness or getting’ ‘em orlop duties mixed up with what goin’ on up-stairs whiles I’s scrubbin’ an’ all so I knows right ‘nough what done cause my woes an’ what cause ‘em to stop so in’t Bean never do nothin’ he in’t had cause for an’ weren’t nothin’ but his own cause for stickin’ to his duty you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; but I’s thinks it over right ‘nough ‘cos in’t no sin in thinkin’ so I’s thinks right ‘nough o’ me own an’ in’t no sin in thinkin’ there in’t no sin in thinkin’ you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D8]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F8]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E8]] </center></u>==> 8% ==> December, 1628. <== <span class="A"> <p>The stalks which are left a handbreadth high in October grow again, and in the beginning of the following August when the crop fully an ell high, it is cut in the manner already described for the <i>nauti</i>. Sometimes when the rains have been favourable the <i>ziarie</i> plants are so luxuriant that three cuttings are made – once the beginning of August, once the beginning September and again when the <i>nauti</i> is cut, this last crop being called <i>katel</i>. When this happens, it is a sure sign that indigo will be cheap.</p> <p></p> <p></p> <p>The <i>ziarie</i> indigo is superior in quality to the <i>nauti</i>, giving a violet infusion. Its quality can be easily judged, even without examining the inside of it, for it is much lighter in the hand than the <i>nauti</i>. In order to judge indigo with certainty, it should be looked at before midday in the sunshine; if it is pure, it will glisten and show various colours, like a rainbow, so that owing to the variations no opinion of the colour can be formed. If it contains sand or dirt, the adulterations cannot be overlooked in sunlight. Such impurities are common; sometimes they are added intentionally to increase the weight, or they may be caused by the wind, if the balls, while still fresh and not hardened, are left to dry on sandy soil.</p> <p><i>Katel</i> is of extremely bad quality, hard, dull, without gloss or colour, almost like charcoal. It is bought from the sellers at half price, and beaten into powder with sticks. In order to prevent its detection, it is mixed with <i>ziarie</i> and <i>nauti</i> and made into bales, which must be carefully watched for, both in opening the sacks and in the pots. The man who buys in sacks or made-up bales must be on the look out for //katel// or inferior //nauti//, which, as I have said, is powdered and added. </p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A9]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C9]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B9]] </center></u>==> 8% ==> December, 1628. <== <span class="C"> The VOC clerks at table made much confusion in those early meals clarifying whether in their posts they were to obey Captain Jacobsz’ orders foremost, as head of the Batavia, or his boatswain Evertsz as disciplinarian of the men, or to obey Pelseart’s word in all things as overall Commander of the fleet and Company representative while at sea. Remarks Pelseart, with a magnanimous gesture to the predikant opposite me, that we might think of the ship’s command as one would of the Holiest Three-of-One – himself as the Father and orchestrator of all worldly things, his Son Captain Jacobsz as his chosen representative, and ‘Hr. Corneliesz’ – and here he gestures to me – as his Holy Spirit and proof of his immanence and eminence within a world of sinners. I can hardly help but scoff at this, though this reaction I hope was taken more at the analogy itself, and not the supercilious understandings it imposed. The predikant, the honourable Herr Bastiaensz, comes every meal with his wife, though his brood take their food below decks. At his first sup, I he asks me directly what sect I kept, and whether I was not a trueborn Calvinist. I replied I was not, being originally of Friesland and the black-cloaks, and begged pardon my denomination. He asks whether or not I trusted in Divine will and ordination, and I reply that I trust too in the will of men. It was not, I explain on his insistence, that I believed in one over another, but rather both at once. I make many pretty replies as he lashes on with his polemic – he asks whether I did not believe in the baptism of infants at birth, and I retort whether he did not believe in the baptism of heathens of the East – and, if not, for why was he bourne to such a place as Java to preach the Lord’s scripture? </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B9]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D9]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C9]] </center></u>==> 8% ==> December, 1628. <== <span class="D"> My dear BOUDEWIJN, I despair that the woman has not an ounce of sense to her, and a dozen times in as many days accompanying me in my turns about the ship have I found her lacking in wit and attentiveness, if not the attentions drawn by the rest of the crew; and she is so equally lacking in dressing and readying my toilet before the commandeur’s dinner that I have chided her many a time, and always by way of apology makes she the same curt and disenchanted reply in sullen tongue and low eye. Indeed, I have found the provisions made in such haste for the voyage so lax and inadequate that I would despair, were it not for the reams of parchment paper with which I had so cunningly lined my luggage, and which I put to use now unpicking the tight-knit hours aboard my cabin in ZWAANTIE’s idle and ridiculous company, for want of anything to which to put my hands and bow my head besides the sewing needle with which I needs must stitch my maid’s face in silly relief to pick apart again, and again, oh, she vexes me so!– She watches me even now, sitting at her corner stool – and little I think she might comprehend my letters even were I to show it to her quite openly – she treats such things with the contempt of ignorance, while I find little else that will compel my attention beyond the swaying scape of the ocean beyond my porthole – my husband, you must not think me foolish if ever you receive these protracted and self-involved complaints, for I have no young ones here to knit for nor art nor persons with which to concern myself but you and I and these words between. Alas, having written the above, and read it through again the better to curtail these gripes, I do not believe I should be so hard on the poor girl; it is only my impatience that, once one’s best companions are their only companions, the idleness tugs and picks at their over-familiar faults as the imperfect strands upon just such a tapestry; and doubtless I am only so hard upon her rougher qualities for want and irritation at any newer or substantial diversion. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C9]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E9]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D9]] </center></u>==> 8% ==> December, 1628. <== <span class="E"> ‘cos in’t no sin at all other-wise ‘cept what a man makes choice by thinkin’ what’s a sin an’ what in’t an’ Bean knows that right ‘nough an’ already know where he bound since Bean done hit the ware-house floor in’t no good one way or another wantin’ the Lord to save poor Bean soul so I’s thinks an’ damned with all the rest o’ it you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; so I’s comes to the long an’ the short o’ it ‘cos in’t what Bean done aboard the L-E-Y-D-E-N what got in him the soup so to speak but in’t Bean look for no troubles in his life ‘cos Bean jus’ want a life o’ peace an’ mercy like ‘em got on high an’ failin’ that he take a onist life o’ work an’ deservin’ an’ don’t never ask for what weren’t his you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; but to come to the long an’ the short o’ his stay on L-E-Y-D-E-N weren’t it long nor short but we’s mid-ways-‘bouts on L-E-Y-D-E-N third jaunt what I’s been ‘bout an’ ‘til this point in’t Bean drop a pot in a six-month as I know an’ Bean done learned all ‘em trades right ‘nough so in’t bos’n got tell him fetch this nor fetch that ‘cos I does it quick ‘nough ‘fore he even knows what he needs an’ that be the best way o’ cabin-boys so theys says so they in’t even got be told nor seen nor spoken to but does theys work like a good dog an’ all you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D9]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F9]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E9]] </center></u>==> 9% ==> December, 1628. <== <span class="A"> <p>The man who buys or receives indigo still in pots must personally see that the top and the bottom are uniform, for sometimes //ziarie// is put on top and //nauti// under, and sometimes the top is fully dry and light, while the bottom is wet and heavy stuff like earth. This may serve as an earnest warning to anyone who has to receive indigo. Also, if circumstances permit, one should always open indigo in the sun in order to weigh it for then the good or bad quality will become obvious as the balls are broken, but this operation must be carried on steadily. It is also advantageous, because the indigo dries very greatly while being handled and weighed in the sun. At the present time, however, many makers do not cut the //katel//, because, while the cost of manufacture is equal for all qualities, the yield of //katel// is barely half that of //ziarie//, the leaves containing little substance; the //katel// crop is therefore left on the ground to yield seed for the //nauti// of the following year.</p> <p>The best comparison can give illustrate these three kinds of indigo is that the nauti is like growing lad who has still come his prime and vigour; the ziarie like a man in his vigorous prime; the katel like an old, decrepit man, who the course of his journey has had to cross many valleys of sadness and many mountains of misery, not only changed and wrinkled in the face, but falling gradually into helpless senility. I will add that the //nauti// far surpasses the //katel// in substance and quality, for while only a rupee a maund separates the //ziarie// from the //nauti//, they are worth fully double the //katel//.</p> <p>//MEWAT// is a tract 30 kos from Agra, but, owing to the hills and forests, it is mostly in rebellion against the King. Indigo is made in many of the villages of this tract, and the annual yield is 1000 bales or more, but it is inferior and of low quality, and usually sandy. The method of manufacture is that of //Sarkhej// rather than //Bayana//; the steeping of the plant, and the working back and forward to extract the dye from the leaves, and done in a single put, whereas in //Bayan// or //Gorsa// two are used as already explained. The price is consequently much lower, 20 rupees for a maund in //Mewat// when //Bayana// is selling for 30 rupees, very little is exported, but it is distributed all over Hindustan to places where indigo is not produced. This year, however, we have bought some bales for a trial.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A10]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C10]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B10]] </center></u>==> 9% ==> December, 1628. <== <span class="C"> At this, I am pleased to hear Herr Gerritsz, the upper-steersman, and one of his deputies nod and murmur disdain at such mundivagant ‘hedge-preachers’ whose naivety of predestination brought them to such Southern wastes where God would never tread. The predikant pales at this, and I see fit then to digress into my own past. Thought I that a man in his difficult position might prefer to hear similar ills brought on by unforgiving creditors and a business ruined by fickle clientele, and am gratified by Herr Bastiaensz’ returning colour at hearing my own plight. When I am finished explaining how the ruin of my apothecary practise had driven the surrender of my own will to the Lord’s by this passage to Java, he smiles and nods and, while his wife frowns on, does on to describe how his horse-mill in Dordrecht had been driven into such craven hands by the crowding in of new, wind-powered mills and tulip farms in the region, and how its ruination had been such a sign from the Protector to show him plainly that those most in need of nourishment were those faithless main employed under Jan Company. The loss of his mill and family home but a month before had driven him and his kin alike to the Batavia, if not its destination. As he draws his own commiseration to a close, the predikant states emphatically that, while he followed the Lord’s will in all things and trusted to the pity of diligent Christian souls, there was simply no question of receiving blackened souls into His grace. There would be, he concludes with some satisfaction, no niggers in heaven. This, at least, rouses an approving chorus from the steersman and his seconds. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B10]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D10]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C10]] </center></u>==> 9% ==> December, 1628. <== <span class="D"> Commandeur PELSEART takes three meals at morning, noon and night in the Great Cabin, the only part of the ship where any comfort might be afforded in company, and Hr. PELSEART was gentleman enough to extend me an invitation on our very first night at sea, and I was inclined to accept, being already quite beggared for company and feeling alone and in my cabin with ZWAANTIE an instant and solemn dejection at the great expanses that yet lay ahead of us and the broadening sea stretching already behind and parting me from all I had known before. Took I then to the High Table of the evening to be quite apart from ZWAANTIE more than anything else, and was quite delighted at the great array of officers and folks of the cities like to myself who were there at table; and Hr. PELSAERT’s food being well worth the eating and by his own word the most nourishing and delicious to be had now at sea until we set in at the Cape in the following months. The commandeur was kind enough to seat me on his left; the Captain being on his right, and thus was I handily positioned to overhear what merry exchanges must be made between master and commander of a new-launched vessel with such an intrepid voyage before her; that were to be the case, had I not discovered upon that first night the Captain to be the surliest and most inarticulate of company, the broad load of the discourse being handled by the commandeur through many a cask of the fine wine that had been breached to mark the occasion. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C10]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E10]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D10]] </center></u>==> 9% ==> December, 1628. <== <span class="E"> so we’s in ‘em horse-lattertudes in when Bean feel the sun every minite he up on deck an’ the hold getting’ hot like a furnus an’ Bean an’ ‘em other boys spend half theys hours scoopin’ up what barrels done burst from the heat an’ pickin’ up the slack o’ ‘em sea-men what gone half doo-lally what with the heat an’ the flies an’ rats an’ don’t get half theys water what been due ‘em in better climes an’ all an’ in’t we even got near the ‘quator yet when the right noble skip says us we gotta put in along ‘em slaver’s coasts what in’t Bean never seen nor wanted to see ‘em ‘cos he hears ‘em sea-men call ‘em lands by the white man’s grave an’ all an’ grumble we’s best keep with the winds ‘long ‘em wagon-tracks what carry ships out ‘em horse-lattertudes but in’t Bean got no say-so nor the sailers neither an’ in’t no better way runnin’ a ship so I says ‘cos in’t Bean know what’s-what half the while ‘cos he jus’ know what he ‘bout an’ in’t no bloke else know any-thing else ‘cept what he ‘bout an’ it be the cap’n to know what we all be ‘bout an’ what on high put ‘bove him to know what he ‘bout an’ in’t no sense in us lowers in the chain knowin’ more’n they nor sayin’ so ‘cos in’t we know nothin’ but the stink an’ heat an’ thirst an’ nevers the why or the whys-not you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D10]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F10]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E10]] </center></u>==> 10% ==> January, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>Opinions may differ as to the course to be followed in buying indigo, but my own view, based on several years’ experience, is this. When the yield is plentiful, that is to say, when the //ziarie// has suffered no injury, and the rains have been timely for the //nauti//, one or two experienced men should be sent in the end of August or the beginning of September to //Chanowal// or the adjoining villages, and should buy whatever is really good; but if the crop promises to be short, it is better to remain quietly in //Ghanowa//, and buy only from the substantial Hindu or Moslem merchants, who live there and have been many years in the trade , and who have made advances against indigo some months beforehand, binding the debtors to sell to no one else.</p> <p>The question may be asked whether, if they get the indigo, we could not obtain it there, and at the same price. We might do so, on a single occasion, or in a single village, but the very next day the price will have risen at least a rupee per maund, and we shall be told by the merchants that their stock is not for sale. From repeated personal experience then, my opinion is that at such times it is more profitable for the Honourable Company that buyers should keep quiet, than that they should run about the country from one village to another. Goodness knows, the Armenians do quite enough of that, running and racing about like hungry folk, whose greedy eyes show that they are dissatisfied with the meal provided, who take a taste of every dish, and make the other guests hurry to secure their own portions, but directly they have tasted each course, they are satisfied, and can hold no more. In the indigo market they behave just like that, making as if they would buy up the whole stock, raising prices, losing a little themselves, and causing great injury to us and to other buyers who have to purchase large quantities.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A11]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C11]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B11]] </center></u>==> 10% ==> January, 1629. <== <span class="C"> Of a night, I decide to make a test of the mouser that comes to bleat at my cabin door for dinner scraps I secret away from the Captain’s table in my kerchief. Her sharp little tongue and pitiful mewling and begging for scraps have been driving me to distraction, so tonight take I also a nail and stout hammer of the boatswain’s lending, and as she noses at a bit of salted fish I lay atop my desk I shut the cabin door, and positioning the nail just above her paw I drove it to as swiftly with the hammer before she can draw back. There is a good deal of bleating and agonised snapping at the wound, screeching and tugging at it until the paw pulls clear of the pulpy bones and the beast is freed in a yip and a blur. She stagger-limps her way clear and sits afar of my desk, shaking, gnawing at her bloodied and mutilated paw and cowering from me even in that close space. Chided, penitent. I watch her with interest all the while, my eyes never from hers, and when I prise the door, she bolts for it at once and, with only a sly backwards glance, disappears with a flash of the tail out into the darkened passage beyond. I wipe off the nail and return the hammer to the boatswain, thanking him kindly. The calico does not come after breakfast the next morning, nor after dinner the next day. But I hear her bleats and screeches sometimes late at nights, scurrying lamely between the decks. After dinner the following Sunday, the filthy thing is at my door again, mewing plaintively with eyes like saucers. Wet and thin, the wound making her awkward when I held the nestled cud of meal down to her in cupped handkerchief. She sets to greedily nonetheless, thoughtlessly, chopping and licking at my palm. Such passes so much time, in so very little space. The hurl from side to side, the flat slapping of water on the sides. Hardly fit tinder for any mind. This slimmest wick. Yet time for miles, to stoke and kindle in the narrow confines of this cell. Thus may the monk pass a penitent life. One of privation. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->T9]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D11]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C11]] </center></u>==> 10% ==> January, 1629. <== <span class="D"> The commandeur made much talk of rank without prompt, and I attended his description of the ship’s order of command – himself at the head of the Batavia and their other ships of the merchant fleet who had made sail the day before – the Dordrecht, Gravenhage, Assendelft and Sardam and as many more smaller accompanying jachts suchlike as the Buren – from whom we were unlikely to see nor hear until we were to rendezvous together at the Cape – having been thus appointed to oversee the mission to the Indies by the VOC, below him in immediate seniority in this aspect being the under-merchant Hr. CORNELIESZ whose animated face he indicated some distance down the table – with Captain Jacobsz having authority for the running of the ship and whose duties out of port were innumerable. I asked the commandeur in the Hr. JACOBSZ’ hearing whether such a system was not much cause of duplication and conflict of orders, and the commandeur sipped from his cup and replied that no, for his command was complete in all matters and his word final, though he much relied on the Captain’s able seamanship to guide and manage his ships when away from port. Next, he regaled us with fanciful tales of his previous postings in the East, in Surat and Agra, and the travails of his voyages between them and the Fatherland, his fascination with the lives and languages of the natives and dealings with the pagan Mogul lords, his entreaties to the VOC to see the country as the limitless realm of riches he was prime to discover; he is writing his life’s work at the moment, a report to Jan Company of his adventures and the extravagant cities and peoples of his travels that he hopes some day to publish in discrete circles. In the course of his descriptions, methought he became most familiar with me indeed; and while I did so appreciate the attentions of the upper-merchant, I found little cause to make reply as he tired the tablehead into the night with much self-interested talk. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C11]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E11]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D11]] </center></u>==> 10% ==> January, 1629. <== <span class="E"> but right ‘nough soon as we’s made for port in a day or so all ‘em winds done dropped right off an’ in’t a lick hit ‘em sails in a fort-night an’ the sun keep on beatin’ down a week then a week again an’ in’t there hardly a drop o’ water left in ‘em barrels what’s remains an’ that all hot an’ green an’ wormy like I in’t never seen an’ the worst bein’ we’s knowin’ land in’t two days good sail over east ‘cos we sees ‘em gull-birds lookin’ down on us from ‘bove a three-day an’ we’s seein’ ‘em cuttle-bones off the spit an’ all an’ what men in’t half mad now is whole mad an’ what men is half mad the other half be lookin’ for rats to kill an’ all an’ in’t a crew got nothin’ in such straits but the rage an’ heat an’ the wondrin’ why an’ in’t they got a whys as to God’s say-so theys find a man’s say so what they can say why you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; so the skipper what got the say-so an’ the know-how to boot he come out his fine cool cabin after ‘em two weeks floatin’ in the calm an’ he talk to ‘em men what’s sick o’ the priest’s prayin’ an’ bowin’ an’ that an’ tell ‘em men’s we best get busy ‘bout us ‘cos in’t ‘em idles doin’ nothin’ but in’t nothin’ for half the men to make fast nor make slow nor fetch nor carry nor do nothin’ but play with ‘em knives you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D11]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F11]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E11]] </center></u>==> 14% ==> March, 1629. <== <span class="C"> Some time in the fifth week, a shrill and horrid shrieking brings me up on deck from the boredom of my cabin. The men have opened one of the livestock cages that line the length of the deck, and are beginning the slaughter of the first of the pigs. As they open each throat with the long knives the surgeon keeps for amputations each pig lets out a piercing shriek, the piteousness of which sets my teeth on edge and makes me want to wretch. Each swine, hearing such shrieks, the sound of knees hitting the boards and smelling the gush of its fellows’ blood, begins to squeal even before the knife comes, red eyes rolling and pacing their cramped cages frantically, and soon they are all up in cacophony for the blood-smell and knifework and utter rigid fear of it all. I think I hardly could have stood and stayed had I not caught the Captain’s eye by the mizzen mast, and had to return his grin and laugh that he had bourne their oinking and shit-stink long enough, and that he had on him a hankering for pork after so long from the Janstraat’s taverns. When as many are dead and dying as could fill the hold, the rest crowded back into their pens, and the great cauldrons of seawater which he had prepared brought to boil. Each sow is butchered side from side and dunked whole and dripping into the brine until the broth is thick and red and stinking. Then the butcher with Jacobsz’ aid hauls out each side with the hook pale and snow-crusted and dry enough to chap your lips up to the corners just by looking at it. Then are the scraps passed about, hot to the touch, the men laughing and tossing spare eyeballs and genital flaps to one another before the Captain calls a halt to the merriment. On descending belowdecks at last, my boot skids through some unseen puddle of drippings from the slaughter-boards overhead and I land on my hands, panting. I spend awhile retching in the dark, quite alone, unheard. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B15]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D15]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C15]] </center></u>==> 12% ==> February, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Time in the sea eats its tail, thrives, casts these </p><p>Indigestibles, the spars of purposes</p><p>That failed far from the surface. </p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F13]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B13]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A13]] </center></u>==> 12% ==> February, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>Now the trade is so much decayed that this year, 1628, only 40 merchants’ //fustas// arrived, carrying goods of small value; and this us the cause of the decline of //Cambay//, and indeed all of //Gujarat//, for the Portuguese brought all their goods, both the spices and Chinese silk carried in frigates from the South, and the European merchandise distributed in all directions from the carracks at //Goa//, and sold them for a small profit, so that the merchants gained largely on their purchases, as well as on sales of cotton goods. Because of this decay, we are cursed not only by the Portuguese, but by the Hindus and Moslems, who put the worst blame on us, saying that we are the scourge of their prosperity; for, even though the Dutch and English business were worth a million rupees annually, it could not be compared to the former trade which was many times greater, not merely in India, but with Arabia and Persia also.</p> <p>Our trade in this country can be conducted with great profit, honour, and reputation to the Honourable Company, if our employers will place reliance on the proposals put forward as a matter of duty by their servants, whether based on credible testimony, intrinsically sound arguments, or personal experience. The spice trade in particular can be adequately maintained if our employers will believe us, because they control the whole produce of the trees, produce which is yielded in sufficient quantities nowhere in the world except in the //Moluccas// and //Banda//. What I want to urge is that our employers should send to the Coromandel Coast only so much spice as is consumed locally in the Carnatic, Golconda, and the vicinity, an amount which I conjecture to be less than 200 maunds, or 10 ,000 lb of cloves, and as much nutmeg, with six sockels of mace. This is probably an over -estimate rather than too little, for the whole of the Carnatic consists of //Klings//, or Hindus, who use little or no spice, while in //Golconda//, and also in //Malik Ambar//'s camp, the people are as poor as they are haughty – almost like Spaniards in the street, but thrifty and mean in their kitchens. The Mogul soldiers on the other hand differ little from Europeans, who eat spiced food very readily, and consequently their consumption is proportionately greater.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A13]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C13]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B13]] </center></u>==> 12% ==> February, 1629. <== <span class="C"> On his perch, the boatswain makes a smart remark towards the virtue of the officers’ sluts. The Captain makes one of similar bent about their relative merits and proportions, and the boatswain gives a witty rejoinder. Such rough banter is both test and invitation, and the Captain lunges up his face at me and asks if I am married. I say I am, and asks he whether I might like to fetch her up that they might judge her amongst the rest of the congregation. I reply with a smile that she is back home, where she was left. The Captain laughs and congratulates me on my judgment, and I match him and remark that it is for cats to play with the mice away. This floats splendidly. When he is finished laughing, the boatswain wipes his eye and spits a harsh bark and indicates that it is well he and the Captain are at sea then, or they might all have some play – and the commandeur as well, says Jacobsz, with a hack of spit some shy of the first, for he would be as rank and raw on these sluts as any port-rat cabin-boy. Ariaen – for so the Captain introduces himself, now – so sketches Pelseart’s character for me, for he has grown to know and despite the upper-merchant vanity. They came to know one another on a previous voyage, it seems, on which occasion the commandeur had apparently inflicted his authority on Jacobsz to humiliate him. It is the mirror of sin that so starts the Captain’s dislike, the sting of pride when it perceives pride greater than itself, for each aspect of the commandeur he so levels to me in disgrace, it seems to me, are reflected enviously in himself. The vice and venality, the avarice and swollen lust that grubs and grasps on whatever it finds. Fellow scavengers of the deep, ravening upon each other. But to what he says the boatswain nods along. Rancour is rife for this Pelseart on this ship on reputation alone, and with the Captain’s word. Time and privation will only worsen this discontent as we forge on, think I. It would not pay to be the Company’s man, so far from company. At this make I some seeming digression into our destination, and the great riches to be made in the East for an enterprising shipman. I elaborate such tales as I have heard of natives tossing their precious stones to oncoming longboats, fortunes won by the mere glint of steel, of whole islands sold into slavery for a bracelet-piece of scrap metal. It could hardly be counted a sin to deliver what some so crave, so I say. Had we not each of us been driven from our home and heartland for the debt of a tulip bouquet? And where indeed was the love of man in the hearts of those high and mighty Seventeen Gentlemen of the Fatherland, who put the honest and hard-working shipmen of Jan Company under them like so many niggers slaving for scraps along the estuarine mud-banks of the East? </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B13]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D13]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C13]] </center></u>==> 11% ==> January, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> <p>Things leather-made, of wood, of wool</p><p>Things taken old, faded, all of a piece</p><p>Envelop me like walls</p> </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F12]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B12]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A12]] </center></u>==> 14% ==> March, 1629. <== <span class="D"> We had run across much more bad weather in our first few days from Amsterdam, and dinner was not held while the majority of officers and passenger folk were confined to their cabins by the frantic rocking of our craft, of such a degree that it seemed we might all be pitched through our portholes to drown so soon after leaving port; and not before having been at sea I felt quite mortified with the trial of it all, and felt furthermore tremendous physical infirmity falling all across me, and so sent ZWAANTIE to fetch the ship’s surgeon, whom I had spoken to however briefly at High Table and who I desired as much for his ease and pleasant company as for his trade. The Hr. JANSZ arrived presently, being on much abler sea legs than myself, and set to with his bowl and blades, as it was his worthy opinion that the flux itself could be staved off by immediate cause of bleeding and purification of the mephitic airs. However, while he was working, I enquired much about the business of the ship that had not been clarified by the upper- and under-merchants’ vain talk of the previous evenings; and Hr. JANSZ did much to illustrate to me the business of the ship, the strict divisions made by the decks and masts that hid the many parts of the functioning ship one from another so its several parts might never be known from my quarters in the stern, nor the whole to any one man, not even the commandeur himself; and to this I expressed some relief that we would stay so sequestered, that then the good doctor found considerable amusement in such detachment, despite agreeing in part to my initial judgment, that the men of VOC were the very sort of petty criminals I should expect to find having been driven from the land and from decent society. While he was filling a bowl up from my spile, he was so good as to distract me with much enquiries after myself, my station and history, and following that of his own origins for I do believe he was concerned at my being disoriented under the presumptions of female frailty, though he above all men perhaps may be excused for his diagnosis. A practical man, Hr. JANSZ seems educated by experience, little store though he puts in the books and philosophies learned and practised by the apothecaries; though like Hr. CORNELIESZ he has rather been driven from his city practise in Hoorn than as an elected ship’s surgeon, having been as vulnerable to the whims of the marketplace as any of us over the past years; and though he made but little specialty in the necessary treatments at sea, I believe he is more comfortable amongst the barbers and men of trade than the guilds of mighty physicians that is the under-merchant’s ilk. His trust is in his work, with the men and with myself, for I could discover but little more of his character and history before he was bidding me adieu for the dozen or more tasks that awaited him in his office amongst the gun deck, for there were already a score of patients to be attended and cleaned, purged, scarified, benumbed of their aching limbs, bandaged and dressed and fed before the turn of the watch. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C15]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E15]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D15]] </center></u>==> 14% ==> March, 1629. <== <span class="E"> ... but ol’ Bean quakin’ to his bones so bos’n grabs meself an’ stands my by the bow-sprit an’ rubs me neck so he’s gets his money worth he says an’ tell one o’ ‘em swains to fetch a shot ball from the gun-deck an’ while he do Bean gazin’ down below where the waves slap the sides an’ the water lookin’ deep dark an’ all like it starin’ back at Bean down to his soul an’ in’t the jeers or cheers or wagerin’ o’ the men sound so loud in his ears no more ‘cos he can’t shake nothin’ but the feel o’ that water down his eyes an’ his nose an’ that ‘cos in’t Bean swim a stroke nor like the look o’ ‘em fishies what’ll be havin’ his legs if he could an’ in’t Bean feel no breeze nor iron ball what bos’n fit in his hands to drop down the side but he hear him right ‘nough sayin’ I’s fetch the ball what he drops overboard an’ in’t no place for whore-son cabin-boys what let they precious shot drop to the bottom o’ a dark deep ocean an’ all an’ right ‘nough then the boys whoopin’ an’ he let the shot drop quick as lightnin’ an’ in’t it even touch the water but suck down down out o’ sight in a flash an’ in’t Bean move a limb nor a eye but what fixed to the dark an’ where ‘em water slappin’ the side o’ the ship an’ if Bean had wanted to move a limb nor a eye can’t he have done a thing for fear o’ that wide deep dark you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D15]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F15]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E15]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_west_australian_coastal_landscape_f32693fe-432c-4528-93f1-47497eb406c6.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E15]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A15]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F15]] </center></u>==> 11% ==> January, 1629. <== <span class="C"> My wife plagues me still, our son, receding into a vacant distance with each passing hour. Yet are they with me still. The ones I cared for. Abed, alone, the fingers of everyone have ever loved press me down. Emerge to pace the gunwale and fix the eyes afar off, not fixed to any one single point on another empty horizon, and spread the self thin and airy on the open decks. Keep I the Captain’s company at the whipstaff and take sometimes the great steering pole from him when he pauses to rest or urinate off of the bow. Elsetimes I stand at the stern, and watch the ship’s retinue of shark fins traiingl behind, rushing up to frenzy for the daily emptying of the barber’s bleeding pot. The Captain is a fierce, quiet man, with the able eye that so many thankless years before the mast will bestow, begging no grace and giving none. The sort whose stories will never be told nor heard, but rage famous all the same. He eyes me and ignores me by design, crowing over now and then to where the boatswain is perched on the gunwale, sharpening his catch-blade with a sharkskin slip. He says we are to cross the equator soon, and they plan their celebrations loudly, pointedly. We officers of the Company are not to be included on the revelry that accompanies such petty milestones, and the men are their own by tradition. The predikant lectures below in the waist to a small knot of seamen and soldiers who have emerged from their orlops to sweat under the sun while he prattles from his prayerbooks, legs splayed wide to still the ship’s rocking. His wife is by his side, as some of the men’s are at theirs, showing themselves above decks openly now we are far enough from home, their heads bowed meekly. At prayer’s close, she leads the men in hymn, and at the feeble rise of song below the Captain sucks through bared teeth and spits onto the deck by my left boot. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B12]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D12]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C12]] </center></u>==> 13% ==> February, 1629. <== <span class="C"> As I talk, the boatswain rubs the oiled sharkskin to and fro, his eyes never straying from mine. At the whipstaff, Captain Jacopsz eyes the horizon, cheeks swilling his vitriol. The love of money is the route to all kinds of evil. Ms. Jans has abided in my thoughts awhile. Skin, cheek. Curve of back, the curve of her side, of her chest. Such thoughts it seems to me are the godliest of all such fantasies that paint themselves across the close walls of my cabin, shadowed out by candlelight. Her quick fingers, her posture. Her face above a knife-blade, pulling across tight, white, perfect neck-skin. You feel God in you when you hate. When you want. You feel your soul thrust in you, yours. You grip it as the flesh grips a knife. A casket lesser than a woman’s hat-box. Light enough. Only I need carry it. Only I shall. That Haarlem churchyard. My wife weeping in her disgrace, with only I to witness it And I am beyond pity. The priest makes little ado. The wind is picking up. None of us here shall stay. I look to the sky, to the gathering clouds. None of us here shall stay. And I am for the sea. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B14]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D14]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C14]] </center></u>==> 13% ==> February, 1629. <== <span class="D"> After my prior treatment by Captain JACOBSZ and his ilk, last night before dinner I made a voyage down to the lower table where the Company clerks and menial passengers and their families may take their meals, and hereupon became I much attached to the predikant’s many children, though no more than they be to me for upon my visitation in the galley the three of his daughters did delight over my style of clothing and make many such flattering remarks on my beauty and appearance generally as I have been waiting to fall from your lips, my dear husband, and made the younger of his four boys the like flattery upon my person an manner as I had chance to display afore they fell a-doting, though I of course ascribed such thrall to youthful naivety and desire to impress such visitors as they received during the voyage. Though I may blame my own real and constant solitude for the impression, did I think then that I had hardly made the acquaintance of a more charming and unruly rabble as the predikant’s brood, for through the disporting of dinnertime made they innumerable rounds of questions that did tire the moon; was I visiting my husband in Java?– I replied that I was, and I may credit their accuracy of character to Hr. BASTAIENSZ and his wife for filling their charges with idle gossip; was my husband as fine and godly a man as their father?– was not Java the home of dark sorcerers and great serpents and magic arcana of infinite terror and delight?– Whither was I brought so, and what had brought my own husband to the Far East?– Would we have children of our own, some day? – – I mentioned that three children had I had already, and when they naturally enquired why I was not to accompany them, I replied they were in Amsterdam to keep and to stay, and made such cheer of their words and frolics that I came to call them all by name by the hour I departed, and that not without urgent entreaties from all parties that I might return and right soon, to the Captain’s desultory table above – but ah!– how my heart was stirred anew to be in the company of such delightful beasts, for whom the world is charmed and simple, and unknowing of the looming, uncertain things toward which we are surely sailing. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C14]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E14]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D14]] </center></u>==> 11% ==> January, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>I have now written at length of the indigo bearing the name of Bayana, which for the last four years has been very closely bought up, both by us, by Armenians, and by Moguls; the latter classes export it to //Ispahan//, whence some of it goes to //Aleppo//. In six years the English have not bought more than 600 bales, because, owing to bad luck, adversity, and mismanagement, their commercial position has greatly deteriorated; but if they begin to buy against us, as they would like to do if they had the money, indigo is likely to rise in price.</p> <p>//AHMADABAD// is the capital of //Gujarat//, and receives annually from here large quantities of goods, for example much //Patna// silk, to be manufactured there into ormesines, satins, velvets and various kinds of curious stuffs, so that there here little trade in Chinese silk manufactures. Carpets are also woven there with intermixture of silk and gold thread; while the imports include spikenard, //tzierila, asafetida, pipel// and numerous such drugs, besides //Bengal cassas, mals// and clothing for Hindu women from //Bengal// and the Eastern provinces, pamris from //Kashmir// and //Lahore//, and //Bengal kand// or white sugar. In the other direction are brought hither turbans, girdles, //orhnis// or women’s head coverings, worked very cleverly and ingeniously with gold thread; also velvets, satin, various kinds, striped, flowered or plain; coconuts from //Malabar//; European woollen goods; lead, tin, quicksilver, vermilion; large quantities of spice, viz. cloves, nutmeg, and mace, and sandalwood. These goods are now bought from //Surat// and forwarded in this direction, but formerly they were obtained in even greater quantities from the Portuguese //Cambay//, who had busy trade there and who brought them to exchange for //kannekens, tirkandis// and striped cloths for //Mozambique// and the Coasts.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A12]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C12]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B12]] </center></u>==> 12% ==> February, 1629. <== <span class="D"> Us having being at sea a fortnight now, and upon enquiring at High Table of Captain Hr. JACOBSZ whether we might be nearing soon our destination at Batavia, he and his steersman made much laughter and hollow condescension at my foolishness; for never could I have guessed before at the length of voyage as we have left still before us; for if only you had given me some word of warning before setting out I scarce would have imagined the prospect of months and months aboard such a dingy prison and in such rough company. We are set in amongst the officer’s quarters here in the high back of the ship; the ‘stern’, as I now remember it is called; the better at least to deprive Frau HENDRICX of the attention of the abler seamen who keep quarters before the mast; and often do I meet my cabin-neighbour, the under-merchant and the commandeur’s aide, on excursions from my cabin, and while he makes fine greeting and makes proper respect in address and concerns, he has not the jolly tongue of the surgeon nor the calm and kind conversation that the predikant Hr. BASTIAENSZ and his wife have afforded me during my short time in their companies. Hr. CORNELIESZ speaks very well; I have heard him expound on any number of topics at high table, from the anabaptist tenets to the great knights of antiquity, to an awed audience of Company clerks and midshipmen; little though they would hear me speak my mind, it seems to me there is nothing behind those words; no convictions; no compassion; only impatience when one of the steersmen interrupts his monologue with a joke; seldom he smiles, and then only briefly, in mockery, for there is little behind that too, I think, but the same vast and weighty sense of self; and you know, as I know, that your wife has a fine intuition of character in such things. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C13]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E13]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D13]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_west_australian_coastal_landscape_with_wallaby_3d270ae4-7a03-40d7-8d47-181071c94f97.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E14]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A14]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F14]] </center></u>==> 11% ==> January, 1629. <== <span class="D"> The commandeur made much of the fantastic profits to be enjoyed in the ‘rich trades’ as he calls them, and of the intricacies of accountancy and the commission rates of senior officers that drew the protracted attention of many men of the table, but quite flummoxed my poor wits I must confess. There are no Ten Commandments below the equator, he did remark to me once, with a hand on my hems after several cups of wine, and to this at least Hr. JACOBSZ seem in consonance, for he nodded then and skewered again the piece of salted beef occupying his plate; for the commandeur indicated a life in service of the VOC could place many temptations in the path of the Christian man, or rather place him in their way, for one never knew what pleasant opportunities may avail themselves in such ragged and unruly lands. By way of example the commandeur launched upon an anecdote directed on his right hand to Captain JACOBSZ, for it transpired they were previously acquainted by a mission from Surat aboard the Dordrecht, at the time under the commandeur GRIJPH; whereupon he related a most insensible account of Hr. JACOBSZ’ disposition at the time, the Captain being much drained and driven to drink by the heat and company had previous been given cause to grievously insult Hr. PELSAERT before his fellow merchants, and received a rebuke from the fleet commander for his dissolute attitude. The fact of the account was to be seen in Hr. JACOBSZ’ countenance at this very moment, for many eyes from all down the table were upon him at this moment; but made he no interjection but to toy with the bottle at his own right hand and to growl at a point that every such word was untrue in such terms as I am loath to repeat; little though was it marked by his superior. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C12]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E12]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D12]] </center></u>==> 11% ==> January, 1629. <== <span class="E"> so cap’n in his noble-ness an’ wisdom what says we’s to play ‘em good ol’ games to pass the hours good an’ proper as a christian crew ought an’ half ‘em men grumblin’ still an’ lookin’ all one to another an’ up to that fine cool cabin’ up ‘em stairs ‘til ol’ bos’n says we’s to play the execution game an’ then theys slide they eyes back down right ‘nough an’ starts to smile an’ that an’ says theys up for a turn or two at ‘em execution games an’ in’t Bean know ‘em rules nor wagers nor nothin’ ‘cos in’t Bean played no such game ‘fore what ‘em do when theys nothin’ else an’ Bean ‘bout to ask an’ have it ansered when theys all layin’ hands on Bean an’ sayin’ to hold fast ‘em cabin-boys an’ have ‘em all lines up by the side an’ right ‘nough we is an’ in’t we got no say-so but stand there an’ wait what theys all waitin’ for an’ all ‘em other blokes done formed up on deck an’ there’s noise ‘nough an’ movin’ an’ all an’ can’t Bean hear hisself think for all theys laughin’ an’ talkin’ an’ wagerin’ an’ lookin’ at us one to ‘nother like theys got a choice o’ juicy chops hauled out the brine like theys sizin’ us up for the eatin’ an’ can’t Bean hear it but he done smelled the piss on the boy next to him an’ in’t he got look to know in’t a boy there less scared than him ‘cos in’t Bean gone scurry scared from what in’t been an’ what might never come an’ be you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D12]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F12]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E12]] </center></u>==> 13% ==> February, 1629. <== <span class="E"> ... an’ in’t none o’ ‘em Bean bless his god an’ they’s lined up on the fore-castle all along the anchor-chain what’s winched up high in case a gust do come an’ carry us out an’ theys made grab ahold o’ the chain ‘fore it meets the edge an’ one o’ the lot call out you’s best know how to pull boys an’ if you in’t I hopes you knows how to swim an’ they’s cut it loose so the chain done rattle on the planks an’ catch so hard it yank one o’ ‘em boys off his feets an’ the other two shoutin’ and heavin’ at the chain all bloody in they hands an’ in’t Bean want look at none o’ theys faces what in’t had cause yet to give him grief but he hears ‘em sighin’ an’ shoutin’ an’ the crack o’ the chain on the ol’ deck an’ then that soft strong suckin’ sound as one o’ ‘ems shoulders gives out an’ then the splash o’ the anchor hittin’ the waves an’ the men all cheerin’ an’ payin’ out what theys wagered an’ five strong lads haulin’ up the anchor again an’ the rest carryin’ off what boys is left aboard to the tar-bucket cryin’ an’ moanin’ an’ the mens is callin’ again again an’ all but theys looks around an’ in’t so many boys left what with lil’ jim with his left getting’ sawn off down below an’ ‘ems three all bloody an’ knackered an’ all an’ in’t none o’ ‘em boys left ... </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D14]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F14]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E14]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src="https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_billabong_with_red_sand_and_dead_grass_e2f788aa-9064-4960-820f-9e5f262b39af.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E103]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A13]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F13]] </center></u>==> 12% ==> February, 1629. <== <span class="E"> ... but from what he hear in’t non puttin’ money on Bean an’ in’t he got favourble odds for what’s to come an’ bos’n step for’d an’ ‘em shoutin’ an’ wavin’ die down an’ he slap lil’ jim on his back what’s at the end o’ our line an’ tell him he’s to fetch the crow-bell what’s top the main-sail an’ in’t lil’ jim got no mind to do it from what I’s can see but ‘em men starts they hollerin’ and cat-callin’ an’ right ‘nough bos’n get his switch an’ give lil’ jim a lash or two ‘bout his behind an’ right ‘nough he starts off like a stabbed rat up that main-mast an’ he goin’ hand over hand fast ‘nough up ‘em rope rungs ‘cos in’t there a man aboard what can’t climb the main-mast in a hunderd beats when the L-E-Y-D-E-N done sittin’ calm an’ pretty without no lick a wind like we is now an’ we’s all watchin’ him go ‘cept for Bean ‘cos Bean seen the skipper come out his cabin again an’ whiles lil’ jim not half-way up to the crow-bell he done given the bos’n a nod an’ the bos’n start hollerin’ to let ‘em fly an’ ‘em steers-men what got the tackle starts on ‘em nots what keep the main-sail tight but in’t lil’ jim see ‘em workin’ on theys riggin’ ‘til ‘em nots come loose an’ he on the sail side where we sees him an’ all an’ right ‘nough come down the canvas an’ can’t lil’ jim do nothing but watch it come an’ hold on or drop an’ he drop right ‘nough ‘fore the canvas come an’ wipe him an’ the men clears out from under him as they watch him go down down down with the sail comin’ down on him an’ in’t Bean see lil’ jim hit the planks but he hears it right ‘nough like he in’t ever forget an’ what lil’ jim in’t never earned he screamin’ an’ over him bos’n tell one o’ us boys to bring up the forfeit an’ while the others o’ us draggin’ him screamin’ an’ the others got a mop an’ bucket to clean up what he done left on the planks the bos’n got a bucket o’ pitch an’ he markin’ lil’ jim to show he have coward an’ all but all the while what men there is is lookin’ us up an’ down an’ talkin’ what theys to do an’ who theys be needin’ to get to the coast but one o’ ‘em calls out in’t they need whore-son rats aboard the L-E-Y-D-E-N anyhow an’ not when there in’t no wind an’ all an’ they’s as well feed alls us to the sharks if it weren’t for the toss o’ it an’ so they’s picks out one two three o’ us ... </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D13]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F13]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E13]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src="https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_billabong_with_red_sand_and_dead_grass_cfd9da64-9112-460d-8732-a81c9c61f15f.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E12]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A12]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F12]] </center></u>==> 13% ==> February, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>I know by experience that some wealthy banians of Agra maintain agents in //Golconda// with two objects in particular, to buy diamonds and spices, which their people in //Masulipatam// send to us; and this year they bought 300 maunds (15,000 lb) of cloves at 11 //pagodas// per maund (or 25 lb), and transported them to //Agra//, as well as proportionate quantities of nutmeg, mace, and other goods. The result not merely bring down a good market by 10 to 20 per cent, but to stop our sales altogether, because we have no agents in //Golconda// or //Burhanpur// to warn us of the despatch such quantities of goods and to make arrangements accordingly.</p> <p>We cannot rely on such news we occasionally get from the letters of Hindus or Moslems, because of the risk that they might deliberately cheat us by such devices, and cause us to sell too cheap; a single merchant often has much difficulty in dealing with such emergencies, and often neglects such warnings, to the Honourable Company’s serious loss. Now it may be the case that our Chiefs at //Masulipatam// have given no warning to the Honourable General that not even a quarter of the spices and other goods are consumed locally; otherwise His Honour’s zeal to secure the utmost profit for our foster-mother, the Company, would have prevented this loss; or, if this proposal should be doubted or criticised, the certain profit might be proved with uncertain loss for the Company by experiment within two years in the following way. Surat used to be supplied with 25,000 lb of cloves annually; raise that quantity to 50,000 lb, with a proportionate increase of nutmeg and mace; reduce the supplies to the Coromandel Coast by the same amount; then in the first or second year the books at headquarters will show His Honour whether the profits have increased or not.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A14]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C14]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B14]] </center></u>==> 14% ==> March, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>This is the sea's achievement.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F15]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B15]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A15]] </center></u>==> 13% ==> February, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Seaspawn and seawrack, the nearing tide, that rusty boot. Snotgreen, bluesilver, rust: coloured signs. Limits of the diaphane.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F14]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B14]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A14]] </center></u>==> 14% ==> March, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>The following calculation will show the result according to the best estimate I can make.</p> <p>//Agra// requires:</p> <p>//700 mds. or 35,000 lb cloves at Rs.200 per maund of 50 lb. (Holland)</p> <p>600 30,000 lb nutmeg at Rs.100 “ “ “ 30 sockels mace at Rs. 300 “ “ “ </p> <p>At these approximate prices, the proceeds should be as follows:</p> <p> 700 mds. cloves at Rs. 200 .. .. .. .. Rs. 140 ,000</p><p>600 nutmeg at Rs. 100 .. .. .. .. 60 ,000</p><p>30 sockels mace, estimated as 50 mds ., at Rs. 300 .. .. 15,000//</p> <p>From this total must be deducted the heavy loss, or dryage, of spices, which is here 8 per cent for cloves, and 3 to 4 per cent for mace and nutmeg, as well as the cost of bringing the goods up, which however would not be so much felt on so large a capital as it is now. If we were provided with such a stock, we should be able to meet whatever indents our employers might make ion //Agra// for Holland or //Batavia//, say, 1000 to 1200 bales of Bayana indigo; large supplies of saltpetre, borax and lac; and some cotton goods (viz. //Bengal cassas, chouters, semianos, ambertees//, and various other white cloths), if required from here; or else the surplus cash could be remitted by exchange on //Surat//.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A15]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C15]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B15]] </center></u>==> 15% ==> March, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Immense, squamous, omnipotent.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F16]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B16]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A16]] </center></u>==> 15% ==> March, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>Contrast this with the business we now do, which brings no respect or credit to our nation. The heads of our factory are utterly discouraged, and the interests of the Honourable Company suffer seriously, for we are constantly burdened with debts, because our Chief at //Surat// can spare us no money; owing to the fact that everything is so strictly employed in despatching the ships for the South (//Java//) when caravan of spices is sent up there is not left for //Agra// at the best more than 20,000 lb cloves, 15,000 lb nutmeg, and 15 or 20 sockels of mace. We have to do what we can with such supplies, while these cunning and crafty merchants now realise how we stand; they know how much we have sell in the year, and they beat down our prices even to the point of extortion, because they can calculate, just as well as we can, our need for cash to buy saltpetre, cotton goods and other merchandise procurable only for ready money. They postpone then buying our goods, and they can wait longer than we, eking out their supplies in the meantime with cloves brought by Hindu and Moslem merchants from //Golconda//, though the quality is much inferior ours, because they have certain methods of wetting them while transit to counteract the great dryage. Then when the indigo season opens September, we must sell, however unwillingly, though it is perfectly notorious that, even before the goods leave our warehouse, they are re-sold sometimes at an advance of 10 or 15 rupees the maund. There are only two possible remedies or improvements. One is to send up 20,000 rupees in cash in addition to the caravan (for bills drawn on the arrival of the ships come too late, when the loss has already been incurred by the Company); the other is, as has been said above, to confine the spice trade to this side of India, and leave the Coromandel Coast alone. Or perhaps our employers may consider that, since their supply of cloves is large, the consumption should be encouraged; a reduction of price to 100 or 80 rupees the maund might eventually produce a marked increase in consumption at Agra.</p> <p>Sandalwood is brought to //Agra// in moderate quantity from the Portuguese, who obtain it in //Timor//, and transport it to //Malacca//, whence it is carried to //Goa// and //Cambay//. No great trade can be done; 80 maunds, or 4000 lb, may sell at not more than 50 rupees the maund.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A16]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C16]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B16]] </center></u>==> 15% ==> March, 1629. <== <span class="C"> It is not hard to guess where the Captain’s mind lies by following his eyes at table. As he steers the ship, sometimes I think he would as well his hands be thrust between Ms. Jans’ paps as into the commandeur’s silver, and he needs little direction from me to vent his fantasies on the breeze. The Captain and I are both are so acquainted with the ways of women. Have we both wives at home, there to keep and to drive themselves to distraction with their own prattling. Such credulous things. Help meet for us indeed. I should hardly trust a woman to murder me if the knife were in her hand and my sleeping throat exposed. Their minds are light, and their hearts too heavy to bear themselves, and become much confused of purpose without Man’s hand to guide. Even as man is guided so by God. They make fine sport, indeed, for one disposed to sporting. For what use can they ever be, in bringing forth kin and kind to slut themselves and, sinning, die like their mothers? That is my rage of women. For above all things, they have no purpose. No God-given task but to bring forth new sinners. No redemption but to suffer for their sin. Just such a lumpen slut I discovered in the rat’s-warren of Amsterdam. I remember every inch of the walls my hand traversed, the tight and twisting streets drawing me further down and into darkness. The stench of it, the thickness through the air that hangs about the inns of plague. The scabbed and scrofulous vermin that paw at your legs and pockets as you pass. Kerchief pressed to face, watching only where I stepped – the numbered doorways, the swinging signs. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B16]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D16]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C16]] </center></u>==> 15% ==> March, 1629. <== <span class="D"> From Hr. JANSZ, however, I did hear tell a most curious account of the under-merchant’s history, for while I knew him to be of the medicinal guilds formerly within such circles as the surgeon frequented while in the provinces, the company he kept while on land had had cause for considerable notoriety that Hr. JANSZ, and much of his society else, had cause to be forewarned; it was the surgeon’s report that Hr. CORNELIESZ, being of the Frisian anabaptists as I knew, and married of the Mennonites, had of late been among the fencing-club of Hr. THIBAULT in Haarlem, and from there frequented the talking shops of that infamous painter Hr. TORRENTIUS, of whom, my husband, you will no doubt have heard; Hr. JANSZ described to me anew the inquisition’s implication of Hr. TORRENTIUS to his distribution of those dreadful Rosicrucian pamphlets of recent years; his call to an anonymous brotherhood to raise arms at the resurrection of their mortal lord and to do bloody overthrow of the Church and Fatherland; his own hideous creed which mocked the suffering of Christ and the validity of the scriptures; that he regarded adultery and sin without compulsion, and practised much black magic in secret, and swore each night a toast to the Devil amongst his brethren in the taverns and bordello-cellars of the provinces; but such nonsense does not bear explanation to you, my dear. Such things, Hr. JANSZ explained; and only after I had pressed him for further dialogue to relieve the pain of my bleeding, I must say; had been drawn out from the heretic TORRENTIUS upon the rack, though the names of his accomplices could not be discovered even with the parting of his limbs; such events in recent months, supposes Hr. JANSZ, may account for Hr. CORNELIESZ’ presence aboard the Batavia as much as his personal misfortunes and the loss of his business; but oh!– I am too tired now to deliberate further without authority on such petty things. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C16]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E16]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D16]] </center></u>==> 15% ==> March, 1629. <== <span class="E"> but Bean feel bos’n hand at his back tryin’ to force him up but Bean quick an’ all when he fear that an’ fear is movin’ his limbs now in’t Bean have no say in what he do but he hollerin’ and jumpin’ an’ clawin’ at bos’n an’ fear make his way off the gunnal an’ back onto the deck but in’t he get away for the lads what shout at him an’ beat him down an’ sayin’ in’t no sport now to have him chopped to death an’ fed to ‘em fishies an’ Bean feel hands on his head an’ feet on his neck an’ can’t he move for fear nor nothing ‘til he hear the bos’n shoutin’ an’ easin’ ‘em back an’ foot come off his neck an’ hand take him by the elbow an’ bos’n starin’ at him an’ he smilin’ all the same ‘cos he got his catch-blade up in Bean’s eye an’ he sayin’ what shot I’s wasted an’ all an’ askin’ what man aboard gone give him good odds for his blade so steers-man pipe up right ‘nough an’ ‘fore Bean knows whats what he’s havin’ a blade put in his hand rough-like an’ in’t no sea nor sky nor ship in the world but for the ring o’ men what’s close off ‘bout us an’ what look the bos’n have is his eye all the while he on Bean with his legs wide an’ that rotten foul look in his eye tellin’ me in’t no dock-rat last a minite with a blade an’ the men callin’ what odds they take on the ol’ snicker-snee but in’t none takin’ an’ bos’n swishin’ the blade to an’ fro an’ tellin’ me he’s gut me if I in’t gut him first an’ all but in’t Bean have it in him to gut nor be gutted an’ in’t he know how nothing ‘bout how to be handlin’ a blade an’ all he want is to be crawled off an’ be with ‘em rats an’ bring things up for the men an’ pour wine for the skipper an’ in’t want none o’ all this brung down on him you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D16]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F16]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E16]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_west_australian_coastal_landscape_d3433b5d-dc24-4ebc-8445-50795edaf782.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E16]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A16]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F16]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_west_australian_coastal_landscape_0aa3257b-c53a-4fb9-9a11-9be7ca307bc9.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E17]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A17]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F17]] </center></u>==> 16% ==> March, 1629. <== <span class="E"> so I lays my blade down an’ lays me head on the boards an’ prays to him my god to let Bean go ‘cos in’t he have no heart nor mind nor skin to bear no blade ‘gainst a man o’ the company an’ in’t done no wrong nor spilt a bucket in a two-month an’ many other things beside ‘til ‘em hands an’ fists an’ sticks come down on him again an’ in’t Bean see nothin’ nor taste nothin’ nor hear nothin’ ‘til he think he wake again from the long blank dark with the sun full on his face an’ he feel the wind on his skin an’ his mind starts rousin’ ‘cos in’t there no wind touch a man in the bow-spit hell an’ in’t no wind in ‘em calm waters off-shore an’ still in’t his skin feel nothin’ below his neck but the burn an’ stick o’ the pitch what they coated him in an’ the throb o’ his broke bones and raw ripped skin an’ can’t he ope neither eye nor mouth for the stick o’ ‘em but he hear the wind an’ he hear ‘em voices cluck an’ chatter in no tung he in’t never heard an’ the dark come up again right soon ‘til he wake to the wind an’ the sun what softened up his pitch so he pry up his eye to see he on his flat o’ back dock-side at high sun with a load o’ dark dead-eye men what’s standin’ over top o’ him talkin’ ‘em heathen toungues an’ the wind kickin’ the sea up white an’ fine an’ the L-E-Y-D-E-N already puttin’ far off out to the horizon with all its sails down an’ fair an’ all with the wind behind her ... </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D17]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F17]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E17]] </center></u>==> 16% ==> March, 1629. <== <span class="D"> Ah!– my dear, I have made this account the labour of as many days as I could fill, but fear instead I am tiring you with such mundanity; I know enough how have scolded me for speaking idly without anything worth telling, and so I must spare you such silly details as will only distract my love, and weight down the poor horse that must bear it too you, swiftly, swiftly!– once we put in at our port in Africa – – I may yet write you again, but only when I have news to tell, of good or ill, that you may hear it from me – Until we meet, and ever after, – Yours &c. CREESJE. on the Thirteenth day of November, y.o. 1628. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C17]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E17]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D17]] </center></u>==> 16% ==> March, 1629. <== <span class="C"> Our former wet-nurse lay atop a distressed bed, as though she had fallen onto it from a great height. She screeched the name Jeronimus and tried to squirm up at me, eyes throbbing out from a face sweat-plastered across with her black hair. I stood over her. She did not move. Her eyes strained from their sockets to meet mine. There was no terror, no penitence. Only hate. Only spite. Jeronimus! I drew a blade from my belt-loop and held it to her throat a moment, recoiled. I feared disease perhaps, contamination. Her eyes were still on me, and now there was triumph too. More than I could abide. To meet God. Without grief. Without pity or piety. No fear whatsoever. That, more than the sick-smell, and sheen of garlic-oil and incense meant to smother it, sickened me so. I could not keep that gaze, but only turned to leave. To make for that doorway back out into the rats-nest, to make it through this sick and sickening city to the sea. To the wind and sky, and clean and clearer air. None here shall stay– Jeronimus! It will happen at any moment. The day has already been decided. It is yet to be proclaimed. One must always be ready, for readiness is all. In months or years, the Christ king will reclaim his earthly kingdom and the Devil too will collect his due. The serpent will rise to swallow the faithless, to devour her rotten egg again and we devout will build with Christ his citadel, the New Jerusalem to withstand eternity. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B17]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D17]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C17]] </center></u>==> 18% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C19]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E19]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D19]] </center></u>==> 16% ==> March, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>Our honourable employers will be surprised that no larger quantities of goods can be sold in so extensive a country as this, but I will explain that satisfactory profits could be made but for the amount of the English and Portuguese imports.</p> <p>Large profits could be made here on the goods which are, or might be, brought by our ships from Holland, if the English did not bring such large annual supplies; but they still hanker after the great profits they made in the times when they had a monopoly of the trade, and consequently they fill the markets with large quantities raw or branched coral; some thousand ells of heavy woollen cloth, red, yellow and green, much quicksilver vermilion and ivory, and also swords and knives. These latter goods first gave large profits small consignments and they were tempted send whole cargoes of sabres and assorted cutlery, but many rusted as sold. For the royal Camp or Court they bring tapestries, both silken and woollen, worked with stories from the Old Testament; great and fine pearls; rubies, and balas-rubies; art-ware inlaid with gold and gems and new inventions curiosities such have never been seen before, which have great attraction for the present King. In this way the English have secured much esteem Court among the nobles, and sell their goods at the highest prices they can ask under pretence of doing a great favour; and the same time they escape many needless expenses in the way of presents, which we must constantly incur though they bring very little in the way thanks or reputation.</p> <p>Formerly the English maintained an ambassador at the Camp, an arrangement which was very expensive to the Company; but it has now been abandoned, because a factor who sells their goods at Court can also look after all their incidental business, and obtain //farmans//, or rescripts, from the King. Frequently one hears many of the great lords asking (though it may be through the suggestions of our English friends) if precious stones are known in our country, or if there are any skilled craftsmen there, who can make //toffas//, as there are in England, Venice, and other European lands. It is essential therefore, both for the profit of the Honourable Company, and to increase the reputation of our own nation, that we should make it clear that our little country is not merely on a level with England, but surpasses the whole world in skill; and in order to do this, we should send to //Agra// every year, rarities to the value of 100,000 guilders, consisting of large pearls; large and fine emeralds (old and new); sapphires, rubies, and balas-rubies of rich colour; and gold art-ware of kinds which can be described better verbally than in writing, for instance, an antique box or casket, with various ingenious locks, in which different articles can be secured (for it is considered here a sign of skill that the inside of a thing should be different from the outside).</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A17]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C17]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B17]] </center></u>==> 17% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="C"> History is fate. It cannot be changed, only fulfilled. What is to come has already happened. It will have been, and so it is, and will be again, and again. God’s plan cannot be deviated from or denied. The waves that bend and roll the water in crystalled domes. The wind that roughs and ruffles the surface, that spreads its fingers to catch the Batavia’s sails so that they billow and blow, that makes the rigging crash and snap. Some things are such. Sheer forces, invisible but for their touch upon the world. Moving, and existing only in their motions. Doing, and not being. We are all but tussets on a gale. So I tell the commandeur over the Captain’s table one evening. His eyes on mine, we talk the hours away until the candles are low and the many of the crew have bidden a good night. At the far end of the table, the Captain and the lady are engaged. He seems to take the helm, so to speak, by steering the conversation. She speaks so little and sips at her glass, looking damned desirable even to my own eye. I hear little over my own exchange and, carried over the table from the decks beyond, the music of crew men, voices joined with plucked string. But paid I heed to the lady’s lip and brow, those minor fluctuations of expression. Methinks the lady winces, and the Captain grows impatient to be heard. Flinches she again, he withdraws. None sees but I. Under the table is the glint of gold. Ms Jans looks repulsed. Ariaen’s beard-rough face is split in grin. The music goes on. The crash of waves, twitch of cutlery on the tablecloth. She has struck him, and now the Great Cabin is silent. All wait, all watch. The Captain does not move. He only grins, sips his wine. The lady rises, excuses. The cabin door shuts, and talk resumes. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B18]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D18]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C18]] </center></u>==> 17% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C18]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E18]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D18]] </center></u>==> 17% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="E"> an’ three months an’ all livin’ in white man’s grave an’ in’t Bean been taken yet an’ won’t neither while black man keep it you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; ‘cos I’s the only white face what I’s seen once the L-E-Y-D-E-N done buggered off out o’ port an’ leave Bean all by his pale-some lone-some an’ he sticks out like a new penny in with all ‘em dark dark faces once he done get the tar an’ pitch an’ shit peeled off him by the sun and’ salt but in’t none o’ ‘em blacks clothin’ half so ragged as what ‘em basterds left him an’ in’t they take half so much as what these damned dark heathens seem lost so I sees what ‘em dirty blacks in’t half as ugly nor half as civilised as what I ever done heard on L-E-Y-D-E-N ‘cos in’t nothin’ to be heard in ‘em streets but ‘ems clickin’ an’ quackin’ like a flock o’ wild ducks an’ all an’ in’t nothin’ to be smelt but ‘em rank red beast fat an’ ‘em nigro stink an’ in’t no good cold sea breeze in ‘em warrens to wash out ‘em smells like what bellow out the bilges an’ in’t Bean see nothin’ in all his first days o’ wanderin’ ‘em streets in nought but his rags an’ red raw white skin but fifteen hunderd thousan’ o’ the same damned sheep-seller quackin’ an’ clickin’ with the same damn rank crowd o’ heathen rats what in’t never spoke a prayer an’ slappin’ each other ‘bout an’ that ‘cept for ‘em bunch o’ nigro whores what paw an’ click an’ whistle to what-which-ever whitey they spy ‘cept in’t Bean have what ‘em think ‘em whiteys got an’ by-and-all do got ‘cept for whore-son cabin-boys but in’t Bean the type to spend his tack on ‘em whores o’ his mam’s like ‘cos in’t Bean want it but from what girl want him an’ in’t Bean try to take what he in’t ever earned you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D18]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F18]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E18]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/progress_image_100_19c303fc-9219-490d-8336-05dd77936a1d.webp?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E18]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A18]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F18]] </center></u>==> 17% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>I will now specify various rarities which have been recommended to me by different nobles or great men, and which should be sent here by our ships, but the quantity supplied of each should be small:</p> <p>//10 small gold chains//, of the most ingenious work.</p> <p>//20 sabres//, costing 10 to 15 guilders each, embellished with some gold work, slightly curved, of which I can show a sample.</p> <p>//20 handsome musket barrels//, wrought with gold and set with agates of various colours, in which heads are carved, of the kind brought here overland by the Venetians.</p> <p>//Some seahorse teeth//, marbled on the inside with black stripes, much esteemed.</p> <p>//2 or 3 good battle-pictures//, painted by an artist with a pleasing style, for the Moslems want to see everything from close by; also one or two maps of the entire world; also some decorative pictures showing comic incidents, or nude figures.</p><p>//10 large cases//, in which to keep scissors, mirrors, razors, and other implements locked up.</p> <p>//10 to 20 gilt mirrors//, costing 8 to 10 guilders each, but no large ones with ebony frames, such as were sent on the Golden Lion by advice.</p> <p>//1 case red woollen cloth//, costing 15 to 16 guilders the ell. Also 10 to 20 pieces tapestry, both silken and woollen, from 3½ to 8 ells long, and 2½ to 4 ells broad, but no sad colours, all bright, must be sent.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A18]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C18]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B18]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_billabong_with_red_sand_and_dead_grass_2cbdfe26-bb62-42bd-9e37-233074444a54.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E19]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A19]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F19]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_billabong_with_red_sand_and_dead_grass_4a1a4045-e520-4891-80e6-fd490e6b0587.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E20]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A20]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F20]] </center></u>==> 18% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="E"> so I’s hungerin’ an’ thirstin’ an’ all an’ can’t Bean find nothin’ worth the eatin’ nor the drinkin’ ‘til he come to the market-stall what got fifteen hunderd thousan’ more damned sheep-smellin’ heathens clickin’ an’ cluckin’ an’ shoutin’ all at once at each other an’ all an’ still can’t Bean find nothin’ dyin’ nor dead what’s worth the eatin’ ‘cept racks o’ that raw flesh what ‘em heathens eat an’ some dead blacks what’s got they feet chained to some other blacks what’s chained to a wall an’ in’t got clothes on ‘em or nothin’ an’ I thinks here’s some in a tighter spot than ol’ Bean ‘cos theys all under say-so o’ this big fat basterd at the end o’ they line what’s shoutin’ to a crowd an’ what’s takin’ coin for ‘em blacks what don’t looks like theys near ‘nough ‘bout to keel over with the heat but don’t Bean got spendin’ for no black basterd to have for him an’ go fetch things an’ do ‘ems dirty jobs like ‘em noble folks back home so I’s keeps me legs movin’ an’ movin’ an’ I’s getting’ sicker than I’s been in awhiles under this dry ol’ sun an’ all ‘til I sees this ol’ blacky whats got a ox oped on its side with its guts all spilt an’ mixin’ up with the dust an’ the flies an’ what he’s squeezin’ out the shit out all along ‘em guts like mud from a hose-pipe an’ choppin’ em lengths off an’ sellin’ off like that like ‘em’s soft wet sausage an’ all an’ Bean thinks I’s not havin’ this an’ I’s for the death here in white man’s grave an’ things in’t get no prettier from that day on you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D19]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F19]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E19]] </center></u>==> 18% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>Many of the great men express surprise that we do not have the gold and silver (coined and uncoined), which we import in large quantities, manufactured by us into articles which are here in common use. Provided the workmanship is good, half the silver might be paid for manufacture, which would give ample payment for Dutch work; or in any case manufactured goods would yield quite as much profit as reals or Holland dollars, and could meet the taste of the nobles everywhere without loss to us. It would be well, therefore, for the first trial, to manufacture such goods as the following to the value of 8,000 to 10,000 reals-of-eights, and to the same amount in gold:</p> <p>Feet for //katels//, or bedsteads, hollow, and as light as possible, but artistically wrought.</p> <p>//Aftabas//, or ewers used by Moslems for washing the hands.</p> <p>Betel boxes.</p> <p>Fan handles.</p> <p>Handles for fly-switches.</p> <p>Dishes and cups with covers.</p> <p>If necessary, the style or fashion of these could be shown or explained.</p> <p>Most of these goods could be sold in the Palace or the Camp, to the good profit, honour, and reputation of the company, by an agent familiar with the language and customs of the country, who could at the same time prevent all the occasional difficulties which arise, wherever trade is attempted, from the improper procedure due to the insatiable greed of the Governors; and this could be done without incurring expenditure. At present these matters often cannot be prevented in spite of great trouble and cost.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A19]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C19]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B19]] </center></u>==> 19% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C20]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E20]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D20]] </center></u>==> 18% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="C"> Tap the pewter plate. Need we not fear what the Lord has already accomplished. The voyage was achieved as it was conceived, the instant God made of it his instrument. The valiant need never fear, for doubt is the only sin. In the dark, the low flames in his face and drooping with wine, I doubt the commandeur sees quite what I mean. Creesje and her maid-servant Zwaantie Hendricx share the cabin next to mine, night and day. Oftentimes do I hear the two ladies at prayer through the narrow partition of timbers that separates our cabins. Makes the maid much deliberation in the naming of saints and obsequies to the Lord one would scarce guess her canted ways. Makes the lady no entreaties, only sealing her servant’s words by an ‘Amen’ at its very end. Each and every time add I one ‘Amen’ to hers without them hearing so, sealing up their blasphemies with the true faith. Must I debase myself by answering foreign prayers? Never will God hear a woman’s voice. That is not the weakness of the Word, but the looseness of its interpreting. Did not Christ break bread with whores? Did not He stoop so, to conquer? There is nothing to which high ambition will not descend. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B19]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D19]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C19]] </center></u>==> 21% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="E"> so Bean get a orange an’ some each day that he don’t spill nothin’ right an’ proper an’ Bean eats it skin an’ pips an’ alls till the stall-keeper tells him no an’ make him in dumb show to peel back the crust an’ rind an’ half it with his finger the way the spanards seen ‘em do an’ he right then fair ‘nough an’ it only the sweetest thing Bean ever did eaten an’ after that he skin ‘em real close with fast fingers alls in one piece like flat long snakes an’ show the stall-keeper so he smile an’ whip an’ Bean an’ tell him another basterd’s-weight in water for his next an’ Bean do right ‘nough an’ in’t no spanard or portsh or market-man hold nothin’ over him ‘cos see I decides meself what I does with these her hands an’ how I does it an’ in’t no one but Bean taste ‘em oranges what his pains fetches so in’t none but him decides he want another an’ another an’ in’t no proper ration like what he did get on the L-E-Y-D-E-N an’ all an’ with ‘em stock-fish an’ salt-meats an’ hard tack an’ that but in’t none o’ ‘em the likes o’ these juices an’ that count a fair deal even with what ‘em flies take out you ‘cos in’t this work none less hard an’ harsh under that hot red africa sun an’ all but seein’ as Bean do got his own way an’ all he carry that water past ‘em sweatin’ line o’ blacks in the market what got ‘emselfs chained up an’ Bean some-while whistle when he walk an’ all jus’ for the whistlin’ ‘cos whistle he can when can’t ‘em sad dead blacks do nothin’ but watch him an’ his flock o’ flies go ‘bout it an’ hope they’s livin’ by sun-down to watch him eat his orange an’ all an’ that make it all the sweeter you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; ‘cos in’t Bean sure he understand how man such as got hands an’ feet like his got cause to use ‘em for nothin’ but the say-so o’ what’s got a whip to ‘em an’ in’t use ‘em whats best they can to rip ‘em chain ope by the buckles an’ in’t Bean tryin’ to use his hand to lock ‘em poor blacks up while he got a say-so ‘cos the way I’s sees it I in’t got no cause to tell no one fetch me own water nor stand sweatin’ in a line jus’ for the say-so an’ besides when ‘em blacks see in’t no one tellin’ ‘em the say-so but some cabin-rat in’t nothin’ stoppin’ ‘em usin’ ‘em hands all together ‘an rippin’ ‘em buckles up an’ throwin’ ‘em chains ‘cos in’t a blacky count so tall as see theys more ‘round ‘bout here in white mans grave than white mens livin’ an’ in’t nothin’ but ‘em say-so stoppin’ ‘em guttin’ Bean an’ all ‘em indiamen an’ puttin’ ‘em bodies in theys line to rot ‘long the market-wall an’ doin’ what theys ‘emselves say-so ‘cos in’t we got nothin’ in common you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D22]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F22]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E22]] </center></u>==> 19% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="E"> but in’t Bean say die nor never say die ‘cos where he is in’t half so bad as where he been nor quarter-bad as where he goin’ so I’s thinks I make the most o’ this ‘cos in’t most white men live to see theys own grave you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; in’t it in Bean to give way nor lie on ground what standin’ still an’ call out to no god nor man ‘cos in’t none listenin’ to hear him wail an’ can’t a whore-son eat his wailin’ nor parch his thirst on tears an’ can’t Bean read worth a damn but so he thinks if ‘em noble-men what write an’ read an’ that have half as noble heads as preachers say they say as much won’t nothing come o’ nothing so in’t Bean got half a choice in such a place but live alive an’ keep goin’ you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; so orange seller catch Bean tryin’ to steal from his stall an’ he says I’s have you whipped for takin’ what good men earn’ an’ Bean do his cryin’ an’ screamin’ an’ beg for mercy for if I’s whipped the flies take lil’ ol’ Bean ‘fore night-fall ‘cos theys snatch the bloody up into the air piece by piece or else the shakin’ sick an’ the flux come on ‘im an’ he no longer know night from day an’ the shade fall over his eyes an’ he die alls the same an’ the dogs tug at him ‘cos in’t none else will carry Bean from where he fall cos’ I’s seen it happen to any ol’ number o’ ‘em dumb blacks what theys line up ‘gainst the market wall with hooks an’ chains an’ that you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D20]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F20]]</div> <center> [[Continue->Oranges]] </center></u>==> 19% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="C"> The Captain is much delighted with his new consort. His desire diverted from the unattainable to the all-too-willing. Zwaantie will deny him nothing, a true strumpet of the claas. Ariaen’s contentment is price enough for the discontent it must throw to Mrs. Jans, as petty payment for her spurns. He makes such use of her I think he will lose all further purpose. Lends he the rudder while he is carousing in the cabins with Ms. Hendricx, and I head the craft with Janz Evertsz, the boatswain. Comes the Captain to me in the devil of a sweat, saying his blowsy mare has conceived. She has not bled since last they tumbled, though I suspect Ariaen’s concern is all for himself, and perhaps the prospect of her ladyship, than for Zwaantie. So I simply suggest he loan the girl out for common usage, she being presumably as willing to bed the next of us as the prior. The Captain takes to this like a drowning man to a float, and lends his consort to Janssen for the night under the effects of wine. By next light, they share their blame of seed, and returned to Ariaen all the lustier for her trading, I dare believe they might have tipped her overboard for the sharks to try for the scraps of her modesty. We have made the horse-latitudes at last, says Ariaen. Ten men have already fallen to the flux and more seem to sicken by the hour. The air so near the equator is thickening, the sun beating down as harshly as any I have known, and that all and every day to dusk and beyond. We risk being becalmed for days, but the wind stays hearty, blowing raw and hot on the red skins of those hands laid out lax and sweating on the high decks during the long daylight hours. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B20]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D20]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C20]] </center></u>==> 19% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>The annual offtake of our commodities in //Agra// may be estimated as follows:</p> <p>//Quicksilver//: 50 maunds or 2500 lb; price is conjectural, but Rs. 160-180 the maund may be looked for.</p> <p>//Vermilion//: 50 maunds, at Rs. 180-200 the maund.</p> <p>//Tin//: 30 maunds, at Rs. 36 or 40 the maund.</p> <p>//Ivory//: 50 maunds but must not split otherwise makes a difference of more than half the price. The tusks must therefore be sawed at //Surat// in this way, to wit, into pieces a hand broad, and then be coated or smeared with wax, so as not to split with the heat. Whole pieces sell at Rs. 70-80 the maund, and split pieces at Rs. 20-30. Arm-rings are made from the ivory for Hindu women, and are worn as ornaments in //Multan// and the Eastern provinces.</p> <p>//Red woollen cloth//. Little or none of such is now sent, at 8 to 10 guilders the ell; or unless it were the kind brought by the English, which must be sold in competition with them.</p> <p>//LAHORE// is situated in 32° latitude, 300 kos north-west of //Agra//. It was a centre of trade in the days before the English came to //Agra//, and the Armenian and //Aleppo// merchants did a large and very profitable business. In those days the chief market indigo was //Lahore// rather than //Agra// because it was more convenient for the merchants, who travelled in caravans at fixed season by way of //Kandahar// and //Ispahan// to //Aleppo//; and this why the indigo which reached Europe from //Aleppo// the Levant was known //Lauri//, more properly //Lahori//. A brisk business still done the fine cotton goods //Masulipatam//, or //Golconda// and //Mongapatnam//, but nothing like what was formerly transacted. The trade of //Lahore// may fact be called dead, for exports are limited to the requirements of Persia and Turkey, because the profits cannot stand the great costs of overland transit compared those our sea carriage. Lahore thus lost practically trade, and the substantial Hindus, or //Khattris//, whose reputation still survives, lived on what was left of their old profits. //Agra// exports to Lahore most of the spices which we sell here (for the local consumption is very small when the King is not here, or there is no Camp); also all kinds of white cotton goods, both //Bengals// and //Golcondas//; ivory, quicksilver, vermilion, coral; turbans, girdles, and all sorts of silk goods from //Ahmadabad//, where they are woven; silk from //Patna//; lac, peppers and drugs too numerous to be named.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A20]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C20]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B20]] </center></u>==> 16% ==> March, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>There swimmeth one who swam ere rivers were begun.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F17]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B17]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A17]] </center></u>==> 17% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Long and lank and brown</p><p>As is the ribbed sea-sand.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F18]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B18]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A18]] </center></u>==> 18% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>There lain for ages, and will lie</p><p>Battening upon huge sea worms.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F19]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B19]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A19]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_red_sand_desert_landscape_3cc266f1-7d56-4efb-a6f7-19a2223f400e.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E21]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A21]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F21]] </center></u>==> 20% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="E"> so I begs an’ begs an’ begs an’ begs the orange man an’ he cut at me with his stick an’ make ‘em bad noise ‘til Bean finish cryin’ then says he he’s have you bring me weight in water each a day ‘til he’s sees fit to have the rest whipped out o’ Bean an’ he gives me the bucket for his ol’ horse an’ he give Bean a orange too an’ tells him he’s have another from his weight in water an’ all an’ another after that if he keep the horse an’ ‘em from thirstin’ an’ the flies from pestin’ ‘em an’ that but I’s tells him can’t Bean keep the flies from hisself an’ the man done laughed an’ fetched the bucket o’ rot-oranges what’s drawin’ the flies from the stall an’ he scoops his hand in with the other hard ‘round Bean neck an’ he rubs ‘em rotten fruits sticky over me neck an’ hands an’ that an’ goes back to his stall an’ laughs an’ laughs at Bean as he takes up ‘em buckets an’ says I’s have me own fly pulp too at days end an’ damned if he weren’t right an’ in’t no flies bother ‘em horses after that you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; he let Bean sleep under the stalls in the market after that an’ at dawn he see the plod-plod o’ dusty feet black paled to chalk-like alls the way from the villages on the dusty roads an’ the rattle-clang o’ chains wakes him an’ he fits an’ turns from his dreams to see the night-mare ‘ready there an’ all ‘em bad tired faces in a row waitin’ for the rattle an’ shake that get ‘em stand again an’ sun comes up they gets to sits at the side o’ the sook alls in a long row where the sun beat down bad at ‘em till they start to faint an’ shriek round mid-day sun with the heat an’ flies not knowin’ by sun-down some spanard come with palm-sack o’ silver to take ‘em alls away to his indiaman for new hell o’ night in depths o’ bilge through whistle an’ shake an’ spray from white man’s grave to black’s an’ those what don’t move for dog-meat an’ pig-feed an’ that but Bean pay ‘em no mind he only fetch water for his pains to keep him from bein’ chopped all to dog-meat hisself you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D21]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F21]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E21]] </center></u>==> 20% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C21]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E21]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D21]] </center></u>==> 20% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="C"> The heat has burst some of our drinking casks already and thirsted and sweated and boiled away the best of our water stocks. Loath as the commandeur is to put in along the Slavers’ Coast, both my and Araien’s low warnings and hintings towards a dissatisfied crew are enough to pull his mind from the gilders that await a swifter passage. All things are discussed at table over much food and drink, with Pelseart never making the trivial effort but to pursue business on a sated mind and fuller belly, and at one late night, after we have sunk enough in his gut to carry the whole crew a week, he at last relents. The next morning, Jacobsz turns the Batavia from the wagon tracks, and we make for land. The gannets are the first to presage port, swarming the bilges and crowding amongst the sea-crows in our rigging. Two days after that, the men begin to pick out and snatch cuttle-bones and sargassum from the seas’ surface. The day after, there begin to appear distant landmasses like the backs of great humped animals along the horizon, and with the men’s cheering Ariaen turns in towards the coast. We are nearing the Cape, but the Captain tells me no such green and pleasant lands will greet us here. We are still amongst the slaving ports, and with luck the rest of the fleet will await our arrival in Table Bay, having shared such hot and miserable conditions as we and needing to replenish their shallower stores. If so, Ariaen remarks that he has a mind for stepping out from under Pelseart’s thumb for a night or two of sporting. But neither they nor we should stay but to replenish our stores and set the sick ashore. Those we leave here are unlikely to return, nor we here. This is the White Man’s Grave. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B21]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D21]]</div> <center> [[Continue->Table Bay]] </center></u>==> 20% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>//KASHMIR// is situated in 35° latitude. On the east the country extends to the Great and Little Tibet, a ten days’ journey. The city itself is planted with very pleasant fruit-bearing and other trees, while two great rivers flow past it. The larger these comes from //Wirnagie//, //Achiauwel// and //Matiaro//; the other rises from the ground like a well spring, three kos from the city, having its source at //Saluara// from an inland lake; but the water neither them appears sweet or healthy, and the inhabitants boil before they drink it, while the King and the chief nobles have their water carried 3 or 4 kos from //Swindesseway//, where the water is clear and snow-white. King Jahangir began the construction of a wooden aqueduct, to bring good water from a distance of 10 or 12 kos into the fort, but, realising that it could be easily poisoned by enemies or malcontents, he abandoned it after having spent fully 10,000 rupees. In Kashmir, foreigners usually suffer from the flux, and many die of it; the cause must be the water, and also the quantity of fruit which is available.</p> <p> The city is very extensive, and contains many mosques, as their churches are called. The houses are built of pine-wood, the interstices being filled with clay, and their style is by no means contemptible; they look elegant and for citizens rather than peasants, and they are ventilated with handsome and artistic open-work, instead of windows or glass. They have flat roofs, entirely covered with earth, on which the inhabitants often grow onions, or which are covered with grass, so that during the rains the green roofs and groves make the city most beautiful distant view. </p> <p>The inhabitants the country and the city are for the most part poor, but they are physically strong, especially the men, who can carry quite twice the load of a Hindustani; this is remarkable in view of the fact that men and women get so little food. Their children are very handsome and fair, while they are young and small, but when they grow up, they become yellow and ugly, owing to their mode of life, which is that of beasts rather than men. The women are small in build, filthy, lousy, and not handsome. They wear a coarse grey woollen garment, open from the neck to the waist. On the forehead they have a sort of red band, and above it an ugly, black, dirty clout, which falls from the head over the shoulders to the legs; cotton cloth is very dear, and their inborn poverty prevents them from possessing a change of raiment.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A21]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C21]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B21]] </center></u>==> 19% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>A thousand slimy things</p><p>Lived on; and so did I.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F20]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B20]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A20]] </center></u>==> 20% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Unfading moths, immortal flies, </p><p>And the worm that never dies.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F21]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B21]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A21]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/progress_image_100_0201fb8c-a2e5-4e1b-a588-225f75ed1ed2.webp?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E22]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A22]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F22]] </center></u>==> 21% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C22]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E22]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D22]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src="https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_billabong_with_red_sand_and_dead_grass_cfd9da64-9112-460d-8732-a81c9c61f15f.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E24]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A24]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F24]] </center></u>==> 24% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="C"> I stand with Ariaen at the gunwales of the Batavia’s quarterdeck on our last evening in Table Bay, as sailors below make her ready to set sail for the Cape. The men are slaughtering cattle on the beaches fresh to pack into salted storage crates, and the sound of lowing drifts out to where we are anchored in the midst of the waiting fleet. Ariaen smoulders in his common way, nursing hurt pride. His eyes drifts from ship to ship, mouth sucking at the stem of a cob pipe stuffed out with tobacco, removing it from his mouth at intervals to utter invectives and issue out the terms he might take if Pelseart were ever in such a likely way with him. He would be master of the Batavia, so he says, its upper-merchant chewed away by lice in the brig, were it not crowded about here by his other commands. What a life he might lead, if he were a younger, stronger man. This is his remark once and again. If only, if only that. I nudge and tug at Ariaen as we oversee the final preparations to leave port, just as a great ship itself must be turned by inclination and degrees. How it might come to be, how he might assume command of such a fleet – these, say I, are no mere possibilities. Men sometime are masters of their own fate, and nought puts the commandeur above men such as us but the chance fall of coin, the cleave of robes and circumstance. Nothing is ordained but we ordain it. Slowly, I do believe the old ship is coming round. I sniff out Ariaen’s desires when we talk, taste the ale of his dreaming. The whores he would take, the throats he would cut. Dwell we both in such spectacular potentials. I do not see God when I look in those eyes. Only the black thought of savages, drowned in so much strut and jabber. And I am certain he sees nothing of my intention but what I show in sycophancy. I present him only a glass for a face, and see through it to how he contorts his in reflection. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B25]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D25]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C25]] </center></u>==> 23% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="E"> Bean’s new home B-A-T-A-V-I-A look a damn fine craft if Bean do say so hisself an’ a spankin’ new one too with ‘em hides on her sides still lookin’ all slick-fresh an’ the upper decks all trim in green-gold an’ the like since she in’t seen none more o’ ‘em days under the wind an’ wave than I an’ the deck right red like ‘em deutsch have it an’ all what keeps ‘em mud-marks showin’ up where claret been spilled an’ right ‘nough like ol’ Bean think he ought have brown pants to go with it an’ all still in’t a man alive who in’t dream steerin’ jus’ such a craft an’ havin’ say-so where in all the wide world she sail so as every man an’ woman ‘neath the mast got salute when he strolls by an’ call you sir an’ I’s another one who owns such a dream ‘cos in’t there be no cabin-boy Bean no more an’ no more scrubbin’ an’ fetchin’ o’ tars an’ powder an’ theys all got call me commadore Bean while I’s jus’ sits back an’ get me meat an’ wine brung me by jus’ a like cabin-boy such as me to rest me feet but in the actuals it in’t like that at all an’ don’t do no good makin’ like it is ‘cos that’s when your head go all to no place particular so your hands don’t do your nots right or you spills your tar bucket an’ you get fetch a beatin’ from the bos’n for bein’ a use-less prick an’ all so I’s learned not to mind all the might-be’s as don’t exist an’ mind ‘bout the actuals an’ nothing else so I tells it how it actuals is you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; so soon as Bean fetched aboard from the docks he put to work makin’ the ship-shape ready to sail again an’ he spend more’n a day an’ a half findin’ all the hatches an’ holes an’ makin’ me way ‘bout the ship an’ knowin’ the decks end to end an’ top to bottom from stinkin’ black hold an’ feelin’ theys crates an’ crates an’ where they lie an’ what’s in ‘em up to the orlops where ‘em cow-deck goons sweatin’ and scurryin’ ‘bout in the dark to the gun-deck where we sailers have our mess an’ keeps to usselfs when we’s able up main-deck with all its tackle an’ riggin’ right the way to the poop where steersman do they steerin’ up to crows-nest an’ all where look-out looks out an’ I’s learnin’ too who an’ how I’s to present meself an’ who’s to steer well clear of an’ the like but the skipper a good skipper an’ a fair skipper so says the bloke what fetched Bean from the docks what’s name is loos but I’s no need knowin’ that nor no names for for meself as I’s only to mind bein’ a fair cabin-boy an’ fetchin’ what he says need fetchin’ an’ scrubbin’ most all else aboard ‘til he says I’s not to you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D24]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F24]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E24]] </center></u>==> 25% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="E"> so Bean take his fair ones from ‘em soldiers what spends all ‘em days shut up in ‘em dark dank pit under the water-line all hot hard an’ irritable an’ not duckin’ to see ‘em hands whackin’ out o’ ‘em black no-where theys see through like a bat but I hears ‘em gripin’ right ‘nough an’ thinkin’ on ‘em weapons what the commadore got shut up a ways back in the armoury an’ what theys do an’ all to ‘em heathens an’ us cabin-rats an’ ‘em merchants ‘emselves an’ chucklin’ on it an’ then Bean come up to the gun-deck an’ he hear ‘em same gripin’ from the sailers what in’t got cow-shit for food nor a bunk to sleep in nor a fistful o’ pay for two years ‘fore the mast an’ only diff’rence bein’ Bean see ‘em black hoary hands what come whackin’ out at him a bit better on ‘em guns deck but in’t speak nothing to what he heard below nor ‘bove to no one but hisself but the way Bean figure it in’t no need tell ‘em tellers what already bein’ told ‘cos in’t no more way to un-tell a tale than get tar back in a split cask an’ in’t no keepin’ closed a cask what’s split an’ so there in’t no way stoppin’ ‘em leakin’ through ‘em decks an’ in’t no helpin’ it neither you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; but it’s well hot an’ close below decks alrighty already an’ dirty ‘nough too the likes o’ what even those black slaves in’t got sit in ashore an’ hellish dark too ‘cos can’t you bring a candle down the cow-deck ‘bove the hold ‘cos it melt right down to the plate an’ can’t you half move your feet by the light o’ the gun holes an’ not step in something horrible you don’t know ‘cos can’t you wash nothing off but it come bubblin’ up the bilges an’ it got be scrubbed out from the hull to the hatches an’ trickle it down again to the hold to get burped all up again an’ all an’ we’s stay all in our britches but for the blasted heat down there in the dark fit to burst the casks an’ the lice an’ the rats don’t make it no better for their company neither but in’t Bean ever complain a word ‘bout it to no one then an’ he kept his mouth right shut an’ proper even when those ‘bove him grumblin’ this an’ that he in’t hear or even try hear ‘bout their mis’rible pay an’ how VOC don’t spare ‘em no thought an’ the VOC in’t pay ‘em this or that an’ the VOC jus’ as well we’s all rats in the bilge but who ever that was or what ever those letters stood for in’t Bean know an’ in’t assume to care or nothing you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D26]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F26]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E26]] </center></u>==> 22% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="E"> so anyway one fine mornin’ when Bean is jus’ thinkin’ he’s doin’ with ‘nough o’ this alls fetchin’ water for horsies he hears some great big shout comin’ up from down the street by the harbour so he goes an’ picks hisself up when the staff-keeper in’t lookin’ an’ slips down to the docks an’ there’s this big crowd o’ black boys alls standin’ ‘bout makin’ big talk alls amongst ‘emselfs in that tung Bean in’t never tell so he bumps an’ pushes through ‘em ‘cos though Bean in’t no big basterd with nasty elbows jus’ yet but he can slip an’ duck ‘nough to get through the front o’ any dumb bunch o’ black boys so he’s front an’ centre seein’ what’s what when this tall an’ fancy big ship what’s bigger even than L-E-Y-D-E-N come swanning into bay like nothing Bean or these people in’t never seen since an’ this Bean’s ticket I thinks an’ sure as shootin’ she way her anchor an’ stand to off-shore an’ dros a long-boat or two for dock an’ Bean jostle an’ push bit more to keep his place next to the docks as the boats getting closer an’ closer an’ there’s white men in the front lookin’ on what they sees with lusty eyes what Bean seen burnin’ fifty yards out for the fruits o’ shore but Bean only wish he got a chain o’ bodies at his back to be barterin’ his passage out this stinkin’ grave but he only got his skin see an’ he got show it so the long-boats pulls in an’ these tall folks make no bisness o’ lingerin’ ‘bout an’ jumps strait on the docks an’ there’s alls manner o’ folks tryin’ rush ‘em an’ while I’s callin’ out in old deutsch an’ what portsch he’s ‘memberin’ there alls manner o’ voices risin’ up to block his out an’ he can’t be sure the tall white men hear a thing an’ the proud bloke from the bow is doin’ some long hand-show with a bent turbaned bloke what’s jus’ slappin’ his palm again an’ again an’ makin’ eyes for his purse an’ all sudden I’s kickin’ down an’ in’t not ground under where he’s been pushed to an’ Bean slippin’ an’ Bean fallin’ an’ hits the water with a deep pooootsshh an’ then sound’s alls nonsense an’ nothings an’ the deeps getting’ deeper ‘cos in’t Bean swim a stroke an’ he can’t see nothing an’ thinks well that’s the history o’ me an’ alls an’ like jus’ givin’ up me ghost an’ alls ‘cos in’t nothing to be done an’ I’s wished as much since but it in’t the end o’ Bean jus’ yet god be damned ‘cos I’s fished up by one o’ the divin’ blacks what’s standin’ on hand to make the moorin’s an’ I’s flopped on the quay like some big gutted fish an’ they’s brings up alls the water out o’ Bean’s belly for his to hack an’ mutter ‘em clear so in’t no way to make intradictions but when I’s gets to me feet again there’s alls a crowd ringed ‘bout waitin’ for him to die to snatch his clothes off him an’ feed the body to the dogs most likely but as it happen Bean comes to an’ the first face he’s seeing when the dark fade is the bloke from the long-boat kneelin’ down at him an’ makin’ stern faces an’ he’s seen I’s skin at least at last an’ he’s makin’ alls these sharpish question ‘bout what a sinker think he doin’ ‘bout the docks an’ don’t I keeps a boat under me to keeps me afloat an’ I’s makes what noises I can muster not knowin’ what I’s sayin’ an’ tryin’ alls to make him see’s I’s really alls a able seaman an’ the like an’ he’s alls lookin’ high an’ monstrous ‘til Bean spits an’ spells out L-E-Y-D-E-N an’ then he’s all frownin’ a different frown an’ all an’ he ask if Bean can walk an’ I’s chokes out I’s able for anything what keeps me two feet under me an’ ‘bove water an’ he’s alls noddin’ an’ sayin’ there might justly be a place for me aboard B-A-T-A-V-I-A an’ from the flat o’ me back the birds is callin’ down to me an’ the sky all wide an’ don’t seem no ‘bove no more from where Bean is lyin’ you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D23]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F23]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E23]] </center></u>==> 24% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="E"> so Bean get his ration cup an’ his cask meat an’ legumes an’ eats where we sleeps most night if we in’t got no leave to be out on deck an’ if we in’t got no mind for the salty brine-meat they’s got on board sometimes we gets some o’ that dried white-fish what they put in stews with dried peas or on sticks like stock-fish but in’t there ‘nough water or stew in the bowl to crack your bisket after all that dry salt so I’s done cracked me teeth once or twice but in’t there half so many rats as yet as on the L-E-Y-D-E-N I s’pose but there weevils ‘nough in the biskets already to turn it like ‘em deutsch cheese so I’s learned to tap it ‘gainst the boards ‘fore I’s bite it an’ don’t Bean even get a man’s weak warm beer what washes it down with so Bos’n says I’s jus’ lucky we in’t headed out over the clear water what’s past the indies ‘cos he says out there is where ships crews go mad with the heat an’ emptiness o’ it all an’ run out all food an’ that an’ got chomp off the animal hide an’ wood shavin’s an’ rat droppin’s an’ the like ‘til they hit land but Bean done seen a crew gone more’n half mad an’ all an’ he been through ‘em horse-lattertudes one or two an’ ‘em roarin’ forties where we’s headed an’ all but in’t Bean tryin’ to hold nothin’ over bos’n an’ in’t Bean tryin to agitate what don’t need agitation so right ‘nough I in’t mention nothing to bos’n what I done seen an’ had done to me aboard L-E-Y-D-E-N but Bean done had hours ‘nough an’ all to rue what he in’t said an’ what he in’t done more’n what he done an’ said an’ beatin’ to rue for so now on in’t Bean let nothing seen nor said nor done go without report you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; they’s a rat’s nest on the B-A-T-A-V-I-A an’ Bean done said so hisself to hisself the day he stepped aboard an’ each an’ every day since ‘cos weren’t a steersman nor a sailer nor a soldier weren’t givin’ Bean the evils worse than ‘em white-grave heathens had it for him an’ makin’ theys talk ‘mongst ‘em what Bean didn’t hear ‘cos didn’t Bean raise a eye hand nor a word you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; but ‘em soldiers at least stay down in the orlops an’ ‘fore the mast an’ in’t no mixin’ ‘tween the sailers an’ the soldiers save for the skipper an’ shit-stain cabin-boys such as meself so in’t none either side o’ the deck nor the mast see nor hear everything but the skipper an’ what cabin-rats in’t got half a mind to fear you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D25]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F25]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E25]] </center></u>==> 22% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C23]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E23]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D23]] </center></u>==> 23% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C24]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E24]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D24]] </center></u>==> 22% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>In //Agra//, the men who are richest live mainly by money-lending, a practice which is not discreditable to Hindus, but only to Moslems (though indeed they do it commonly enough); and that certain profit comes before the gain of the enterprising merchant. All weights and measures in use here are two-fold, //Akbari// and //Jahangiri//, for the present King has raised weights, measures, and coins 20 per cent above his father's standards. Thus an //Akbari// ser weighs 30 pice, or 14 lb, and the //Jahangiri// ser is 36 pice, or 11 lb; the former maund is 50, and the latter, 60 lb. The //gaz// (Indian yard) varies in the same way; 100 //Akbari// gaz make 120 of our ells, the other in proportion. The coins used are rupees, but there are different kinds, viz. //khazana// (treasury) or Akbar's old coins, and //chalani// (current) which are the rupees struck during Jahangir’s reign in //Agra//. Then there are the siwai, which are equivalent to 1¼ rupees; and the //Jahangiri//, which weigh 20 per cent more than the khazana. All bargains are done in terms of the same series of units, either Akbari or Jahangiri. No goods are sold by measure as we sell grain etc., but everything is weighed by the maund.</p> <p> //SURAT// (latitude 24¼ degrees) is, owing to its situation, the chief seaport belonging to the King, though the city is 7 kos, or about 4 Holland miles, up the river, and all goods, both imports and exports, must be shipped and landed by boat. Three kos, or two miles, further eastwards, the English have found a convenient anchorage named //Swally//, where there is a sandbank, which is exposed at low water, and gives shelter at high tide, so that it is a desirable place for loading and unloading goods. From //Swally// goods can be brought by land on carts; this is much more expensive than sending them by boat, but the latter course is exceedingly dangerous, because the Malabar pirates can keep their small craft lying off the river's mouth without being observed, and capture whatever there is.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A23]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C23]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B23]] </center></u>==> 23% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="C"> Ariaen, at least, can give the semblance of secrecy. He says nothing the next morning in the Great Cabin as Pelseart dresses him down from behind his regular place at the head of the table, clearly nursing a sore head of his own. Ariaen, for his part, is clearly still drunk and sways in place like a stalk in the breeze while I look on impassively from Pelseart’s side of the table. I am merely a witness to the arraignment, among a short row of the ship’s other minor VOC officials sat at Pelseart’s side, since Ariaen claims he was alone with his woman for his ‘little jaunt’ the previous night. He protested he had been drunk, that he had had the sense not to drink aboard lest he lessen the men’s regard. However, the main issue the Captain took up was the commandeur’s maligning of Zwaantie, for it seemed the commandeur threatens him little more than the most toothless chidings. He had been charged to keep a civil tongue, and Pelseart swears to take a lash to his back for any further untoward behaviour – but the fool sees little enough what mutiny lurked in his Captain to lay him on the anvil proper. After what Pelseart called his ‘formal review’, Ariaen was dismissed without further disciplining, and he could hardly be seething more than I at this. Ariaen will not be swayed from broader rage now, nor turned to purpose other than to burn and sulk and wallow out of sight and swig rum with his whores. That very night he slips ashore on the yawl with his woman and does not return until the next morning, nor hear I any more brags nor a whisper how he cavorts ashore. The ship was all a-chatter of the clash nonetheless, encouraged by the gossip of our accomplices Zevanck and Isbrandtz, and myself of course, of Ariaen’s chidings from his Nemesis the commandeur. Of all things, Ariaen cannot abide diminishment. His repute amongst the men, that is his cross. He will not bear it, nor should he. He must be swung from sheer imagination. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B24]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D24]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C24]] </center></u>==> 21% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="C"> Even as we clear the harbour mouth and spy the rest of the ship crowded below the hulking mass of Table mountain, our hull is crowded round about by smaller craft as one. From dawn to dusk, one can hardly think for the constant chatter and tongue-clicks of beggars and Hottentot traders plying the men with fruit and screeching apes and the attentions of negroid whores to coax and coo at them through the cannon holes and beckon up to them while they catch and kiss at them below. There comes a knock on my cabin door on the first night, and on answering am I embraced by Ariaen, already drunk off the port stores bought off some Hottentot merchant, merry with landfall and seeking an accomplice. The commandeur having stepped ashore in search of cattle for the hold stores, it seems Ariaen’s wish to make a night of it and to commandeer the ship’s yawl along with a pair of flasks of some rich liquor that tastes rather like strong, stale sack. I am aggrieved that he should wish to bring his wench with us, though I suffer her in good enough grace as we descend into the rocking yawl and push off clear into the busy waters of the bay. It is Ariaen’s intention to make a round of the ships in port, so we make first for the Assendelft, Ariaen taking his moments between adjusting the canvas and ducking the swing of the arm to take great sucking gulps from the neck of his flask. As soon as we are helped aboard deck by the ship-hands, he begins to behave in a most atrocious manner, though neither I nor his whore can be said to hold him back much. Down in amongst some unfamiliar orlops, he launches himself amongst the sailors, slapping backs and making drunken boasts on rotten breath into their ears, begging drinks from their stores and then roaring out his rank in response to any protests. There are few who would be so familiar, and he exchanges fists as frequently as words. The man charges at every meeting head-on, a bullish, bruising manner clumsied further by so much drink. Best let him spend himself on the men. Let him have his havocs while Pelseart is at bay, think I. I will point him the way once the time comes, if I can. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B22]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D22]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C22]] </center></u>==> 23% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>The city is fairly well built, and is about two Holland miles in circumference. It has no walls, but ditches have been dug round it, provided gates round it with four gates on the land side. On the water front is a castle built of white coral rock, small in circuit, but well provided with guns and equipment; it is considered locally to be practically impregnable, but it could not withstand a determined siege for long. In order to strengthen it further, or to increase the artillery, they have constructed a platform on an inner high wall running round the fort, and covered it with beams and planks; here, on the upper tier, are placed more than 30 guns, but as a matter of fact this arrangement would make them like a mouse in a trap, for if the upper works were shot away, or breached, the whole platform must collapse and put the lower tier guns also out action.</p> <p>Formerly, when the coast was still unknown to the English, a very extensive trade was carried from //Surat// by the Moslems, but it has now fallen off greatly, and indeed is nothing compared to what was, because the chief seaports, which were recently so flourishing, have collapsed, some through war, others owing to other causes; //Ormuz, Mocha, Aden, Dabhol //and also the whole //Goa// coast, are idle, and do not know where to voyage; each is almost smothered in its own produce and there are no signs that any other place, country or seaport has benefited, though usually one country profits by the decay of another. All merchants, from whatever country they come, complain most bitterly. Portuguese Moslems and Hindus concur in putting the blame for this state of things entirely on the English and on us, saying that we are the scourges of the sea and of their prosperity. Often enough, if we notice any shortcoming, and blame them, or threaten them, for it, the leading merchants tell us they heartily wish we had never come to their country.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A24]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C24]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B24]] </center></u>==> 21% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>They are fanatical Moslems. It was their twelfth king who observed this creed, before King Akbar's General, Raja Bhagwan Das, overcame the country by craft and subtlety, the lofty mountains and difficult roads rendering forcible conquest impossible. The offtake of goods was incredible at the time when the city was governed by Khan Khanan or by Sultan Khurram, for Khurram was an active and powerful prince; he maintained a large standing army here against the Deccan, as it lies on the frontier; and he was always surrounded by an extensive Court. He was a patron of all craftsmen, to whom he paid such high wages that he attracted all the splendour of his father’s Court, for he was as greedy for novelties, costly jewels, and other rarities as Jahangir himself, and he paid more liberally, being sensible, and refusing to be guided, like his father, by his avaricious subordinates. He rebelled, however, because he thought his father had lived too long and, besides, he wished to displace his eldest brother Sultan Parwiz; but the rebellion failed, as can be read at length in the account I have written of the history of the country, and after his flight some of his territories, including //Burhanpur//, were assigned to Parwiz. The latter’s period of rule was very dull, for he was a man of poor spirit, aspiring to no state or display, and he was satisfied if he could get drunk every day, preferring to sleep by day and drink by night. Consequently, he pays no attention to the administration of the country, his troops are left unpaid, their numbers diminished, and their pay reduced, while the farms of the revenue of the villages and neighbouring country are increased. It is this which impoverishes the country and enriches the courtiers.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A22]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C22]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B22]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_red_sand_desert_landscape_eaecaa3a-5493-44b6-b60b-51ffe4b9c946.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E23]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A23]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F23]] </center></u>==> 22% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>None grow rich in the sea.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F23]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B23]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A23]] </center></u>==> 22% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="C"> When we leave the Assendelft Ariaen can hardly row, and the cooing mewls from his maid bitch at the rocking of the waves are enough to madden me, but he will not be persuaded and makes next for the Buren, where he behaves even worse, and then on again to the Sardam. It is not long before half the gunners aboard are ready to lynch him for his lechery and thieving mouth, and us with him, and it is only coercion from Zwaantie and my own stout direction that prevents it. Ariaen is quite insensate by now, and on returning to the yawl I wrest the oars from his grasp with little resistance. Make we our ragged way to many a ship and it is an age before we happen across the Batavia again quite by chance, and stow the yawl with the help of Isbrandtz and Zevanck, two Company bookkeepers who Ariaen slurs can be trusted absolutely. As we haul her up to deck on the ship’s winch, they remark that Pelseart has yet to return from his business onshore, but it scarcely matters. He will hear of the Captain’s cavortions right enough, for all we have become notorious aboard his other ships. Tongues cannot help but wag, mine least of all, and the fears in him will be set in motion. When Ariaen awakes from his stupor, the fantasy of command will be over. His hand will be forced, and when we take to sea again he will be ripe to rise. All things come, and all things come again. The readiness is all. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B23]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D23]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C23]] </center></u>==> 21% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>The spirit who bideth by himself</p><p>In the land of mist and snow.</p>//</center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F22]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B22]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A22]] </center></u>==> 24% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C25]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E25]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D25]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src="https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_billabong_with_red_sand_and_dead_grass_e2f788aa-9064-4960-820f-9e5f262b39af.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E25]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A25]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F25]] </center></u>==> 25% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C26]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E26]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D26]] </center></u>==> 24% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>The whine in the rigging.</p><p>The menace and caress of wave that breaks on water.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F25]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B25]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A25]] </center></u>==> 23% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>But why drives on that ship so fast,</p><p>Without wave or wind?</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F24]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B24]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A24]] </center></u>==> 24% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>Further, there is nothing to be bought in //Surat// (except at a loss to the Company), apart from a few //baftas// which are woven at //Navsari// and also at //Rander//. Absolutely no other merchandise is to be had in //Surat//, but much is brought there when the ships arrive, and we may be forced to purchase //baftas, candekins, chelas//, etc. retail, because we have not the money to buy these in //Broach// or //Ahmadabad// during the rains, unless in order to do so we should have to be constantly involved in debt for loans carrying interest.</p> <p>In describing these important places, I have omitted mention of many flourishing cities, partly because of their number, and partly because they have no trade which would interest the Company. Further, I have not attempted to specify the quantity of goods imported, transported, or sold in the country, because no accurate statement can be made, for in this country conditions differ greatly from year to year; a good harvest will create a demand from every village, while these civil wars are ruinous to trade, and everybody is afraid to employ his capital. I hope therefore that our employers will be so kind as to overlook this shortcoming, considering how reasonable it is, and also the omission to describe the methods of producing many drugs which are obtained in //Agra//, as well as in the mountains of //Parbet// and //Bhutan//, and in //Kashmir//. I have collected many samples of these drugs, but it will be best to have them identified, more certainly than I could do it, by druggists, herbalists, apothecaries, etc.</p> <p>The peasants, however, have now recognised that the produce, which was formerly cheap and in small demand, is wanted by as well as by the English, who are also beginning to buy, and, like monkeys, are eager to imitate whatever they see done by others.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A25]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C25]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B25]] </center></u>==> 25% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="C"> In each man is such an undiscovered continent, armed one against another. But comes there such fateful convergences where, from time to time, one or another will hove into view over the soul’s horizon, or drift close enough to skirt the shallows and pick out the minute dancing figures on another’s beaches, the curvature of mountains lush and valleys wild, and snatch at the caws of thought carried out by the offshore wind. Yet never ventures the foot of man on another’s soil. Never tastes he the springs of life’s-blood, never burrows he into its hidden seams of hope or despair. No man shall ever colonise the soul, presided over by God alone. Sundered He the world at Babel, and made us mysterious to each other. What words we throw up like tattered flags made He so much nonsense, lost us the language of demon and angel that can mate the mind and harmonise. Man and woman were created alien to one another, selves estranged in their own little worlds of special relevance. We can but build Pandaemonium in the depths of our Hell. Man was made to be commanded, and not to be understood. The commandeur nods to this, another late night we are left alone at table, not listening. In his head, I sense, is he always writing his own biography. Pelseart asks slurrily whether I might like to sit in his very chair one day, and I reply that only utter calamity would see me assume such duties so soon after becoming a Company man. Pelseart pats at my hand absent-mindedly, then asks whether I knew the true extent of the responsibilities of a man of our position. His attempt at sincerity amuses me, though I try not to show as much. He rises then, and beckons me to follow. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B26]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D26]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C26]] </center></u>==> 25% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Slimy things did crawl</p><p>Upon the slimy sea.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F26]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B26]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A26]] </center></u>==> 25% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>The land would give plentiful even extraordinary yield if the peasants were not so cruelly and pitilessly oppressed; for villages which, owing to some small shortage of produce, are unable pay the full amount the revenue-farm, are made prize, so to speak, by their their masters governors, and wives and children sold, on the pretext of a charge of rebellion. Some peasants abscond to escape their tyranny, and take refuge with rajas who are in rebellion, and consequently the fields lie empty and unsown, and grow into wildernesses. Such oppression is exceedingly prevalent in this country.</p> <p>I have often ventured to ask great lords what is their true object in being so eager to amass their treasures, when what they have gathered is of no use to them or their family. Their answers have been based on the emptiest worldly vanity, for they say that it is a very great and imperishable reputation if it is generally known, or the official records show, that such a man has left an estate worth so much. In reply I have urged that it would be possible to win a greater reputation for time and eternity, if, seeing that their friends and relations could expect no enjoyment from their wealth, they would share it with the poor, who in this country are in hundreds of thousands, or indeed innumerable, and would banish outside their doors all oppression, injustice, excessive pomp, chicanery, and similar practices, whereby they have nothing to hope for in the future, but very much to fear. When I have urged such arguments, they have closed the discussion by saying that it is just the custom of the country.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A26]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C26]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B26]] </center></u>==> 30% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>As a rule they have three to four wives, the daughters of worthy men, but the senior wife commands most respect. All live together in the enclosure surrounded by high walls, which is called the //mahal//, having tanks and gardens inside. Each wife has separate apartments for herself and her slaves, of which there may be 10, or 20, or 100, according to her fortune. Each has a regular monthly allowance for her expenditure. Jewels and clothes are provided by the husband according to the extent of his affection. Their food comes from one kitchen, but each wife takes it in her own apartments; for they hate each other secretly, though they seldom or never allow it to be seen, because their desire retain to the favour of their husband, whom they fear, honour and worship, as a god rather than a man. Each night he visits particular wife, or //mahal//, and receives a very warm welcome from her and from the slaves, who, dressed specially for the occasion, seem to fly, rather than run, about their duties. If it is the hot weather, they undress the husband as soon as he comes in, and rub his body with pounded sandalwood and rosewater, or some other scented and cooling oil. Fans are kept going steadily in the room, or in the open air, where they usually sit. Some of the slaves chafe the master’s hands and feet, some sing, or play music and dance, or provide other recreation, the wife sitting near him the time. They study night and day how make exciting perfumes and efficacious preserves such //mosseri// or //falonj//, containing amber, pearls, gold, opium and other stimulants; but these are mostly for their own use, for they eat them occasionally in the day-time, because they produce a pleasant elevation of the spirit. In the cool of the evening they drink a great deal of wine, for the women learn the habit quickly from their husbands, and drinking has become very fashionable the last few years. The husband sits like a golden cock among the gilded hens until midnight, or until passion, or drink, sends him bed. Then if one of the pretty slave girls takes his fancy, he calls her to him and enjoys her, his wife not daring to show any signs of displeasure, but dissembling, though she will take it out of the slave girl later on.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A31]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C31]]</div> <center> [[Continue->Harem]] </center></u>==> 29% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="C"> Nothing is sealed. The heat of the hold has burst the casks’ stoppers and leaked the beer and rum and wine all to swill together in the ship’s belly. The beetles and rats gnaw into the stores and every hour is sent a mate or cabin boy down into the depths to plug a new leak that they have worn and worried through the hull in their hunger. These rough planks cannot hold their contents. Untied and united, spill we all out through the walls, between the decks, permeating the fetid air that reigns between. Mingle we in our closeness, thoughts swelling up the porous wood and dripping through the tarred cracks to pool together and ignite. Reach we into the armoury and weapon stores, the hold and gun deck and Grand Cabin. Sit we at the Captain’s table and the bilges and atop each spar and mast. And we will not be contained nor drained away. This frail vessel cannot separate minded men by wood and iron, nor keep them from spilling out one into another in voice and deed, nor stifle out the ocean with its stupendous voice, its will and patience to invade. Drip, drop. We wax we into the elsewhere. Despite our efforts, we will not be contained. Who gives authority over worldly matter but the Lord? What decree can Pelseart make upon us but of his own invention. For the faithful, the only God speaks within them. Is them. Subservience is but sacrilege. Not but one Man did God create. No equal nor equivalent. Strength is knowing. Power is revealing, and in knowing when and where. God the omniscient sees all, hears all. Thus only is He God. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B30]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D30]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C30]] </center></u>==> 30% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>To Night and her children gave they names. Morning named they and midday, afternoon and evening, to reckon up in years.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F31]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B31]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A31]] </center></u>==> 28% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="C"> I make a balm of idleness, spending my hours seeking out scurrying vermin in my underclothes and popping them with a thumbnail to loose tiny gouts of my own blood into their seams. Join we all in the lousing-deck by the latrines once a week to have to be denuded, but every week they resurge and must be culled, again and again. The men have fetched up the corpses of so many rats and cockroaches fetched up from the bilges for a tot or two of rum per score or hundred. My cabin walls are close, strangulating. It must be at sea. And so it must be soon. Even our Captain cannot now tell when we may strike upon the East and be undone. The tides do not turn themselves. Yet I cannot see how to guide them all to exchange. We are in so deep, if we sink we shall not surface. The men Ariaen has recruited are a sordid lot. The boatswain Jan Evertsz is among the first to involve himself, along with those clerks Zevanck and Isbantsz who aided us at port, and Lance Corporal van Huyssen, a jonkers born above even myself, who has pretensions to a ruined nobility, being, I believe, of the Gederland Van Huyssens and their impoverished estate. He is amongst the soldiers under Lance-Corporal Pietersz, a great blunt block of a man they call the Stone-Cutter, whom Ariaen trusts implicitly, and they together point out those to us in the gun-deck who harbour the same rank hatred for the Company. More men come to our meetings below decks each dead of night, and still more and more. Share they all a glint for gold in one eye, and revenge in the other. With Pietersz, the boatswain and Captain, the disgruntled Company clerks approached by myself and soldier cadets and small retinue of excitable cabin boys with appetites equal to any new mischief, we reach into every corner and cranny of the Batavia. We probe, we tangle and cajole and rope together so many disparate and dissatisfied souls. None but the Captain and myself know who and how many have already been implicated. All we need do is gather, and be ready. And the time will soon be ripe. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B29]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D29]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C29]] </center></u>==> 29% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>This gaudy blabbing and remorseless day</p><p>Is crept into the bosom of the sea.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F30]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B30]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A30]] </center></u>==> 29% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="D"> I can make still less of ZWAANTIE’s doing, for as often as I require her I find her errant, or lax with drink and mindlessness; no doubt she secrets herself afore the mast when she thinks I might not miss her, there to carouse with the crew. A week or less from the Cape was I distressed to hear my cabin filled with feral yowlings upon returning from dinner in the Great Cabin, and inside found I my maid with a the surgeon’s razor held to the face of the lame little mouser who had kept some small company for me and the crew; on my demands for her meaning at this she merely claimed she was trimming the poor thing’s whiskers, which she did show me diced upon my desk, with the stubs now whittled down to the bloody fur; I bid ZWAANTIE clear my desk at once of whiskers and chided her most extremely at this foolishness, and although I did set the mouser loose again I find it frequently now having transfixed itself in between planks and in the bolt-holes of the ship and must find and dislodge it when I hear its panicked clattering and mewling through the chambers beyond my little cabin. You know I have not shared a bed in many years; I scarce can remember when I had companionship a-night, and certainly no bedfellows so execrable as my maid, for much as I would wish to have the night at least to my own she does constantly roll and moan in her sleep; not to mention which – ah, you could hardly imagine even should this doomed letter reach you – I have been wakened many times in the night by such unseemly tremors from ZWAANTIE’s end of the cot it was all I could muster not to hurl the strumpet from her sheets and cast her down with the grauw where such urges belong. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C30]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->T10]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D30]] </center></u>==> 28% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Far away into the sickly light, faintest sunlights flee.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F29]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B29]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A29]] </center></u>==> 28% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="D"> I was astonished upon receipt of such intelligence, and made much further enquiries into the specifics of such as related to Captain JACOBSZ, though he could make nothing of them himself during his brief sojourn aboard the Batavia, being likewise engaged in a dozen such duties and exchanges to be completed before his own return to port – thus have I little more understanding than I possessed before, and many more questions; might it perhaps be that the Company envoy meant simply that there was no report of any slavers under the VOC by your name and title, rather than your proper trade in gems to which you have, I hope, reverted. Oh, I have glimpsed so many wretched devils lining the docks and making fare across the water from hold to hold, and little though I liked your posting, I did hope in my idle way that you might find sufficient success elsewhere to trade in gems again, and not in bodies. I am loath to think of you disporting yourself under another title – or am I to believe my husband to have found some new and obliging wife amongst the Natives?– I would have you safe otherwise, and have prayed for some news awaiting me when we next make port – but I may only hope, and worry that you have not sent word overland to Amsterdam before news of my departure could reach you; that you have fled the port to return home again. It would be a bitter irony indeed to think of our messages passing each other, invisible on the road that bears us both to opposite ends of the globe again, but thus is ever the trial of marriage and the duty dread of every wife to guess afar at her husband’s intentions, in faith and privation. Write I still, as you may see, in hope, in faith, for myself, that someday I may present myself and my journey in so much ink and paper as proofs for your perusal, that my love and life exist, if only in saying so. Thus, if you will permit me, to continue my account of this most extraordinary and bewildering passage – </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C29]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E29]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D29]] </center></u>==> 29% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>This is a short sketch of the life of these poor wretches, who, in their submissive bondage, may be compared to poor, contemptible earthworms, or to little fishes, which, however closely they may conceal themselves, are swallowed up by the great monsters of a wild sea. Now we shall write a little of the manner of life of the great and rich, but, in order to do so, we must entirely change our tune; the pen which has described bitter poverty, clothed with the woeful garment of sighs, the foe of love, friendship and happiness, but the friend of loneliness wet with the daily dew of tears – that pen must entirely change its style and tell that in the palaces these lords dwells all the wealth there is, wealth which glitters indeed, but is borrowed, wrung from the sweat of the poor. Consequently their position is as unstable as the wind, resting on no firm foundation, but rather on pillars of glass, resplendent in the eyes of the world, but collapsing under the stress of even a slight storm.</p> <p>Their //mahals// are adorned internally with lascivious sensuality, wanton and reckless festivity, superfluous pomp, inflated pride and ornamental daintiness, while the servants of the lords may justly be described as a generation of iniquity, greed and oppression, for, like their masters, they make hay while the sun shines. Sometimes while the nobles think they are exalted to a seat in heaven, an envious report to the King may cast them down to the depths of woe. Very few of them, however, think of the future, but they enjoy themselves to the uttermost while they can. </p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A30]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C30]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B30]] </center></u>==> 27% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="D"> <p>MY DEAR HUSBAND –</p> We are only lately departed from the African Cape, having put in at Table Bay for resupply and refitting of our ship, I having much anticipated putting in at port over the past several months, being eager to make delivery of such copious cogitations as I had opportunity to make note of during my nights at cabin – oh, that you might have a chance to see the product of my labours, for by the hour of its delivery my attempted missive had indeed grown to such monstrous lengths and proportion by virtue of my own shameless prolixity. Yet I could find no land-bourne carrier willing to speed it to you by horse, and received only further jibes and unseemly propositions for my pains to send it your way during my day ashore. Alas, I do not believe you may ever lay eyes on my opus, though this is no substantial loss I grant you, it had ever sustained me in the whimsy of my reflections that such longhanded expurgation would find its understanding in your heart, if none other’s; but during our stay in port did I receive news from the Sardam, the other vessels of Hr. PELSEART’s fleet having arrived in the bay some days prior and already made receipt of a great variety of goods and visitors from the mainland in lieu of the Batavia’s more esteemed passengers, and accordingly did the Captain send word upon our anchorage that he did receive from a Javanese envoy, of late arrival himself keeping the offices of the VOC on the Cape, and he having made enquiries into their Batavian officers on my behalf was astonished that the delegate could report no such officer by the name VAN DER MIJLEN at the port, or on the island as whole. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C28]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E28]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D28]] </center></u>==> 28% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>They know little of the taste of meat. For their monotonous daily food they have nothing but a little //khichri//, made of green pulse mixed with rice, which is cooked with water over a little fire until the moisture has evaporated, and eaten hot with butter in the evening; in the day time they munch a little parched pulse or other grain, which they say suffices for their lean stomachs.</p> <p>Their houses are built of mud with thatched roofs. Furniture there is little or none, except some earthenware pots to hold water and for cooking, and two beds, one for the man, the other for his wife; for here man and wife do not sleep together, but the man calls his wife when he wants her in the night, and when he has finished she goes back to her own place or bed.</p> <p>Peons or servants are exceedingly numerous in this country, for everyone – be he mounted, soldier, merchant, or king’s official – keeps as many as his position and circumstances permit. Outside the house, they serve for display, running constantly before their master’s horse; inside, they do the work of the house, each knowing his own duties. The //tziurewardar// attends only to his horse, the //bailwan//, or carter, to his cart and oxen, the //farrash//, or tent-pitcher, attends to his tent on the way. There are many more servants in the crowd, whom it would take too long to enumerate; in the houses of the great lords each servant confines himself strictly to his own duties, and it is like life on the Portuguese ships, where the chief boatswain, if he saw the foremast fall overboard, would not disgrace himself by going forward or on to the forecastle, though he could save the mast by doing so.</p> <p>For this slack and lazy service the wages are paid by the Moguls only after large deductions, for most of the great lords reckon 40 days to the month, and pay from 3 to 4 rupees for that period; while wages are often left several months in arrears, and then paid in worn-out clothes or other things. If, however, the master holds office or power, the servants are arrogant, oppressing the innocent, and sinning on the strength of their master’s greatness. Very few of them serve their master honestly; they steal whatever they can; if they buy only a pice-worth of food, they will take their share or dasturi. The masters sometimes know this very well, but they suppose it is paid by the poor, and not out of their pockets; in this, however, they are mistaken, because the commission is always taken into account in the sale. Otherwise it would be impossible for the servants to feed themselves and their families on such low wages; and accordingly their position and manner of life differs very little from that of the workman in the wealth of their poverty.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A29]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C29]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B29]] </center></u>==> 29% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="E"> I’s spendin’ time in the surgeon’s quarters on gun-deck where’s hardly room for three blokes standin’ what Bean bein’ only half an’ all what with cluttered ‘bout by saws an’ chests an’ black razors an’ the like ‘cos the surgeon lets me watch as he cuts the men an’ trims their beards an’ pull ‘em bad black teeth an’ all an’ I sweeps up after him an’ holds ‘em big basterds down with him when surgeon got to cut an’ all an’ take the bleedin’-pot to the gunnals at days end an’ tip all ‘em sailers blood down to ‘em sharks followin’ us ‘cos theys got to feed an’ all surgeon say an’ right ‘nough I thinks but I’s learnin’ an’ all ‘cos the surgeon a right gent an’ makes pretty talk all while he’s rootin’ ‘bout ‘side the mens an’ all ‘bout what he’s up to an’ I listens right well for Bean have a mind to put to work once he’s back on the right side o’ the world where a lad can put his hand to better things an’ all than sweepin’ sailers hairs an’ pickin’ lice an’ all so I asks surgeon things I’s wond’rin’ sometimes an’ he ansers all patient an’ all even when it’s all bully an’ the simple anser make Bean feel all simple too like when I asks him whether he know any way bring a man back to life when he’s done gone dead an’ he says not as he knows right ‘nough nor if he knows any way to make a woman’s clock-work go all like the gunners say they powder fingers give whores all the wink an’ giggle an’ make ‘em right an’ ripe for tumblin’ an’ the surgeon laughs an’ says I’s better ask the under-merchant that if I’s get the chance as he’s a pothecary an’ a right honourable sort on land an’ all an’ I says the under-merchant scares me not alike any o’ the roughest sort in the gunners decks an’ he nods like he knows I’s point an’ keep workin’ an’ his head down an’ don’t look up a while so I’s ask why honourable folk come to sea an’ make sea-men o’ ‘emselfs when I meself in’t wish it for the world an’ the surgeon laugh again an’ say why indeed like he know somethin’ what I don’t an’ I s’pose right ‘nough he do so I asks whether I could make a ship’s barber any how an’ he says every ship got have one or two an’ all an’ it might as well be Bean if in’t no one else goin’ hold a blade steady ‘cos in’t no man willin’ to take a blade to his own throat ‘cos the in’t go the heart where it come to there own blood an’ I’s s’pose the surgeon right too an’ I goes ‘bout me works down the cow-decks thinkin’ on that an’ feelin’ right cheerful ‘nough at the possibles an’ I’s out o’ me own head again an’ no mistake but in’t no puttin’ meself in no one else’s you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; the sea the real white man’s grave an’ blacks an’ that too for that matter ‘cos the surgeon done lost five men since port so he says to the sweatin’ sickness an’ the bloody flux that come down on us all from too long at see an’ the surgeon says I’s best keep out o’ the bad air below decks an’ to keep up in the fresh air as best I can an’ not to have too good o’ the salt-meat an’ all but that’s his thinkin’ I got any say in the matter you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; they’s layed up in his galley what can’t be cured with ‘em horrible breath an’ all bleedin’ gums an’ that shoutin’ they’s needs curin’ an’ it’s the surgeon what tries an’ fails an’ each try he got to wrap the poor basterds up tight in sail-cloth with bags o’ sand so as the sharks won’t get to ‘em ‘fore they’s sink an’ he’s the one what carries ‘em up on deck after-wards an’ do a word or two over their cloth-bodies ‘cos in’t the cap’n nor the commadore join the ceremonies for fear o’ they’s catch the sweat ‘emselfs an’ in’t the other men like the surgeon an’ every man o’ the mast what he fails to save makes ‘em hate him alls the more an’ when theys dumped in the drink in’t no one say their name after that but they’s look side-ways t’wards him an’ all an’ I hears ‘em grumble at night when theys all eatin’ up-stairs an’ we’s alone on gun-deck with our vittles’ but I in’t say the surgeon nothing what ‘em other sailers sayin’ ‘cos I’s wantin’ him to like me an’ keep me on an’ in’t no place there for Bean gettin’ mixed up in ‘em says-so an’ in’t no way makin’ him see you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D30]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F30]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E30]] </center></u>==> 27% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>Ordinary questions of divorce, quarrels, fights, threats and the like, are the hands the //Kotwal// and the //Kazi//. One must indeed be sorry for the man who has come to judgment before these godless ‘un-judges’; their eyes are bleared with greed, their mouths gape like wolves for covetousness, and their bellies hunger for the bread of the poor; everyone stands with hands open to receive, for no mercy or compassion can be had except on payment of cash. This fault should not be attributed to judges or officers alone, for the evil is a universal plague; from the least to the greatest, right up to the King himself, everyone is infected with insatiable greed, so that if one has any business to transact with Governors or in palaces, he must not set about it without ‘the vision of angels’, for without presents he need expect very little answer to his petitions. Our Honourable Employers need not deign to be surprised at this, for it is the custom of the country.</p> <p>The Governors are usually bribed by the thieves to remain inactive, for avarice dominates manly honour, and, instead of maintaining troops, they fill and adorn their mahals with beautiful women, and seem to have the pleasure house of the whole world within their walls. I shall now try and describe them as far as is possible, as well as the poverty of the people at large.</p> <p>The manner of life of the rich in their great superfluity and absolute power, and the utter subjection and poverty of the common people – poverty so great and miserable that the life of the people can be depicted or accurately described only as the home of stark want and the dwelling-place of bitter woe. Nevertheless, the people endure patiently, professing that they do not deserve anything better; and scarcely anyone will make an effort, for a ladder by which to climb higher is hard to find, because a workman 's children follow no occupation other than that of their father, nor can they inter-marry with any other caste.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A28]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C28]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B28]] </center></u>==> 28% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="E"> so in’t more’n a score o’ women on board I gets from the other boys an’ they the soldiers wives an’ daughters an’ in’t hardly a dame spare or none but’s reserved by ‘em’s as higher up the chain an’ in’t Bean have half a crack at a woman neither he in’t glimpse out his eye while he’s scrubbin’ an’ that an’ I’s in’t fool ‘nough to think I could neither in’t no call for tryin’ as any man’s as his property will be havin’ Bean balls an’ all an’ in’t it in Bean disposition neither to end up like ‘em two gunners what the bos’n done sown up in a sail-cloth an’ chucked over-board for cavortin’ below decks so to speak or so says one o’ the other boys but in’t Bean know what he meant that they’s not allowed to do it in the stern ‘cos in’t nothing we can do there anyhows but as I say it in’t in me you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; not to cause no trouble where it in’t needed nor give none o’ the ladies no hard time by it if it were up to me while lil’ else in’t but I’s content meself anights with meself so to speak an’ in’t get no intrest save what I’s granted in meself own body an’ head so to speak an’ makin’ do with what Bean can make inside work so to speak which in’t got nothing to do with station nor the mat I sleepin’ on nor the ship or the whole world ‘bout it an’ in’t o’ no bisness to no one but meself you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I’s already told I did think sometimes an’ again o’ cap’n Bean an’ in the fit o’ it did I see the bos’n clapped up all in irons an’ thrown in the drink an’ that glozey ol’ under-merchant in the bargain save ‘cept for the manacles for him so he’s stay afloat long ‘nough for the sharks to come an’ tug him down an’ gnash him up but in’t Bean ever harmed even a fly in wakin’ life an’ in’t no one got directed to hurt but in me dreams an’ they’s deserves it by the turns they done him worse an’ worser an’ in wakin’ life too an’ all you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; but in’t a soul fixin’ to hear Bean burble on an’ on ‘bout this an’ that an’ nothing at all so I’s not to share these you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I’s keeps meself to meself that’s mine own an’ all an’ I keeps what I’s got to say all locked up like silver in a cask but in’t that mean the silver in’t there it mean it in’t it for the likes o’ me company to see it nor touch it neither but it do exist the silver inside an’ like I say I got it locked up an’ I keeps the key an’ only I knows what I keeps in it you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D29]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F29]]</div> <center> [[Continue->Surgeon]] </center></u>==> 27% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>It deepens like a coastal shelf.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F28]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B28]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A28]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/progress_image_100_19c303fc-9219-490d-8336-05dd77936a1d.webp?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E30]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A30]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F30]] </center></u>==> 26% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>It is the practice of the King, or rather of his wife, to give rapid advancement and promotion to any soldier, however low his rank, who has carried out orders with credit, or has displayed courage in the field. On the other hand, a very small fault, or a trifling mistake, may bring a man to the depths of misery or to the scaffold, and consequently everything in the kingdom is uncertain. Wealth, position, love, friendship, confidence, everything hangs by a thread. Nothing is permanent, yea, even the noble buildings — gardens , tombs , or palaces, – which, in and near every city, one cannot contemplate without pity or distress because of their ruined state. For in this they are to be despised above all the laziest nations of the world, because they build them with so many hundreds of thousands, and yet keep them in repair only so long as the owners live and have the means. Once the builder is dead, no one will care for the buildings; the son will neglect his father’s work, the mother her son’s, brothers and friends will take no care for each other’s buildings; everyone tries, as far as possible, to erect a new building of his own, and establish his own reputation alongside that of his ancestors. Consequently, it may be said that if all these buildings and erections were attended to and repaired for a century, the lands of every city, and even village, would be adorned with monuments; but as a matter of fact the roads leading to the cities are strewn with fallen columns of stone.</p> <p>As regards the laws, they are scarcely observed at all, for the administration is absolutely autocratic, but there are books of law, which are in charge of their lawyers, the //Kazis//. Their laws contain such provisions as hand for hand, eye for eye, tooth for tooth; but who will excommunicate the Pope? And who would dare to ask a Governor ‘Why you rule us this way or that way? Our Law orders thus.’ The facts are very different, although in every city there is a kachahri, or royal court of justice, where the Governor, the //Diwan//, the //Bakhshi//, the //Kotwal//, the //Kazi//, and other officers sit together daily, or four days in the week. Here all disputes are disposed of, but not until avarice has had its share. All capital cases such thefts, murders, or crimes are finally disposed of by the Governor, if the criminals are poor and unable pay, and the sweepers drag them out to execution with very little ceremony. In the case of other offences, the criminals are seldom or never executed; their property is merely confiscated for the Governor and //Kotwal//. </p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A27]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C27]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B27]] </center></u>==> 26% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C27]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E27]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D27]] </center></u>==> 26% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Alone, alone, all, all alone,</p><p>Alone</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F27]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B27]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A27]] </center></u>==> 27% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="E"> the ship got isself a hedge-preacher o’ a watery sort what we done never had to deal with on L-E-Y-D-E-N what with all ‘em prayers on deck every mornin’ an’ comin’ down ‘mongst us boys when we’s tryin’ to scrub to ‘scape a whippin’ an’ takin’ us by hands an’ eyes an’ askin’ whether we’s baptised an’ all an’ Bean see he been baptised right ‘nough but he in’t say it were by sea-water an’ bein’ dragged by a sail-cloth ‘cos bos’n thought he done stole two potatoes an’ besides in’t Bean mind ‘em long prayin’s half so much as ‘em other sailers ‘cos he able to stand still an’ all ten twenty minites a day an’ in’t no chore to ignore what ‘em long burblin’ words what the preacher speak nor any good thing on this earth but what Bean find in his own head while he talkin’ an’ besides Bean like the preacher well ‘nough him bein’ a fair sort for havin’ time for us boys an’ all but in’t we pay no more mind to him than what bos’n say ‘cos in’t no mindin’ no power higher than him an’ in’t no more good savin’ us souls than ‘em dirty heathens what’s shit in they soup to thicken it which-ever ways the B-A-T-A-V-I-A takin’ the lot o’ us you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; in’t no ownin’ o’ your own when the rod down ‘cos in’t a man got a job but we’s all responsible down to the cow-deck an’ below so the bos’n says as we’s a crew an’ in’t a man o’ us own a bisket but what we’s allowed at jan company an’ in’t we see a spot o’ silver but we’s allowed that too but in’t the VOC own a rope but a man o’ the mast pull it an’ in’t a man o’ the mast own a bisket but he what eats it an’ all so in’t no nickin’ from the stores but you’s nickin’ from your self an’ no strikin’ o’ the crew but you’s strikin’ your self you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; in’t no man can strike a crew or no VOC neither an’ in’t a crew strike at the VOC but it strikes at it self first an’ make it one an’ same by strikin’ an’ don’t I’s pretend to follows what the bos’n say least not to me own self yet he talk an’ the men what hears an’ understands know plenty ‘nough to nod as they’s one man an’ the crew what don’t understand in’t one to strike but be stricken or so the bos’n say or seem to say but I’s in’t make use o’ me tung to ask or anser but I’s best be understandin’s an’ not understood or so I sees it you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D28]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F28]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E28]] </center></u>==> 27% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="C"> The crew too will be turned, in their turn. Anyone dissenting dispatched, anyone unwilling destroyed. The VOC will brook nothing for insubordinates, and hunt us down to a man without pardon or release. There is riches in the hold beyond the takings of a thousand lifetimes, yet Ariaen pays it little thought. He would as soon have Pelseart’s head on a pike, and an utter command of the vessel for his pains. He would have those rutter charts by which Jan Company guards its route to Eastern plums only to tear them all to shreds and scatter them to the gannets. Without them we are unlikely to see another port. But he cares not. Where Pelseart’s mind is of silver, Jacobsz’ is only pig-iron and powder. Ariaen knows the soldiers in our orlops are not armed until safely in their garrison on Java. Their weapons all are kept under lock in the stern armoury, to which we must have access if the ship is to be stormed. Once seized by force, those passengers unwilling to cooperate in all things will be turned overboard, with the exception, under Araien’s insistence, of her ladyship Ms. Jans. We will find likely confederates among the orlops and arms-holds themselves, for the Batavia is hardly the vessel she was in Amsterdam. She seethes now with discontent, with multiplying vermin and fatigue, and new things breed that never see the sun. Ariaen and I make our plans, slowly, as the Batavia surges through the rough waters of the Cape. He shares such excitable plots as must have been dreamed up by his wench, so full of guile and rushed subtleties. Must I persuade her through him not to pour the surgeon’s lye into Pelseart’s soup, or to chop cat’s-whiskers into the commanduer’s stew to bloody his stomach. Weakening the man for shame will accomplish nothing, for the ship will only be taken utterly by force. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B28]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D28]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C28]] </center></u>==> 26% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="E"> ; the ship bein’ at sea so long an’ hot an’ all I’s knows the water as was left was getting’ right green with the heat an’ slimy ‘nough an’ hot ‘nough to steam strait out the hold an’ three pints horrible or not in’t ‘nough to quench a salt-thirst so the other men say an’ so I s’pose I did agree at the time as was all’s our feelin’ at the time an’ all since seemed each night there a fight over who’s water been nicked by whose or whatever you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; ‘cos in’t nought else doin’ anyway half the time an’ while I’s scrubbin’ an’ runnin’ ‘bout in’t nothing half the men got do besides brag each other over dice an’ make gossip an’ catch the fair one for the sake o’ a hoot an’ all with forfeit tar-dung smeared on the loser by all o’ us an’ me included not that Bean want no part but skipper says we’s all included in it you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; like this one eve like zevank done called out one o’ the gunners that he done nicked a pint an’ a half o’ water an’ a bit o’ his salt meat besides an’ in’t matter the gunner done said he in’t seen nothing or don’t zevank give no cause one way or the other but keep repeatin’ you done it din’t’cha you done it you fat an’ greedy sack an’ everyone on deck see where it goin’ an’ we all lookin’ now ‘cos in’t zevank let a pint an’ a half an’ some salt meat go without a catch so to speak an’ the gunner who don’t none o’ us know from adam got catch a fair one or a fair one gone catch him you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; an’ already the half o’ us watchin’ puttin’ down bread wager on zevank ‘cos they seen him take all sorts by the neck soldiers an’ cabin boys an’ gunners an’ all besides an’ in’t no getting’ him down again once he start on you goin’ you done it he done it in’t he lads an’ theys squarin’ up close an’ all in the below decks an’ the gunner got the look o’ un-willingness you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; he in’t s’posed to catch a fair one now but in’t no changin’ the matter now an’ zevank take his swat what damn near take the gunner’s ear off an’ his head hit the main-mast an’ he down jus’ like that an’ those as thick ‘nough to front bread on him are forkin’ it over an’ the bos’n an’ one or two others debatin’ if it were ‘nough o’ a scrap for a gunner who in’t got a name no one know to bear a forfit or no an’ theys askin’ after the dung-bucket an’ all but in’t it ‘bout an’ ‘fore I goes to fetch it they says nah an’ we goes back to our meal with the gunner lyin’ a lil’ lower an’ the pint an’ a half forgotten an’ all </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D27]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F27]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E27]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_west_australian_coastal_landscape_f32693fe-432c-4528-93f1-47497eb406c6.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E27]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A27]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F27]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_west_australian_coastal_landscape_0aa3257b-c53a-4fb9-9a11-9be7ca307bc9.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E29]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A29]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F29]] </center></u>==> 26% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="C"> The commandeur stumbles often against the rocking of the ship and I must steady him until we reach the door of his cabin. Within, he lights a candle the better to display the sumptuous station afforded a commadore of the fleet, and leads me to a smart varnished box by the side of his tall canopied bedstead. A small key about Pelseart’s neck opens the lid, and on his drawing aside the thin sheath of blue satin below am I greeted by the face of a heathen prince carved by relief into a great polished agate stone and set in a gold frame studded about by still more jewels. Such ‘toys’, Pelseart confides to me breathily, had been brought aboard without the inspection of the Company’s High and Mighty Seventeen, and would fetch the year’s revenue of a hundred smallholdings once delivered to the court of the Mogul Emperors. This Great Cameo, he says, was once the property of Constantine the Great and had been engraved by Boudaen’s in Amsterdam. There was also in his holdings a huge vase carved from a single block of agate-stone that had once been owned by Rubens, gold chains and sacks of balas-rubies and emeralds besides, as well as several ornate muskets of the Venetian kind kept aboard outside the hold of the general armoury. All of these would reach a pretty sum if brought to port undeclared, so he says. At the commandeur’s bedside lies a thick printed tome new-bound in calfskin, and as he talks I leaf through its frontispiece to alight on an engraving of a puffy-faced and self-satisfied poet opposite an inscription in blank verse. The commandeur asks if I did not read the English language, and I reply that I did indeed, it being one of precious few skills that had marked me out for a merchant’s post. But he only shakes his head haughtily at this, and says that I had not read nor heard the island language truly yet, and begs me borrow the book for my perusal during my idle hours, but that Imust return it upon reaching port, for it had cost him three guilders from a London book-merchant, and was worth its weight in flesh, so he says with a smile. I have it at a corner of my own small desk now. Perchance I shall peruse this English poet later, if only to burn up the hours in practising my verse. Even the Devil can quote scripture, for his purposes. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B27]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D27]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C27]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_west_australian_coastal_landscape_d3433b5d-dc24-4ebc-8445-50795edaf782.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E28]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A28]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F28]] </center></u>==> 30% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="C"> Pelseart is not at dinner not three nights out from the Cape, nor at breakfast the following morning. The rumour sweeps the ship, stern to bow, and rebounds. By the time it recirculates, I have had it confirmed to me by the Captain. Our commandeur is taken ill, the shaking sickness that has descended on him and so many of the crew after we pulled away from the White Man’s Grave, and is sickening still. It is hardly known whether he will last the voyage. Sawbones tends to him now in his quarters, and sends he for me after a day or two in seclusion. He is laid in his cot when I am called up to see him, his voice thin and reedy in the dark of his broad cabin unlit by any candle, the only light from the high windows caught by the sheen of sweat adorning his brow. All attendants have left him, whether dismissed out of fear of contamination or abandoned out sheer fear of infection, and I think even he believes he has brought this on his own head by his dissolute and craven ways. I imagined perhaps the commandeur wished to convey some important direction on the handling of the crew, which I might readily have ignored, but rather the commandeur uses my appearance at his cabin to wax lyrical on his exploits in India in his bullfrog voice, and to explain his plans for more westerly plantations of dye crops soon to be presented to the VOC. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B31]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D31]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C31]] </center></u>==> 30% ==> April, 1629. <== <span class="D"> The surgeon, Hr. JANSZ, has not been my companion for a week or more, and our table is the poorer for his absence and the commandeur’s, for have stood both of their seats quite empty these dozen meals, and Hr. CORNELIESZ has it that his superior is at this hour laid low by some unknowable malady, the surgeon being thus forced to abandon his regular duties to attend him day and night. Hr. BASTIENSZ prays hourly for our Captain, and as we bowed our heads I may confess I did pray as ardently for Hr. PELSEART’s recuperation as any of the souls at table, for in his absence have Hrs. CORNELIESZ and JACOBSZ been making such tyranny of the service as if they seem quite unafraid and confident in possession of the table and so, I am confided, the entirety of the ship in his absence. They make such raucous conversation, calls of wine and unabashed abuses of the service and cabin boys that the atmosphere of the evenings is quite sullied, the Captain becoming more and more besotted of drink than even the commandeur and more boastful and violent with each passing day, and much abuse is made of their better in his absence, in terms of his illness and manner of command that it seems that they wish make believe that he is perished entirely. Hr. JANSZ has a grim countenance while I take my bleeding at his quarters, and while I am sure his duties attending to the Hr. PELSEART’s illness and all those who have contracted the flux since we put in at the Cape have put undue strain on his station; and yet was there none of his typical lightness and gossip of the ship’s idlers, and while he works his spile I try as subtly as I might to tap into the cause of his worry; but would he admit to nothing but discontent amongst the crew, and dismissed such squabbles amongst men as should not trouble a lady. I do not like to think that the surgeon, my one and only true confidante aboard this floating prison, may be keeping things from me, and much as I might believe he only wishes not to trouble with whatever nags at his own mind, my own imagination cannot help but magnify and make monstrous what unseen and unsayable truth keeps him so afraid. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C31]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E31]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D31]] </center></u>==> 30% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="E"> I sees fins breakin’ the surface all ‘bout from the deck an’ gun ports whenever I’s restin’ me eyes where I cans an’ in’t no shark getting’ a chunk o’ Bean but I’s get mine own an’ all an’ it in’t nothing for the bos’n to get his revenge when we’s becalmed an’ we got all the hours we want so he get I to fetch up a sling o’ dead rats from the bilges an’ this done he skewers one then two on his big catchin’ hook an’ dip in in the sea an’ say wait an’ see we’s get our own back for what mates done fed ‘tween ‘em jaws what Bean in’t ‘member an’ sure as sun-rise ‘em fins come all bitin’ an’ thrashin’ at the bow an’ the bos’n an’ his mate haul one o’ ‘em basterds up to deck with his hook in his evil big jaws all gnashin’ full o’ teeth an’ red wet blood an’ that an’ what axes there is bein’ passed ‘bout the men set to while we all ‘bove cheerin’ an’ shoutin’ ‘em on an’ that with the big fish thrashin’ at ‘em with his teeths an’ tail theys gouge out the eyes first an’ gills an’ cut its fins an’ they cuts its guts out to sees if they finds any tack or no an’ they keeps ‘em guts after for the surgeon what tells me the heart an’ liver what makes paste for the flux an’ help bringin’ babies with the pain an’ that an’ all that bein’ token theys tie a emptied barrel to its catched tail an’ chuck it back to the sea to flip an’ spew an’ turn in its blood an’ circle an’ crash ‘bout an’ to the side o’ the ship an’ all ‘til the other fins come an’ thrash it free an’ the barrel don’t move no more an’ I watches happy as anything ‘cos I in’t like a shark for half a squit but I’s asks the surgeon an’ all what manner o’ fish it be that eat the same kind ‘cos in’t no cristian man live by eatin’ the like flesh o’ his own but the heathens do else in’t ‘nough men to feed the rest goin’ day by day an’ all on ‘em islands an’ in’t a shark make no good eatin’ any-why else we’d sure keep it for our bellies an’ not toss the meat back to ‘em monsters but so say the surgeon that in’t some men have half a mind better an’ ‘em sharks an’ in’t more ‘an the ship an’ the planks all ‘bout us what parts us from ‘em an’ God forbid we’s all find usselfs hungry out there with ‘em an’ at the mercies o’ tooth an’ belly an’ men o’ such the like you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; so cap’n yacobs is as near as god hisself as I need concern meself so the bos’n says an’ anything ‘tween the deck’s he’s got the last say-so an’ ‘fore the mast the bos’s his under-god like to jesus hisself an’ he’s the only one whose voice I’s to heed on the cow-deck ‘cos in’t the skipper got mind every weevil in the bisket you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; an’ bos’n only got mind what the skip say an’ Bean got only to mind what the bos’n say an’ that’s right as rain the way I’s sees it as in’t there got be two blokes what don’t know who’s in the say-so yellin’ in a storm an’ you’ve got a whole crew what’s don’t know what’s what an’ can’t steer a ship with half a crew or whole crew not got what’s-what or half a say-so so in’t no way but each man listen to what man’s ‘bove him an’ do what man’s say-so an’ don’t make no bones ‘bout it neither but do it direct-like an’ we’s all to be grateful we’s got such a ship an’ such a crew what does it’s say-so ‘cos can’t one man run her but’s got a crew doin’ the say-so an’ can’t a crew run her who in’t got say-so to follow you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D31]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F31]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E31]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_billabong_with_red_sand_and_dead_grass_2cbdfe26-bb62-42bd-9e37-233074444a54.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E31]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A31]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F31]] </center></u>==> 31% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Mundilfaeri he is called, the father of moon and of sun.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F32]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B32]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A32]] </center></u>==> 32% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>They laid down laws, chose they fates for the sons of men.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F33]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B33]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A33]] </center></u>==> 35% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>The sea howl</p><p>And the sea yelp, different voices</p><p>Often together heard.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F36]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B36]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A36]] </center></u>==> 34% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>The sea they think they hear. Singing. A roar. The blood is it. Souse in the ear sometimes. Corpuscle islands.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F35]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B35]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A35]] </center></u>==> 35% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>It has been my wish to make a thorough study of the Hindu faith and its origin, in order that I might be able to describe it; but the fact that has no foundation beyond elaborate poetic fables, the great number of their gods and their marvellous transformations, and the extraordinary variety of their beliefs – these considerations have deterred me, or indeed prevented me from reaching the truth; and id one sect only is dealt with. the account will differ totally from those given by others, and will be contradicted writers who have probably taken their matter from some different school. Among the //banians// of //Gujarat//, for example, there are innumerable sects, one of which will not eat or drink with another, apart from the class of //brahmans//, who are respected and accounted sacred by all of them.</p> <p> Some of the brahmans are very ingenious, good astronomers, familiar with the course of the stars, and usually prepared to foretell the weather. They reckon eclipses very clearly, and they also do a great deal of fortune-telling. There are usually one or two such men with great reputation in the city; indeed the present King generally kept one at Court, whose prophecies, or most them, proved quite accurate. The //brahmans// have consequently secured a great reputation, and they have now acquired such influence over the great men, and then over all the Moslems, that they will not undertake a journey until they have enquired what day or hour is auspicious for the start; and when they return from a journey, or come to take up an appointment, they will not enter the city until the suitable day or hour has been predicted, and then they wait until the exact moment has arrived. The result that many of this rabble now frequent the streets, book in hand, to tell men their fortune, and, though their predictions have little value, they are believed by the poor, for they always get excellent measure, and their questions are met with ambiguous replies.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A36]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C36]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B36]] </center></u>==> 34% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>There were two brothers, Hasan and Husain, sons of Ali, who was married to Bibi Fatima, the daughter of Muhammad; from these two, namely Muhammad and Ali, arose after their death a schism in the new faith; for Persians, //Usbegs//, and Tartars hold by Ali rather than Muhammad, while Turks, Arabs, and Hindustanis, or the whole of this kingdom, hold only by Muhammad, and not at all by Ali; and thus there is a great distinction, the sects calling each other //kafirs//, or infidels, and hating each other as bitterly as the papists hate our religion. Those who follow Muhammad are called //sunnis//, and those who follow Ali rawafiz. At first, the new-found faith was introduced in a deceitfully attractive form, and men were given remarkable latitude, and a broad ladder by which they could climb to heaven without difficulty, thus offering pleasant allurements for the innocent. When, however, they became powerful, and found their wings strong enough for flight, they adopted forcible methods to spread their creed, and waged war against those who did not accept it; and in a battle against a heathen king, Raja Bickhanhaar, Hasan and Husain were killed. In commemoration of this slaughter they make a great noise all night for a period of ten days; the men keep apart from their wives, and fast by day; the women sing lamentations, and make a display of mourning; in the chief streets of the city the men make two coffins, adorn them as richly as they can, and carry them round in the evening with many lights and large crowds attending, with great cries mourning and noise. The outcry lasts till the first quarter of the day; the coffins are brought to the river, and if two parties meet carrying their biers (it is worst on that day), and one will not give place to the other, then, if they are evenly matched they may kill each other as if they were enemies at open war, for they run with naked swords like madmen.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A35]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C35]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B35]] </center></u>==> 33% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="D"> And oftentimes; my dear do not think the less of me for fancying so; I think of perhaps a future where our little ship may chance to come adrift of our fleet, for the dreadful old Captain to lose his bearings and chance upon some magical climes where the stars are not to his knowing and the sun never settles to set our sights to the proper orient, and methinks perhaps the Captain and all his unmanned crew to wholesale abandon their hopeless steed by longboat and take my dreadful maid with them, and the under-merchant with his quiet wet eyes, and leave the vessel all to myself and the mousing cats and animals of the hold to drift quite aimless through the Antarctic realms, to come acrop on some new and golden shore swum by beasts like calfs with tails of fishes and the horns of river-unicorns. Then – oh, the wry smile I may well imagine when you read your wife’s wilful silliness set down in her writings – but then, perhaps this missive may too be lost to the wash and waves and you may never have to crush and rub your brows as you do when you must muster up some long-suffered patience at my indulgences – I imagine the strange and magic peoples that some of no better guessing than myself have said to dwell below the tropics, the high court of animalia, toad-men and lady-peacocks, such stunted and ridiculous creations as might think a thing like me their queen – great talking bears who walk atop their hind legs and winged bird-men who might carry me away in their claws to their tall tree-top nest to clothe me in animal raiment and praise me as their narrow paragon of creation; Ah, me ¬– such fantasies occupy only the solace and solitude of these endless hours, and evaporate from the opened eyes like dew from the unlit lamps to drift away out into the morning air, and it is too much to fancy such dreams may take root or roost in the great elsewhere – save, by my own dear fancy, in your own eyes my dear, if never your truest understanding. If you wonder at your wife, and think perhaps her keen faculties have indeed come adrift amidst the stiff winds – then your wonder may match mine, for I myself wonder how I may fare in the months to come, whether my mind may detach utterly from its shy and squirming form and float cloud-like over and beyond – and how I am to suffer my present circumstances else, and our future, and how on Earth you and I must keep in so wild and stagnant a place as is our destination. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C34]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E34]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D34]] </center></u>==> 35% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="C"> Then, as swiftly as the ship had fallen into Araien’s idle hands, it is taken from then again. The predikant comes to my cabin of a morning to tell me that our collected prayers have been answered, that sawbones reports the commandeur to be once again in fit spirits and taking his food apace, and we are to assemble at lunch-time to welcome him back to his duties. I clap Bastiaensz on the shoulder at this and praise the Lord, holding the fool close enough to me so he may not glimpse my true expression. Ariaen’s self-control is somewhat weaker. His expression as Pelseart limps into our assembly in the Great Cabin is almost comical, while the commandeur fumbles against the walls for support and edging around the complete perimeter of the cabin to arrive at the head of the table to our general applause. His love for wine being quite undiminished, soon we are drinking toasts and running ragged the cabin boy he now uses as both cup-bearer and, at the times when he need rise from the table, almost as a walking-stick. I make excuse of bellyache at the commandeur’s celebratory supper summons and steal into Creesje’s cabin-room, prying open the drawer where her thoughts are all kept, and peruse the letters to my amusement under the watchful glare of the ship’s cat. Her mind is such a hifalutin thing, soaring above suspicion, petty and predictable and full of such sentimental dross. She senses not her danger, has no mind but to play with words apart from our sick and sordid reality, with no eye for the horizon. At her bedside is a flimsy triptych, and opening it do I see the triple portraits of young children, two girls and a boy. Too young to be left ashore, I think. All too young. Ariaen may content himself with such an empty box, yet I would have its contents. Above all, I cannot bear to be misunderstood. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B36]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D36]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C36]] </center></u>==> 33% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Not fare well,</p><p>But fare forward, voyagers.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F34]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B34]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A34]] </center></u>==> 34% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="C"> There are dragons here, says Ariaen. Many-armed kraken and hippocamps. Many tails, many crowns upon its many heads. I do not think Ariaen is acquainted with the Scriptures. That great serpent that is called Satan the deceiver of the world, he was thrown down to Earth on the opening of the Seals, and were his angels thrown down with him. None knows our destination, the commandeur least of all of us. But the Captain has my notion. We have drifted loose of the fleet, by the Captain’s use of the Cape’s inconstant winds. With the ship captured, we will flee her to the edges, to the wild seas and dreamlands. To walk its unimagined shores, and mind no more prying eyes and whispers of the VOC. There to prey. To fill our hold with new silver, new spices, unshared wealth. The world is for the Christian man’s taking and for the taming. These wild and lawless wastes beyond any known bounds or constraint. Terra Australis Incognita. The unguessed southern continent, the third half of God’s great work. The whole ocean of our choosing to rally round and disturb, but for the divine path set like tight-wove millener’s thread for us to traverse amongst all his extravagant space. No direction but His. No path for the righteous, but the righteous path. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B35]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D35]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C35]] </center></u>==> 32% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="E"> but the commadore keep up his gripin’ and groanin’ an’ that an’ all the while I’s ‘fore the mast I’s hearin’ ‘em men groanin’ an’ gripin’ in they own right at that an’ there a run o’ the flux goin’ right through the gun-deck an’ twenty-odd men what’s needin’ the surgeon help so he tell me stay in the stern cabin with the commadore while he see to ‘em men an’ in’t nothing worth doin’ I couldn’t what’s jus’ chagin’ ‘em wet rags laid ‘cross his belly an’ takin’ out the commadore’s piss-pot an’ all but Bean feelin’ right dicey ‘bout it an’ all ‘cos he in’t mean no harm to the commadore an’ in’t mean no problems come aboard the ship an’ all an’ he thinkin’ what the bos’n do to him if Bean the last one seein’ the commadore breathin’ an’ all or if bos’n kill him only if he don’t croak what with ‘em’s mutterin’ the skipper better off without ‘em jew users such as him with theys fingers on the tiller an’ thinkin’ all ‘em thoughts what mind him from his poltices an’ mind him only keep ‘bout the commadore an’ listen when he say he need the piss-pot an’ when he talkin’ all ‘bout what he been writin’ right ‘nough but from where Bean sittin’ it weren’t no sense in writin’ what you could tell nor in sayin’ out loud what’s worth writin’ down good an’ proper but fair ‘nough the commadore had some right old tales to tell what made white man’s grave seem right agree-able an’ all an’ in’t Bean seen the induses nor all ‘em cities the commadore seen an’ I reckon weren’t a man aboard what seen more o’ the world than all its same same sea an’ all so what Bean could make out ‘bout ‘em moslem kings what’s got so an’ so hunderd women whats got take it how he likes it an’ piles o’ jewels eye-high an’ all done give him something think ‘bout when he changin’ ‘em wet-rags an’ no mistake but the commodore shown me what long metal tube he been lent from the company sayin’ I’s look in one end an’ see things far off an’ says I’s to try it an’ Bean put it to his eye but in’t see the L-E-Y-D-E-N nor the bos’n what tarred him an’ put him ashore nor his ol’ mam what done left him but the commodore say I’s try it when we’s ‘bove decks ‘cos can’t it go through wall or hull or nothin’ but I’s lies it by respectful an’ get to ‘em pultices ‘cos in’t no tellin’ what Bean don’t know you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D33]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F33]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E33]] </center></u>==> 35% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="D"> Now that the years of my youth have more or less passed, I suppose I think less and less of the future and more and more of my own past; and the degree of separation of both space and time that is afforded by the years hence allow for a certain new perspective. I suppose I see little about my own life that suggests greatness or distinction, regardless of the degree of unsolicited attention I seem still to draw to myself from such poor judges as the Captain; before I apply my powders and ornaments, there is nothing in my looking-glass that breathes the kind of majesty and devotion offered up by the great poets and romances I have read in order to fill up those monotonous repetitive days; indeed, now that my life has run out much of its course, I can honestly judge those fables of courtship and chaste chivalry to be as much fantasy and nonsense, and nothing to do with this old life, this world; though perhaps I may admit that I have allowed some elements of that very fantasy to creep in and permeate my own writings; perhaps, were they to read this account of mine, were it to attract even the slightest attention at all, they might realise in aching detail the true banality of my own life – those readers of fiction would cease to be so infatuated by their mirages, and those misled may see at last what life awaits them in the person of a well-placed lady of wealth and good standing; and what that life is, truly. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C36]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E36]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D36]] </center></u>==> 32% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="D"> I have been making such use of my own mind as my lot permits me, during this great gap of time that is our voyage across half the world, and making such space and pleasure of my quarters as I can while being so confined with so brute and bearish a company of men and women, with what tools the LORD hath given me to make ease of my situation, and the good cheer not so to wallow in lonesomeness. I sew much, as was always my best and favourite art, and having no charge to clothe here but myself I am contrived to fashion things of my own fancy, with such dwindling materials as accompanied me in my haste from Amsterdam, and hence have worked on so many cuffs and pretty shawls as I might ever wish for, to swallow up so much time as can be afforded to their making, there being much of it to spare in between the commandeur’s triplet meals and so few other chores besides the chiding of ZWAANTIE for her clumsiness and low tone, and as I am so occupied my mind’s eye may wander across the blank, unwritten pages of the future, and when I shall see my loves, and when and how they shall receive me when we arrive and what we shall sport when I do, and find such cheer as yet might be and borrow from it advances to make its advance more sweet and swift, less to chafe the wait. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C33]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E33]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D33]] </center></u>==> 34% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="D"> Alas, I know that words have their own joy, all of their own, in the telling and not in the listening. I know as you have told me, and as I might agree, that I might as profitably speak my secrets into a hole in the ground, like King Midas’ barber; for God forbid that the world may hear how indeed my husband has the ears of an ass. I may only hope now that we have Hr. PELSEART fighting fit and at table again that the worst of things are behind us, whatever entertainments they may have planned will only disgrace themselves. They know as well as I that we are soon surely to arrive in port, after which I shall be blessed to never again share the company of Hr’s JACOBSZ and CORNELIESZ or any of their ilk, for truly the blackest of Eastern heathens can hardly hold as much dread as those aboard. The worst of this interminable passage is not the company, perhaps, but the lack of it once it abates, and that which is worse than the worst – oh, but you would be pained to hear such prattle, though I might be rest assured that you need never receive it, nor reach so far past the last few pages without throwing them away in distaste, and need never hear nor read such woeful carping; as the emptiest of those prayers you so enforce, spoken for none but mine own ears in the saying – the worst than worst, which is those terrible inflictions that the idle mind unleashes upon itself; the folding in of all the time before and hate of all the time to come; as of those darkest of the plague days in Leliestraat, after so many terrible losses, shut up alone in that nursery room which would have been as a barn-loft to this dreadful cabin. You could not hear me then – would not, BOUDEWIJN, for all your piety and strong words to our support; there was nothing with me then, not a thing at all, but love, and loss, and the death of dreams. I could not make life anew then, except in mine own mind alone; for I had there picture-windows to paint my fancies, to people this little world with passers-by; flower-sellers into princesses in my own like; merchants into mad-men; the pinched little faces of the Herenstraat street urchins giving picture and relief to my same solitary hungers and privations; we have all that same frozen heart, all of us who have so suffered, for others to gaze in, and guess at, and see themselves in reflection; life goes always on, the frozen heart and sleepless mind and broken throat when all else is ashes; for I was sand and ashes then, and made myself a stone; unwitnessed, unaided, struggling through privation without a soul to tell or share the story; that is woman’s lot – little though yourself or all your proud gentlemen of the Company may guess at it, and must I suffer it still, in this room or that, at home or abroad, now and then and in all my life to come. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C35]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E35]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D35]] </center></u>==> 32% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="C"> With the flux raging through the ship and Pelseart struck prone, the sawbones insists that all of the lower VOC clerks undergo his examination one by one, myself included. Reluctantly I endure his prods and fondles in the cramped confines of his station on the gun-deck, him asking all manner of impertinent questions as to the consistency of my stool and strength of appetite until, of course, pronouncing me to be in dire need of a bleeding and snapping his fingers at the witless cabin boy who had been gazing on at his side. At the sight of the surgeon’s bowl as it is brought up – the blood of dozens of sick syphilitics and the unclean moon-blood of the women aboard all intermingled and already crusting black at the edges – I feel a sudden cold sweat over my skin, the tight bright space constricting around me and – – as though a hood had fallen over my eyes, I feel rather than see the back of my head strike a wall-post as I drop. I rise quickly, and blame the rocking of the ship as I regain my feet, swatting away the surgeon and his crusty instruments. But old sawbones takes pity on me, and only remarks that I must have had a syncope – the falling sickness, as it is called – and it were as well I was no soldier. I agree as much. The dozens of cadets that were kept cooped in their orlops until now likewise take their turn with the surgeon. As I leave his station, sawbones beckons in a cadet by the name Hayes, and on meeting my eyes, and seeing my taut and sweat-slickened expression, I think I catch the faintest look of contempt as he winds up his own sleeve. One to watch, I think. It would not do to have such men as Hayes above decks at the wrong moment. It would not stand to have seen me swoon so. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B33]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D33]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C33]] </center></u>==> 35% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="E"> but in’t shot nor scram squirm at the count like these lil’ bleeders so I’s practise you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; any-ways I makes it up to eleven an’ lil’ apostle twelve done ‘bout to scuttle free ‘twixt ‘em planks an’ I’s sticks me old thumb on his back to catch him squirmin’ ‘til I’s sure an’ all an’ in’t Bean mean it but when I’s takes back the ol’ grubber in’t the lil’ bugger run for it but lay on his lil’ side an’ wave his stalks an’ scrabble ‘bout in a right tizz ‘cos in’t half his legs goin’ an’ I’s jus’ watch him crawl ‘cos can’t none o’ his family stay to help the lil’ bleeder so I’s try to take him up to take a close look but in’t half o’ him get picked up an’ all an’ the half I’s seein’ all pulpy an’ in’t he movin’ no more an’ I in’t see him stop movin’ an’ in’t it hurt Bean a bit but he still hurt you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; but right ‘nough the commadore got right in the belly an’ that soon ‘nough without Bean help nor the surgeon’s an’ weren’t nothin’ for skip to do but tuck his cock back an’ in’t zevank nor wooters nor van nuyssen nor any o’ ‘em others I could name pipe up when skip came down to gun-deck all low an’ humble an’ without his mistress an’ all to tell us crew the commadore got his belly back an’ we’s to get to back to hows we was what was how we am right ‘nough but skip grab Bean when we’s all eatin’ after an’ tell what how the ol’ commadore got a likin’ for me services an’ all what with all I doin’ for him while he ailin’ an’ wouldn’t Bean fancy waitin’ at the high table ‘stead o’ scrubbin’ out the mess-pots that night an’ right ‘nough I do an’ told him so ‘cos weren’t no place for Bean but the crew an’ no crew but us what were men an’ he don’t beat me or nothin’ but clap me head an’ make Bean feel right good an’ says I’s to mind the jug what all ‘ems be drinkin’out an’ we’s both to talk me an’ him like we was just then after I’s served at table an’ what the skip says for a cabin-boy like the word o’ god he proposes an’ we disposes like the preacher say so right ‘nough I’s to dispose you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D36]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F36]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E36]] </center></u>==> 32% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>An account of the religion of Muhammad, taken from the Koran, has been published in our language, but it makes no reference to a large number of superstitions which are prevalent in this country. I shall therefore say a little about some which are common here, and which seem not unlike the views of the papists; for when Muhammad compiled his Koran, he picked various opinions from religions – and there were good many owing the disunion and schisms in the church ¬– particularly those which were false and pleasing to worldly eyes. Thus they have among them as many pirs, or prophets, as the papists have saints; they do not make images of them, and that practise is absolutely forbidden by their law; but all the same they put forward their silly mundane fables about them. They say that every earthly king has his regular court of princes and lords, each employed according to his merits in the administration with great care and supervision, and that no one can approach the king unless her has one of them for a friend; and they argue from this example that even in heaven a man must have a spokesman or advocate with God, who will put forward his request or his prayer, and obtain an order to grant his petition according his deserts. Thus these mistaken men clearly agree with the papists, for they do not understand that God is the Knower all hearts, but obscure the incomprehensible illumination of the beams of His almighty compassion, and bestow it on poor earthworms and false hypocrites. Through the subtlety of the devil these men in their lifetime blind the eyes of the poor; and sometimes the deception is continued after their death by crafty mendicants or disciples, who, by posing as their successors, batten on the innocent poor. These men know how to establish their position by means of sorcery, or perhaps it is that the popular imagination is led to accept their pretensions the strange and ridiculous fables they tell what has already been achieved by their companions.</p> <p>I should not, however, willingly pass over some of their holy men whom I have seen in their lifetime, particularly Sultan Khusru, the eldest son of the present King. He was murdered in the fort at //Burhanpur//, in February, 1621, at the instance of his younger brother Sultan Khurram, because he was thought to be next in succession to the throne; the murder was committed by a slave named Raza, who during the night strangled him with a //lungi//, or cloth, so as to raise the less suspicion of violence, and suggest a natural death.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A33]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C33]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B33]] </center></u>==> 34% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="E"> but I’s can’t spend a night with ‘em sailers ‘fore there be a fight or some think big row what kicks off while we’s all at our bisket an’ in’t no pleasant rows what we seen on L-E-Y-D-E-N but ‘em big lads zevank an’ wooters an’ van hoysen what’s pipe up ‘bout the commadore an’ what he got an’ we don’t got an’ what diseases an’ that we is got an’ in’t a man pipe up ‘gainst the lot o’ ‘em but he get his tooth smashed in by his ration cup an’ damn near pitched over the gunnal an’ in’t Bean see a damn sight what ‘em lads got to gripe over ‘cos the way Bean sees it only seein’ what’s there an’ all an’ not lettin’ ‘em fancies what’s in his head get mistooken for the actuals an’ not seein’ what in’t there an’ makin’ lot o’ what is an’ all but in’t ‘em boys see it that way an’ in’t they hearin’ nothing ‘bout it from no cabin-rats nor nobody else neither after ‘em first few nights an’ in’t they get ‘scouraged none neither when in’t nobody given ‘em what says-so an’ in’t nobody got tell Bean what he know that in’t nobody need told what in’t nobody told ‘em an’ in’t nobody more god-righteous an’ that who in’t never been told he wrong an’ what crew’s afraid to give ‘em say-so or in’t even thinkin’ it for fear is liable to follow along after all ‘cos in’t no sweat nor toil half so hard as doubtin’ you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; so it’s every man for hisself what the gunners say an’ in’t no crew think for isself but what go through all they heads an’ in’t that a crew head but a man head all to isself an’ in’t the crew in that head in’t the crew no-where you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; I nocks my night-bisket ‘gainst the scuttles ‘fore I eats it ‘fore I sleeps an’ I’s likes to count ‘em weevils what scuttles out too but bos’n says I miss the flavour an’ what bulk ‘em bugs takes I’s best have in me belly but in’t the kind o’ crunch what Bean like in his vittles’ any-way an’ besides I’s likes to count ‘em up while theys confuddled an’ scamperin’ to get to cover jus’ as I count ‘em gulls what comes an’ squawks an’ squawls at what the surgeon put overboard ‘cos in’t Bean goin’ miss a not nor send light shot again what got him put in hell before you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D35]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F35]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E35]] </center></u>==> 31% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="E"> an’ the bos’n give Bean hell fair ‘nough but skip a fair skip an’ what’s over him is the commadore an’ the commadore’s a right gent an’ ‘member I’s says that ‘cos that was all he was so far as I could tell from start to finish o’ the whole affair so I says ‘cos in’t he never done wrong by Bean an’ was a decent sort the sort who didn’t bear no more a hand ‘gainst you than you gave him cause to so to speak ‘cos I’s know where I stood when I’s stood with him you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; an’ it weren’t like the bos’n who’s I’s sleepin’ an’ eatin’ next to an’ all an’ he beat you down for nothing to prove you that you in’t alike as those who piss off the prow all the same in a row you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; but as I say as high an’ mighty goes pelsert weren’t half bad nor even a quarter jus’ plain strait an’ the like you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; but Bean in’t like that under-merchant cornelius one bit from the get-go from the moment I’s aboard I says to meself there’s a slant-eyed so-an’-so who’d step right over his own mam to take his dinner an’ so’s but I’s know nothing so far as the crew’s concerned ‘cos in’t a one o’ ‘em got a nice word to say ‘bout the commadore nor anything he do nor his jan company an’ all an’ he in’t feared much neither next to skip you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; anyway we’s not half a week out o’ the cape when I’s overhearin’ the surgeon chat ‘bout the gun-deck that the commadore done fallen sick something terrible an’ he’s to mind him an’ needs a helper an’ all an’ I’s been a good helper to the surgeon but I’s don’t stick me hand up or nothing ‘cos the way to dodge the easier jobs is to volunteer for ‘em so the other boys says so I’s keep to me scrubbin’ with me head down mindin’ what I’s mindin’ but sure ‘nough I’s hear me name ‘bout an’ all so in a minite less the bos’n grabbin’ me up by the arm tellin’ me I’s needed by the surgeon an’ I’s not to say nothing ‘bout it an’ I acts all dejected an’ dutiful an’ all but I’s in secret very glad an’ all spendin’ a day or two with the surgeon an’ the commadore too for sure Bean movin’ up an’ no mistake but in’t the surgeon got a damn sight on what got the commadore ailin’ ‘cos in’t he got none o’ ‘em flux airs nor ‘em boils or nothing but a god-damned pain in his belly what got him gripin’ at the both o’ us through the day an’ got him sickin’ up blood an’ shittin’ that dark shit what smell all sour what surgeon say his stomach bleedin’ an’ that but in’t nothing turn Bean’s stomach what come out a man so I’s stays at the surgeons side ‘cept for bringin’ him his tools from his quarters an’ getting’ water an’ bread an’ wine an’ that for the commadore but all ‘em days I see the surgeon getting’ right sick an’ that ‘cos in’t he know how to fix what in’t the flux an’ in’t the shakin’ sickness nor the black-tooth gangreen nor none o’ those thousan’ things he knows what in’t touched Bean yet thank god </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D32]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F32]]</div> <center> [[Continue->Pelseart]] </center></u>==> 33% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="E"> an' all while this the skipper all proud an’ mighty ‘cos in’t no more the ol’ sea-pig he says now he got the command all to his lonesome an’ he come down to the cow-deck with us an’ all with that servant girl o’ the lady’s what calls herself his companion now an’ if anyone so much as make a sour face in her way he got his revenge with rod or blade or rope so I’s best keep meself to meself not as I’s the like to make a sower face or make aims at a lady companion or nothing like I says an’ skip tell us how he got big plans in the works for the ship an’ god forbid anything should befall the ol’ commadore we in’t be turnin’ in ‘til we’s to reach the indes an’ maybe not after that an’ a few o’ the lads like zevank an’ wooters give a cheer at that but in’t we all cheer ‘cos in’t a man there weren’t blistered nor tarred an’ fagged an’ fashed an’ that what with half the world at ‘em backs an’ god knew how many done gone dead already an’ in’t it matter to none o’ us cabin-boys nor gunner who got the say-so so long as we the doin’ nor commadore nor skipper nor god hisself in a rare ol’ mood so in’t more’n a few what make any noise at all nor done any different from that day forward ‘cept ol’ Bean on night duty with the surgeon what’s got all bound up an’ Bean’s besides in the commadore’s an’ his damned sickness an’ don’t Bean get down to mess ‘fore the last bell an’ that when the ship all quiet an’ still like sat on a mill-pond an’ Bean can hear ol’ notions what driftin’ through the wood an’ air what the skipper’s woman tellin’ him in his quarters an’ why ol’ elly the mouser in’t got no whiskers no more ‘cos they in the commadore belly an’ he sickin’ blood up an’ all but in’t nothing what’s to put him down an’ skip getting’ right angry an’ that an’ what he done to her after an’ what Bean hardly couldn’t not hear in ‘em quarters an’ weren’t Bean tryin’ to stick ‘bout ‘cos he got a mind to tell surgeon what he in’t hardly couldn’t hear ‘bout what’s been put into the commadore but in’t he hardly hear the cain-door ope neither nor see the ol’ skip on him ‘til his head hard up ‘gainst the beams an’ his eyes swimmin’ an’ that an’ he whisperin’ real close what a rat think he doin’ skulkin’ ‘bout in the dark an’ quiet ‘cos he know me an’ he see me ‘bout the stern more’n once so Bean scared an’ that an’ he tellin’ his story all wrong an’ confusin’ an’ skip start the beatin’ but after he catch a fair one in’t he throw Bean over the gunnals like I be fearin’ but he say I’s to keep servin’ the cap’n an’ how there only a place aboard for crew an’ asked right ‘nough was I one o’ his crew or in’t I so Bean says he is an’ right ‘nough I was actin’ his crew from that day on you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D34]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F34]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E34]] </center></u>==> 31% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="D"> I am struck by such uncertain fear as to all our fates, fears that I am unable to share with my conniving maid, or the predikant’s worrisome family, or any other being of the assembly that – I am ashamed to relate even to you, my dear – I have more than once these past days made such private weeping into my scant bedclothes as I could be sure to stifle against the partition of the under-merchant’s cabin, from which spreads at all hours the same pernicious and conspiratorial silence; and so often as I catch sight of Hr. CORNELIESZ before decks has he a tome in hand, for he reads much, and thinks much, and I think he sees quite through the deeds of men; such men are dangerous when there are none above greater than themselves; I recall Hr. PELSEART telling me as much. I have not felt so alone since the finishing of the funeral rites, nor felt so strongly that same utter urge to escape, to cast off the shackles of such rough society, to be free utterly – but to where?– other than this wretched ship – so alone that there is little I can make to escape but, forgive me, these precious lonely words and the effort of their making in this dense and threatening void. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C32]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E32]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D32]] </center></u>==> 33% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="C"> There are but few in the orlops I would take into our confidence besides Lance Corporal Pietersz. He did vouch for a Jan Hendricxsz of Bremen as one itching for any sort of exertion, but warned he had a voluble tongue and were as likely to spill our secrets before anything else. Ariaen and I did reject him and all others as a thin and etiolated bunch, unfit for action. When the time comes, with Pietersz help, we will simply nail their hatch in place while we set to work. Below decks one night, our grog aloft in the narrow gun-passage, the twenty of us swear a toast to the Devil. In the quartermaster’s cabin, the row of ceiling beams is all that separates our table from the commandeur’s Great Cabin above, but make we no attempts at dilution or dilation. There is no ordination for justice or reward. Only the common lot, to be shared and savoured. Each man shall share in the money, shouts Jacobsz, the land, the women, once all are saved who shall be saved. ‘A tun a man’ cries the boatswain in a rare outburst. Indeed, enough for a chest of silver deep enough to sink your fist in, or buy a brace of prize tulips and watch them burn or rot off the stalks. Ariaen could have all the whores in Java if he chose, all at once or in succession, if he has not worn himself raw with her ladyship first. I do not know the stars here. Ariaen has taken the Southern route, and we are adrift of the fleet at last. We are becalmed off the French islets a week or more. The sun beats down in such still and fetid air as brings every man out shirtless from below decks to flap and grunt in the sun, chafing out the heat and empty hands. Rain is scarce and thirsts rage like fever through the men as we make our slow way across the Indian Ocean. The lookout half-asleep shouts down the huge packs of dolphins churning up the surface off the stern, and sighting the leviathan bursting up from the deeps with a spout from the backs of rearing waves to part the sea with sudden bulk and, tossing off the forecastle, dive down again, into the depths. These are the very nether lands. The basement of shades that girds the maps with strange serpents and neckless men with heads nestled down between their shoulders. The anthropophagi and wild, Godless folk that stalk the jungles and crouch salivating at mangrove roots to watch our ships dance past. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B34]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D34]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C34]] </center></u>==> 31% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="C"> Certainly, Pelseart is not sufficiently ailing after a glass or two of sweet wine prescribed by the surgeon – under some duress, I imagine – to prevent an exhaustive explanation of his Report and his plans for wide publication upon our return to the Fatherland. He gesticulates to me with the scribbled pages of his manuscript while he rails against the inefficiencies of Company operations in the East, until he at last collapses onto his sheets insensate. On rising to leave have I the most powerful inclination to tip the blasted Report through his porthole, and might have achieved as much were I not startled by a sound nearby. I start, and peering through the gloom I see the plaintive eyes of a cabin-boy standing attendant just by the commandeur’s bedside and watching my every move accusingly. He says not a word, but only stares with a sullen expression, and so I bid him good day and retreat to my cabin again, kerchief still pressed tight up to my lips. For now, then, the run of the ship is Ariaen’s. Now is the time right, so he sees. I dissuade him. We both know the consequences for mutineers if we are caught. We need no reminding of the noose or knouts. Better to wait, and see what course the sickness takes. The commandeur is old yet, may the plague take him, and command will surely fall to the pair of us. Fate may hand us the very key to the chests without a drop spilt. The disposal of our passengers will be the easier, our load the lighter when we have dumped his lofty bulk in the sea. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B32]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D32]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C32]] </center></u>==> 33% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>His body was brought to //Agra//, and taken thence to Allahabad, to be buried beside his mother. In the excitement or mourning which followed his death, for he was much beloved by the common people, although he was held a prisoner by his brother under the King 's orders, some mendicants presumed to make a representation of a grave at a spot where the bier or corpse had rested for a night on the journey, and announced to the common people that their God had in their sleep ordered them to do so; he was accepted as a true //pir//, or saint; and they carried matters so far that they were foolish enough never to take an oath except by ‘the head of the Sultan’, which was regarded as more binding than if they had sworn by God Himself. His father the King prohibited this practice, saying that Khusru was in his lifetime a sinful, nay, a rebellious son and if he was really murdered by his brother, the guilt attached to the murderer but not operate absolve Khusru, or to justify his being regarded saint. On this, Kasim Khan, the Governor of Agra, destroyed and obliterated the shrine which had been built at great cost; the attendants or receivers of offerings were driven away; and everything that was found was confiscated for the King.</p> <p>All their saints have origins of the kind which I have described, and they have dabbled largely in magic. The Moslems count their Muhammad superior to all the prophets who have been sent by God, with the exception of Christ; but they hold that on his advent the Christian faith was killed or annihilated, just as Judaism was by the coming of Christ. The only title they give to Muhammad is the Messenger of God. They attribute to him super-human or fabulous gifts during his life on earth, for instance that a cloud or shadow always rested above his head; that his body cast no shadow; that flies never settled on it; that a long journey was shortened for him, and the road contracted; and that no one ever saw his excrement, which the earth opened and absorbed. There are many similar absurdities, which I will omit.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A34]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C34]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B34]] </center></u>==> 31% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>Some of the nobles, again, have chaste wives, but they are too few to be worth mentioning; most of the ladies are tarred with the same brush, and when the husband is away, though he may think they are guarded quite safely by his eunuchs, they are too clever for Argus himself with his hundred eyes, and they get all the pleasure they can, though not so much as they desire.</p> <p>The wives feel themselves bound to do all of this, for many, or perhaps most of them, so far forget themselves that when their husband has gone away, either to Court, or to some place where he takes only his favourite wife, and leaves the rest home they allow the eunuch to enjoy them according his ability, and thus gratify their burning passions when they have no opportunity of going out; but otherwise they spare no craft or trouble to enable them to enjoy themselves outside. These wretched women wear, indeed, the most expensive clothes, eat the daintiest food, and enjoy all worldly pleasures except one, and for that one they grieve, saying they would willingly give everything in exchange for a beggar’s poverty.</p> <p>The ladies of our country should be able to realise from this description the good fortune of their birth, and the extent of their freedom when compared with the position of ladies like them in other lands, but this topic lies outside the scope of my task.</p> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A32]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C32]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B32]] </center></u>==> 36% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="D"> BUT now – mirabile dictu, and joyously that – our commandeur was once again attendant at our daily meals, albeit in such diminished capacity as h was not to be seen above deck some weeks after he was first able to so present himself to our company, nor took he up his regular duties from the Captain until he and Hr. JANSZ could be quite assured of his capacity. Took he but little wine, but more and more until he was near his former pace, and my relief at the former’s reappearance could hardly be matched at the triumph of Hr. JACOBSZ’ obvious chagrin, shared at such visible volume in the under-merchant’s countenance that few at table, the ailing commandeur excepted, could failed to have marked the change. NOW must I relate an extraordinary incident which I have up until now kept wholly to myself – must I think surely either spill or burst, for besides there being no soul male or female aboard whom I keep in complete confidence such as I can divulge such concerns, yet know, my worshipful husband, there is nothing either shocking nor humiliating which I would or could keep from you, ere my heart rend upon that instant – for lately have I come to confirmation of my suspicions that the Captain of this rogue crew truly is the most scurrilous, scrofulous, syphilitic sea-swine that ever came to such a command. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C37]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E37]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D37]] </center></u>==> 36% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="E"> what with the commadore back hale an’ healthy an’ all it were a proper show-out in great cabin that eve an’ in right state like Bean in’t never seen on the L-E-Y-D-E-N an’ all ‘em merchants an’ ladies crowdin’ down that long table an’ soon as the ol’ commadore appear they all done given him three-hips and thankin’ god for I in’t see I’s deserve this or none o’ the crew but so I hears the under-merchant sayin’ in’t deservin’ in’t nothing to do with it over the wine I pours at the cap’n’s table so surgeon ask what I can’t an’ ask what he mean an’ the under-merchant say deserve the most worth-less word what a man can make his tung to use as it aimed at the lost for what they have but in’t earnt or earnt but in’t have an’ make to complain ’bout what in’t deserved an’ turn a word meaning-less what to carry ‘bout all his failures an’ surgeon an’ preacher an’ skipper in’t buy it or nothing but I’s listen to what the under merchant say an’ thinks on what he says ‘cos to me mind it do make more’n bit o’ sense an’ I unpacks it in me head where I lies that night like this in’t no one deserve nothing but we all deserve it ‘cos in’t we got as much a right to speak as we got tungs in our head to say what we in’t or do deserve an’ hands to make it so by earning an’ Bean got nothing but the want but don’t mean he want nothing you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; an’ in’t no one got tell him what he want or what he earnt but Bean an’ god hisself what give him what all he have you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; so ‘fore bed the bos’n asks me whether I’s emptied the pans like I’s s’posed to an’ I says right ‘nough yes I has ‘cos what the bos’n wants done best be done an’ right ‘nough I had so go fetch it says he an’ bring up the tar-bucket from the bilges so right ‘nough I so when I’s back down in the cow-decks with ‘em buckets bos’n slaps me shoulders an’ says I’s done right as rain an’ in’t I wantin’ a reward an’ in’t I been thinkin’ o’ havin’ a bit o’ fun alls the while we’s been at sea an’ right ‘nough I says yes ‘cos when the bos’n asks that sort you says yes an’ in’t no call for thought or nothing so he says I seen the noble lady what keeps the preacher company ‘bove decks who’s he one with the maid an’ all fancy things on an’ a real uppity air to her an’ right ‘nough I says yes I knows her an’ she’s at the cap’n’s table every night an’ all only there’s all these other blokes like steersmen an’ pietersz an’ a few others an’ thens I see the under merchant what also keeps table with the cap’n an’ I’s wond’rin’ what’s goin’ on an’ the bos’n ‘splain they gone to jump the lady after dinner an’ teach her something ‘bout bein’ so uppity an’ the like an’ I’s to keep table an’ all an’ when I’s dismissed to give the lot o’ ‘em where they’s waitin’ the right signal to show she still at table an’ all an’ not to let on a breath to the commadore or nothing an’ I’s feelin’ all scary now ‘cos in’t do to be failing any new ol’ jobs where the bos’n concerned but sort o’ chuffed like I’s been chosen to be part o’ a whole run o’ proper blokes like I in’t been before an’ right ‘nough I in’t care too deep ‘bout her lady-ship or her chuckles with the high table none an’ right ‘nough she could use some teachin’ says I an’ I could use teachin’ how to teach it an’ all so I’s leave the buckets like I’s bid an’ shows up to great cabin like every night an’ whiles the under-merchant an’ commadore an’ the lady an’ all is talkin’ I’s pourin’ the wine same as anything an’ in’t Bean tryin’ catch none o’ their eyes tonight ‘cos he don’t need no tellin’ twice an’ then come the hour when the commadore want command o’ the bottle an’ I’s dismissed from service for the night so I steals out to where the men’s all waitin’ at the end o’ the passage ... </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D37]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F37]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E37]] </center></u>==> 39% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="C"> If she should speak, if Pelseart strike for her, the men may be roused again to rise. If she does not, there is much else I can unleash them on in the interim. In the event, she hardly has to. Word of the outing spreads through the ship as news does in such confines. In a day, Ariaen tells me there is hardly a man jack of the sail who has not told and retold the tale themselves in turn, and had a good snort at the lady’s outing the previous evening. It is hardly a surprise subsequently when the commandeur sends for me in the devil of a temper. He asks whether I knew of the rumours spread recently by the High Boatswain, and I indicate that I knew little at all, wherein he asks whether I believe that respectable folks should be so brought low for the sake of women or whores. I rejoin that I should certainly hope as much. Then Pelseart enquires whether I have any inkling of subversive mutterings amongst the men, or suspicions of any one of the crew in particular, wherein I make as though deep in thought, and then in the manner of a spontaneous revelation make out that I rated the High Boatswain an arrogant sort, and certainly capable of mutinous tactics, though I counted upon him, as with all things, to sound my fellow man aboard ship. Next, he asks whether the Captain could be the author of any such insults against him or Ms. Jans, and I intimate in all honesty that he had mentioned no such thing to me, little though I could hide our close acquaintance, I bore it as proof against collusion. The commandeur too stands in thought awhile, and to my chagrin when he rouses himself from this study remarks he would take no hand against the boatswain or anyone until he could be sure of such rumours, and when I ask whether Ms. Jans might have some thought on the matter, his eyes are drawn to mine in an instant, and he makes reply that she had nothing to state on what had occurred and would not suffer further investigation on her own account. Nonetheless, he confides, it is his intention to clap the boatswain and any fellow suspects in irons the instant we made sight of Java. This was most unsatisfactory, and I indicate that it would be best of course to act on the instant, to stamp out the trace of mutiny before it can hatch and grow venomous. Yet the old fool will not be rushed to action, and makes much equivocation that he would not pushed to strike a flint against due consideration. Methinks it is likely his illness still weighing heavily on him making him yet weak and indecisive. His intransigence mads me, and I can scarcely hide my displeasure until I am far from his sight. Something, soon, surely, must give if we are ever to have our way. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B40]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D40]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C40]] </center></u>==> 39% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on </p><p>The dashing rocks thy sea-sick weary bark!</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F40]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B40]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A40]] </center></u>==> 36% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="C"> Our plot might have been discovered yet, if not for God’s protection. It is proof of his love every day that, we are not caught and swung for it. There are enough of us that if the rumours spill out to the officers in the stern, they cannot be denied. The commandeur will not be merciful. They have brought the great harness that they strap men to, swimmer or sinker, and the great whale-hide rope they bind about the midships, the better to pull him round from banister to banister and again and again until he snaps or chokes on water, or the oilhides and barnacles pull the skin from his flesh and the sharks have him. Else, we may be dropped from the yard-arm with our arms harnessed by the wrists, again and again ‘til bone pulls from bone. Even to draw a knife below decks is to have your wrist pinned to the mainmast by it. It was done to Isbrantsz after a scrap with Zevanck, and he stood a day and a half in the salt-spray and sun ‘til he cried and wept and bit for thirst and pulled his working hand in two to get free of the blade. But the Captain and boatswain deal such punishments, and I am in their ear. I have burrowed inside Ariaen, and he is now my instrument. He therefore is God’s. He is mine, I am His. But Ariaen has a mind so soon suggested to song, to beguiled by drink to make a trial of his life, too besotted of his whore to raise his aim. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B37]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D37]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C37]] </center></u>==> 37% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="C"> Ariaen bids me make excuses at the commandeur’s next dinner and steals belowdecks with his whorish maid to his favourite trysting place to make the beast with two backs. His discommitment grieves me, but see I some new opportunity to wreak mischief, with him or without. When Ms. Jans asks after her maid for her evening wear, I answer. She is most suspicious at my telling her the truth – the mind of women was ever such. When she discovers the two of them in flagrante, Ms. Jans cannot help but rage, and, if he lives, may I hope Pelseart may throw some further indignities upon the Captain that he will not endure. By way of vengeance, Zwaantie makes much parade of the quaint and silly missives her mistress makes much pains to write under her very nose, wherein she makes note and peruses while she is supping with us in the Great Cabin. She tells Ariaen that the letters are full of such unkind remarks about herself and us, in belief of our ignorance, and so Ariaen tells me. With Ariaen preoccupied by Pelseart’s sudden return to duties, I make my own turns amongst the sweating men of the orlops. I am greeted with sniffs and pointed ignorance upon greeting Evertsz and his men, yet the dish I presented then softened them somewhat. Ariaen has no doubt made much swagger and fury amongst them at his prize, and have they all spotted Frau Jans making her turns on the upper decks these past months. It takes nothing to excite them to it, only to control their eagerness at the possibility. Zwaantie too is present, and joins in the debate as to what dishonour to best do her mistress to be most shameful to her and the commandeur. She is of a mind for Evertsz to furnish a cut across both her cheeks with his catch-blade, and would only be dissuaded that it were best if many had a hand, and so spread the retaliation to the crew general. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B38]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D38]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C38]] </center></u>==> 38% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="C"> There were gathered then eight of them game in all, Janssen and Woutersz and another set from the gun-deck whose names I know not but whose loyalty is assured, all the way down to little Bean, the cabin boy who minds high table and whose innate corruption Evertsz can vouch for. ‘Men,’ chuckles Janssen when they are all gathered together in my corner of the gundeck, the customary tot in hand to toast, ‘there is an assault on our hands. Will you help to give the princess a pleasant outing?’ On the night of the 14th, Ariaen and I join Pelseart at high table and take pains to draw out the night with toasts and applause, our dear Ms. Jans prating merrily as she is wont with the predikant and his wifeand little minding our conspicuous revels. Shared Araen and I many a knowing glance until the appointed hour, when our ladyship bids her farewells for the night, refuses accompaniment from both surgeon and priest to see her way to her cabin, and slipping through the cabin door out into the corridor beyond. Make we a deeper company that night into the early hours, Pelseart having drunk himself insensible an hour or so we make our courtesies, Ariaen first, and myself some short while afterwards, bid the table a good night. I make my way through the dead of night and silence, but scarcely made it to the mizzen before I was confronted in the dark by so many grinning, grubbing bodies and the stale breath of excited men, and the tale was sealed. Ariaen’s laughter could hardly be calmed, but we make much cavorting with his rum rations below, and the men recounting the story twenty times over in such hoary detail as each and every one is made to scrub the tar and dung from their hands, burn their masks and disguise their effects so as to allay suspicion. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B39]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D39]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C39]] </center></u>==> 38% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="D"> For ZWAANTIE’s part, I believe she sees her discovery as some obscure triumph rather than the utter humiliation and dismissal it might have afforded at port, for I think she sees that her position is impregnable in such quarters, though she perhaps may prove less so, and certainly disports herself as if she believes her dalliance to have wedded the Captain to herself in perpetuity, little though the silly creature must know or care of the wife of Hr. JACOBSZ’ keeps ashore. What foolish promises she must have believed from him to hold herself so contemptuously, to keep my gaze still with such scorn and not to pray forgiveness, so insensible she seems to proper shame or demurral. Little she knows of the Captain’s blackened character; for I must believe, foolish as she is, she would not keep with him if he and the under-merchant were quite discovered. It is for me to bewail my own incompetence in her selection, which for sure I have rued since the day we left port, though I might never have supposed either of them to have so stooped to such depravity; alas, humanity can never be assumed, but only guessed at and relied upon utterly and quite blind. I pray only see your face that I may tell you as much – for how pale and insufficient are these thin and perishable pages – I only bid this ship and all its sinful crew bear me over this endless sea and set me down again, that I may be free of it – soon, I hope, I dearly hope. I love you, BOUDIWIJN, only you, my dearest, my love, GOD save me!– <p>Yours &c. – Creesje on the Third day of June, y.o. 1629.</p> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C39]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E39]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D39]] </center></u>==> 37% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="D"> Four nights past, I met with Hr. CORNELIESZ outside my cabin just before evening dinner, and enquired of him the whereabouts of my maid, as ZWAANTIE was once again nowhere in sight when due for my preparations, and made the under-merchant then many smart remarks to the effect that I might find her in some company, and though he knew nothing of her whereabouts I might ask Hr. EVERTSZ the boastswain so as to become better enlightened. Not making sense nor nonsense of his unseemly suggestions, I enquired and he said direct that he had heard tell by some that she could be found in the stern closets the deck below, and I following his direction made search in said cabin; and opening it did discover my maid ZWAANTIE in cavortions with none other than the Captain in graceless states of undress, much astonished but little ashamed they seemed on discovery, and made the Captain such barking insults and directives at me with ZWAANTIE gazing on in such triumphant disdain that I departed as directly in a state of pure shock. Oh it was a dreadful meal that followed, as I had hardly collected myself even to be presentable ere I was forced opposite the Captain again, with Hr. PELSAERT between us droning on in his self-interested way, Hr. JACOBSZ staring across at me, making his horrible looks at me and chopping his lips, and at his elbow Hr. CORNELIESZ looking on in his sole bemusement. I believe they mean to make a mockery of I your wife, and you my husband, all by disgracing one who had but little grace to begin with – and married men both, with wives left for dead in the Fatherland – yes, I do believe it is the laxness and looseness of life aboard ship that has drawn Hr. JACOBSZ and Hr. CORNELIESZ on this monstrous voyage, and not any lure of silver or spices at the honest labour of Jan Company; and they bear such horrid contrasts to the commandeur, imperfect vessel though he may be, that it shudders the mind to think of the VOC’s assets placed in such busy, greasy hands. We are all in danger who accompany such reckless men, though I scarcely see how they should not be tolerated – Oh, how little the commandeur sees about his very own decks!– I may present these studies to you, my husband, when we are to see each other, though when and how it shall be can we make no point of fixity now, however we might come across land. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C38]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E38]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D38]] </center></u>==> 36% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> <p>Sound and fury, signifying nothing.</p> </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F37]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B37]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A37]] </center></u>==> 37% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Nothing touches but, clutching, devours.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F38]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B38]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A38]] </center></u>==> 36% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>Another class Hindus is named //rajput//. These men live in the hill-country and are excellent soldiers, bold and courageous people, determined and loyal. The men are short in statue and ugly. Mounted or on foot, they have no weapon other than a short spear, with shield, sword and dagger, but they are slow to retreat in a fight, and are obstinate in attack, because the quantity of opium they eat excites them, and causes them to care little for their lives. They eat all kinds of meat except beef, and drink wine.</p> <p>When a rajput dies, his wives (or rather his wife, for they marry only one if there is genuine love) allow themselves to be burnt alive, as is the practice amongst the //banians// or //khattris//, and in Agra this commonly occurs two or three times a week. It is not a very pleasant spectacle, but I witnessed it out of curiosity, when a woman who lived near our house declared to her friends, immediately on her husband’s death, that she would be sati, which means that she would accompany him where he had gone, making the announcement with little lamentation, and as if her heart was sealed with grief. They imagine or believe that, if they have lived well in this world, the soul, directly the breath has left the body, flies to another man or child of equal or higher rank, and is born again; but if a man has not lived well, the soul passes to a beast – bird, worm, fish, evil or good animal – according to the appointed punishment. This is the reason why they will kill no animal, so as not to trouble or disturb the soul within, which would have to journey to some other animal, for they say: Who knows but the soul of my father, mother, sister, or children who may have died, may for their sins be in that animal? </p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A37]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C37]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B37]] </center></u>==> 37% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>To return, however, to what we were saying, when a woman has made up her mind, it is impossible for her friends or for anyone in the world to dissuade her, strive as they may, but if she persists, she must be left in peace. So she goes and bathes, according to the daily custom, puts on her finest clothes, her jewels, and the best ornaments she has, adorning herself as if it was her wedding day. Then she hurried with light step, as if she might be too late, till she reached the place, a little outside the city, where was a small hut, built of wood, roofed with straw, and decorated with flowers. There she took off all her jewels and distributed them among her friends, and also her clothes, which she disposed of in the same way, keeping only an undergarment. Then she took a handful of rice, and distributed it to the bystanders; this being done, she embraced her friends and said her last farewells; took her baby, which was only year old, kissed it, and handed it to her nearest friends; then ran to the hut where her dead husband lay, and kissed and embraced him eagerly. Then she or they took the fire and applied the brand, and the friends piled wood before the door; everyone shouted out ‘//Ram! Ram!//’ (the name of their god), the shouts continuing till they supposed she was dead. When the burning was over, everyone took a little of the ash of the bones, which they regard as sacred, and preserve. Surely this is as great a love as the women of our country bear to their husbands, for the deed was done not under compulsion but out sheer love. At the same time there are hundreds, or even thousands, who do not do it, and there no such reproach as is asserted many, who write that those who neglect it incur the reproach of their caste.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A38]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C38]]</div> <center> [[Continue->Immolation]] </center></u>==> 38% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Slacken, go down jaws; go gnawn bare. Jaws </p><p>Eat and are finished.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F39]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B39]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A39]] </center></u>==> 38% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>In arranging a marriage, the bridegroom has no share in the choice, still less has the bride, for the selection is made by the parents, or, if they are dead, by other friends. When a youth is from 15 to 18 years old, his friends seek for the daughter of a man within the circle of friendship; but this applies to the rich rather than the poor, because as a rule soldier marries soldier, merchant marries merchant, and so on according to occupation.</p> <p>If they know of no suitable match, there are female marriage-brokers, who know of all eligible parties; the parents will call these in, and ask if there is no rich young lady for their son. The brokers understand their business, and instead of one will suggest perhaps twenty-five. When the proposals have been thoroughly examined in regard to birth and present position, the parents choose the one which seems to be most suitable. Then the mother, or the nearest friends, go with the youth to the friends of the young lady they have chosen, even if they have no previous acquaintance, and, after compliments, ask if they will give the lady in marriage to the youth. After full discussion on both sides, there is usually an interval of some days, or, if they get an immediate assent, the youth, or bridegroom, sends a ring to the bride, with his compliments. She sends in return some betel, with a handkerchief or something of the kind, though the unfortunate bridegroom is not allowed to meet the ladies, still less to see if his future bride is white or black, straight or crooked, pretty or ugly; he must trust to his mother and friends.</p> <p>His house is ready; he goes in, and his wife is brought to him, whom he now sees for the first time, and he may congratulate himself if she happens to be pretty, or to suit his taste. The marriage must be consummated at once, while the ladies sit and sing no great distance; otherwise the bridegroom would be deeply disgraced, and the married ladies would send him the spinning wheel. When the marriage has been consummated, the mother and an old woman enter, and, after their investigation, they begin to scream or sing ‘//Mubarak!//’ or ‘Good Luck!’ as if a great victory had been won.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A39]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C39]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B39]] </center></u>==> 39% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C40]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E40]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D40]] </center></u>==> 39% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>What I have described is the Hindustani custom, but Moguls, and also Hindus, have different ceremonies. The Hindus join their children in marriage at the age of four or five years; and if the boy dies, the girl or bride cannot marry again, but must die a virgin, unless she employs clandestine means. The men on the other hand may marry as often as they choose, if their wives die; and old men have to marry children, because there are no grown-up maidens to be found.</p> <p>This is a sketch of the ordinary course of manners, administration, and customs, so far as appeared to me to be possible, but it is not a system of law that I have been describing, because in this country there is a great diversity of tastes, among both the upper and the lower classes; a description cannot be so complete but that someone may say that he has on one occasion seen or learned something contrary to it; and, consequently, when such chatterers talk, my employers will recognise that absolute concordance is impossible of attainment – –</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A40]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C40]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B40]] </center></u>==> 37% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="E"> an’ makes to tell ‘em the ms still at supper an’ all an’ bos’n claps Bean on the back an’ all the men grinnin’ ‘cos theys excited at me tellin’ so or at least I thinks so ‘cos theys faces all covered up with cloth like an’ then the bos’n talkin’ in me ear I’s ‘bout to have fun with ‘em all like promises promises an’ one o’ the gunners bind a mask ‘bout me an’ I’s full o’ fear ‘cos I feels caught ‘tween bein’ caught an’ bein’ caught an’ in’t fun have nothing to do with neither ends so I sees it but in’t nothing Bean do but wait with ‘em others in the dark an’ stink o’ the buckets an’ listen to this quiet long talk come from the end o’ the corridor with all bated breath an’ it seem like hours an’ hours an’ hours lookin’ at that light under the door then we hears the surgeon’s voice comin’ to the door an’ the men’s all swearin’ soft like but the bos’n quick tells us scatter an’ come back in fifty beats so we’s scatter with hr wooters keepin’ me by the scruff as we make fast to the far end o’ the stern to listen to the surgeon stagger his way past an’ I’s wishin’ to run to him an’ all but I can’t we’s gather where we was an’ in’t a minite or less maybe an’ we hears another voice comin’ to the cabin door an’ it’s the lady for sure all high an’ flighty sayin’ good-night again an’ again an’ the men’s all laughin’ an’ stoopin’ to dip their hands in the buckets one after another right in dung left in tar an’ bos’n bids me do it too an’ hold ready like an’ the door opens an’ she’s all in dark ‘gainst the table lantern her figure in a dress what shows off her waist an’ all an’ the door shut an’ I’s hear rustle rustle an’ it’s the comin’ o’ her dress an’ the moves o’ men ‘bout me an’ she hears or something ‘cos the swish swish stops an’ then we’s all movin’ quiet like an’ the bos’n grab her mouth an’ the gunner have her legs an’ we’s forcin’ her down on the deck with no screamin’ or nothing with all our hands up her dress an’ legs an’ me heart’s goin’ all fast ‘cos it excitin’ ‘cos in’t no one see what none o’ us doin’ down there least o’ all Bean but he in’t felt nothing o’ the like ‘fore an’ the bos’n sayin’ something up by her mouth an’ rubbin’ ‘bout her face an’ we’s wipin’ all below an’ then he’s makes this whistle like he’s said he would an’ we’s all scatter like before an’ leaves her where she lay an’ Bean get hisself down through the hatches as fast as he can an’ his heart still goin’ wump wump but he in’t know what to do with it an’ all but where we’s gather after they’s all laughin’ an’ swappin’ stories what they’s done while she’s on the floor an’ bos’n asks if any o’ us got blood on us but we each anser know then he says to get washed our hands like an’ we’s shown her a proper night aboard for once an’ for all an’ they’s laughin’ an’ slappin’ Bean too an’ askin’ did he get a good ol’ feel an’ right ‘nough I’s did so theys laughin’ an’ slappin’ me an’ I’s had to laugh ‘cos see I jus’ had to ‘cos in’t no man nor boy nor lady neither can’t stop when theys ‘bout to laugh or already laughin’ so in’t no blame laid at me door for that nor nothing you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; an’ they done give my a puff on the ol’ gouda pipe what go right to me eye-balls an’ all an’ give ol’ Bean a touch o’ the smoke-drunk thick in the air an’ in’t none o’ us can’t stop from laughin’ when all the air thick with it an’ close an’ that you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D38]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F38]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E38]] </center></u>==> 39% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="E"> ‘til the lads what Bean can’t see wake him up an’ in’t he know a thing but a rough salty hand clapped ‘cross his mouth an’ hands on his legs an’ wrists an’ pluckin’ him up from his sleepin’ mat an’ carryin’ him off ‘til we clear the hatches an’ he see the starry sky on a clear night an’ all an’ a red deck turn black as pitch what they done threw me down on an’ can’t Bean see but ‘em shapes up ‘gainst the sky but he know ‘em big basterds zevank an’ that big ol’ cadet from the cow-deck an’ the bos’n holdin’ him down an’ kickin’ him quiet-like without ‘em shoutin’ an’ wild bad names what don’t hurt Bean none an’ in’t he see or say nothing else ‘til the skip’s voice come tellin’ ‘em quiet-like to lay off Bean an’ the way he say quiet-like in’t no hope for Bean no more but lay still an’ pray they killin’ him ‘fore the sharks get to him an’ skip bring his beardy wet mouth up to ear an’ say in’t no cabin-boy layin’ no hands on his property without say-so an’ in’t Bean go ‘gainst no say-so in his life but in’t no chance now for Bean to pipe up an’ tell his side o’ things but lay there an’ look at the stars an’ wait for the ol’ snicker-snee an’ bos’n sayin’ theys have me balls an’ all an’ he got his catch-blade out an’ shinin’ in the star-shine an’ there comes this shout from on high by stern from lil’ hans the an’ he says there’s white water up ‘head like surf breakin’ an’ up goes skip to see an’ mark for hisself an’ I hears him say in’t nothing but moon-beams playin’ on the sea-surface an’ in’t no land for ten thousan’ miles dead ‘head an’ to hold course full speed an’ he’s comes down back where I’s bein’ held in the waist once again an’ says I’s for it an’ the bos’n gets this netting that’s lyin’ ‘bout the mess o’ it all an’ catches Bean up in it so’s I can’t move me arms or feet an’ the ring o’ men is round I now such as I can’t sees the sky or moon or nothing ‘cept this glint o’ light off the bos’n blade an’ he’s stretched back to get a good swipe in an’ that’s when there’s this other cry from hans a ways off I recognise only it’s all full o’ mad sounds callin’ for the skipper like alls hell’s at the gate an’ the skip turn to tell him keep it down ‘cos the merchant’s liable to hear an’ he’ll have a ear off lil’ hans for wakin’ him an’ that’s when there’s this toss an’ splittin’ great crash an’ all sudden each one o’ ‘em men is fallin’ ‘bout ‘emselfs an’ there in’t no world ‘bout Bean’s eyes an’ he rolled in his net alls too fast an’ me head must’ve hit a side or crate or something I don’t see ‘cos I in’t ‘member much or nothing </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D40]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F40]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E40]] </center></u>==> 38% ==> May, 1629. <== <span class="E"> I‘s dismissed from the table a night or two afters an’ I’s pass the lady’s cabin on me ways back jus’ normal an’ all but I’s jus’ happen to hear her weepin’ ‘cos in’t I have control over what I’s hears an’ what I don’t but I hear a weepy noise an’ already I knows it to be the lady herself an’ all in’t nothing to do but carry on an’ minds me an’ mine own all the same but I mentions it you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; ‘cos it did give me cause to mention to the surgeon the lady all in ‘sterics like she needin’ new bleedin’ an’ all an’ he asks after an’ I says as best I can what’s I’s seen an’ all an’ he quiet an’ all for a bit an’ that an’ then he say in’t half what go through a lady’s mind to be knowin’ from what she say nor how she look an’ it weren’t worth the guessin’ by the likes o’ Bean what sufferin’ she showin’ an’ right ‘nough I sees that much an’ all ‘cos can’t a cabin-boy let tell half o’ the things what got him groanin’ an’ gripin’ inside ‘cos bos’n let fly with what boys in’t got strength carry a bucket an’ in’t no place on crew nor ship nor world for lazy so-and-so’s such as what get the scurvy an’ jelly-legs an’ let it show so right ‘nough I keeps plenty hid up all for meself an’ got the head to know so it must be for all man an’ woman too what can’t be seen nor guessed or none you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; but right ‘nough ‘em sailers don’t keep none o’ what gripes they got to ‘emselfs an’ I reckon in’t no end to ‘em’s gripin’ when the commodore got the ol’ sea-legs back an’ weren’t jus’ zevank nor wooters nor van nuyssen nor four ‘em all together what got says-so on how the ship be run an’ where she bein’ steered what with I reckon the cap’n an’ his whore getting’ ‘em right riled up while the commodore were ailin’ an’ theys all got twice the vim for oil’ Bean ‘cos I’s been with the commodore now in his hour o’ need an’ half ‘em sailers seen me with the surgeon an’ bos’n an’ cap’n what’s taken a shine to me now an’ right ‘nough Bean likin’ now bein’ fetched no beatin’ in a week an’ more but in’t he know where he stand no more you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; what with him bein’ so used to ‘em beatin’s in’t it seem hardly fair what he done to earn peace or nothin’ an’ ‘em green-gill sailers what seen a cap’n clap a cabin-boy what in’t got no bees-wax with Bean now lookin’ at him in the mess like ol’ zevank look at a bit o’ tuck but didn’t Bean go lookin’ for bees-wax mind nor bees nor trouble but mind to his own bees-wax an’ servin’ wine at table ‘til he comin’ back again one night after commadore an’ his under-merchant pack the port in an’ Bean cleared ‘em pewter an’ snuffed candles an’ all an’ he makin’ his way back ‘fore the mast when he heard ‘em same sad sniffs from her lady-ship’s cabin in the dark an’ quiet an’ Bean in’t doin’ nothin’ but waitin’ an’ listenin’ lest her lady-ship need something or Bean can fetch her some service I don’t know what but can make hisself useful to any an’ all an’ right ‘nough she ope her door an’ all an’ Bean ‘spect a beatin’ or some right tellin’-to from her lady-ship but she in’t say nothing but that she knew ol’ Bean from the tale an’ wouldn’t I come in an’ weren’t no maid with her there or nothing so weren’t it but down-right disrespectful sayin’ no an’ so right ‘nough Bean say indeed an’ she even offerin’ Bean a seat like what the surgeon done an’ all an’ don’t ask Bean for nothing but jus’ talk an’ talk an’ she still cryin’ all through but in’t Bean listen none but sit an’ nod an’ wait for ‘em proper orders ‘cos weren’t nothing goin’ through his mind but what his hands done to her lady-ship an’ how it weren’t Bean what doin’ what that hand done but the bos’n an’ the skip an’ that an’ weren’t none o’ ‘em sittin’ here but Bean alone an’ when she done an’ gone back to her snufflin’ in’t Bean say nothing but now if she wantin’ the surgeon or nothing and she smile an’ say she in’t an’ in’t Bean do nothing or say nothing but that but as I live an’ breathe her lady-ship done given Bean a kiss right on his lil’ ol’ mouth an’ weren’t no long kiss or hard one nor nothing but in’t ‘em hands an’ they feelin’ come out o’ Bean’s head what make him discomfort an’ all an’ he shy away an’ her lady-ship looking damned fine sad an’ that what with her tears an’ all an’ her hand on Bean’s face now an’ the door gone an’ there her lady-ship’s maid lookin’ dead at the both us an’ her lady-ship lookin’ back an’ in’t Bean do nothing or say nothing but soon as the maid clear the door he off as a shot an’ scurryin’ down to ‘em gun-decks fast as me two legs carry me ‘cos in’t none o’ that bean’s bees-wax you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D39]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F39]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E39]] </center></u>==> 41% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="D"> <p>MY LOVE –</p> alls lost god save you wherever be you – and god save my HANS, god save my dear LIJSBET and my darling STEFANI – we s’ll not clear the reef the – wall is torn and we are lost and i or this parchm- must meet you all in paradise <p>your cr–</p> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C42]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E42]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D42]] </center></u>==> 41% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="E"> but do nothing but sit tight an’ wait for the ol’ disposer to dispose o’ him right an’ proper ‘cos can’t Bean swim or nothing worth a damn still an’ won’t there be no floaters left what number o’ men got the ship stripped by then an’ damn the bos’n an’ damn the skipper an’ damn her lady-ship an’ her damned horn an’ damn every-one Bean done met since he hit the ware-house floor an’ damn ‘em all ‘cept hisself ‘cos in’t there nothing worth thinkin’ bout but ‘em water’s what Bean hears rushin’ in through the hole in the ship an’ the trickle an’ gurglin’ an’ tricklin’ where he hear it comin’ in drownin’ her like it gone come in Bean up his nose an’ down his neck an’ fillin’ him up from head to toe an’ he get smashed ‘gainst ‘em rocks an’ sinkin’ where there in’t no light nor noise nor nothing but water an’ where ‘em fishes can rip him up an’ tear at him an’ make his belly they mess an’ turn Bean’s head to they cabin an’ what gone happen after that Bean don’t know he don’t know nothing </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D42]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F42]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E42]] </center></u>==> 42% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="C"> As the order comes from Ariaen to fell the mast, I stagger my way towards the deck hatch through the accumulated crowd of half-dressed passengers who looked helplessly on, not a soul turning from the sea to see me go. Ms. Jans sits on a bulkhead wrapped in a heavy wool blanket, beside the sawbones, who is calling hoarsely to no one in particular that the passengers need to be disembarked by yawl to whatever land is convenient. Soon the collective wailing of the women and children at our predicament forces Pelseart to send Ariaen with some sailors in the ship’s yawl to seek out some nearby land, which he does readily enough. The Captain soon returns saying there to be some low sandbanks less than a mile distant where things might be ferried by our boats, though the conditions are far too treacherous to carry more than a few at a time. Unbelievably, Pelseart tries to set his jewels ashore first, but on hearing this the crew begins an uproar, and are scarcely more pleased to hear Ariaen’s decree that the women and children are to disembark first, and then the ship’s officers and some supplies of food and water along with the Company’s capital. The yawl and longboat are loaded against the buck and spit of the sea with aching slowness, the sea only increasing its ferocity as the day wears on, and the pitched deck become less and less crowded. Night comes, and continues an age. The ferrying of passengers continues at first light, and by that afternoon there remain less than seventy souls aboard, all the lower sailors and soldiers whom Evertsz by now is holding at bay with one of the ship’s muskets fetched up from the armoury. I am about to step forward and claim my place, when I see Ariaen shout something into Pelseart’s ear where he is sat hunched on the quarterdeck, struck mute and motionless by the unfolding events. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B43]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D43]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C43]] </center></u>==> 40% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Not here the appointed End, not here!</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F41]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B41]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A41]] </center></u>==> 40% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>JOURNAL</p> <p>Sad daily notes on the loss of our</p> <p>ship BATAVIA, being sailed on the //Abrolhos// or</p> <p>Reef of Frederick Houtman, situated on the</p> <p>latitude of 28½ degrees, 9 miles from the</p> <p>Southland on the</p> <p>Fourth of June, being Monday morning, on the 2nd day of Whitsuntide, with a bright clear full moon about 2 hours before daybreak during the watch of the skipper, I was lying in my bunk feeling ill and felt suddenly, with a rough terrible movement, the bumping of the ship's rudder, and immediately after that I felt the ship held up in her course against the rocks, so that I fell out of my berth. Whereon I ran up and discovered that all the sails were in top, the wind south west, the course north east by north during that night, and we were lying right in the middle of a thick spray. Round the ship there was only a little surf, but shortly after that one could hear the sea breaking hard round it. I said, ‘Skipper what have you done, that through your reckless carelessness you have run this noose round our necks.’ He answered, ‘How could I do better? I did not sleep, but watched out very well, for when I saw the breakers in the distance I asked Hans the gunner, what can that be? Whereupon he said, “Skipper, it is the shine of the moon”, upon which I trusted.’ I asked him some advice now whereabouts he thought we were. He said, that only God knows, this is a shallow that must be lying quite a distance from the unknown land, and that we are just on the tail of it. We must see now to put out an anchor at rear, perhaps it is low tide, so that we can wind it off. I asked him how deep it was there. He answered that he did not know. I ordered the lead to be fetched, which was in the cabin of the steersman, and I found that astern there was only 17 to 18 feet of water, but at the stem of the ship much less. </p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A41]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C41]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B41]] </center></u>==> 40% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="C"> I am pitched from my bed in the middle of the night. I know nothing but the impact of my cabin floor and awaking to find myself polled amongst my own possessions and in the hypnagogic haze of reality I take to be an anxiety nightmare all of nonsense and chaos. It is as it was on our early nights out from Amsterdam, but it takes some time for this thought to occur to my grogged brain, and I come to realise the darkness, the hellish shouting and shuddering of the hull and blast of wind rocking to and fro, was no dream at all, but was waking life. The passages in the stern are full of men, shouting and hurrying to and fro in the swaying dark, all falling and clambering about each other and contesting a tight corridor space, which had become a bizarre slope that made an abyss of the left-hand passage. Even so, I lever myself through the hectic interval to the hatch up and out onto the upper decks. The entire ship is canted forward, such that the bow was buried underwater and the whole ship pitched upright on some monstrous obstacle in its way just shy of the roiling surface. The spray of sea salt is constant and blinding, whipped up by the hideous wind off a series of breakers that smash repeatedly into the ship’s side, each impact rocking the whole craft prow to stern and grating us against the coral and sending me staggering and grabbing out for whatever hold could be afforded in the rigging or decking as the sails billow and ploughed us further in and at each shock it seems the hull will burst and the whole ship crushed to splinters. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B41]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D41]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C41]] </center></u>==> 40% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C41]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E41]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D41]] </center></u>==> 41% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>What care these roarers for the name of king? </p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F42]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B42]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A42]] </center></u>==> 40% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="E"> ‘til I’s come to with a kick o’ boot an’ there’s alls hell loose ‘bout the deck an’ there’s alls legs goin’ every which way an’ can’t Bean see nothing as his eyes is alls full o’ stars close to an’ his legs an’ fingers still caught alls up in this damn damned blasted net an’ I try an’ cry but in’t no one meself included hear what come out me mouth for alls what’s occurred round ‘bout him but then’s a star glintin’ next him fallen on the deck what’s the bos’n’s blade an’ I’s wriggles over to it alls like a catched herring an’ takes the blade in hand an’ wriggles back where he in’t likely to get trampled by alls these shoutin’ men goin’ all reef reef the rudder’s torn an’ alls the like ‘bout alls an’ every thing an’ takes I the knife good an’ proper in me fist an’ saws at me feet til a strand gives an’ then goes another an’ the next ‘til one foot is free an’ then the other an’ I’s able to stand on me legs an’ throw this nasty net off an’ in’t no one payin’ no mind now how I’s trussed or give me a lick or nothing I’s alls alone in the mess but I sees under through the dashin’ men the deck alls twisted up like a broke back an’ the stern put alls underwater an’ the sea an’ wind is alls howlin’ ‘gainst her an’ the deck’s more full o’ folks than I in’t ever seen alls blinkin’ in the salt an’ spray o’ it an’ half-naked an’ alls shoutin’ this way an’ that an’ in’t no one look for Bean so I’s ducks under again an’ mindin’ for the bos’n an’ the skip makes me way to the port-hatch an’ ducks an’ scrambles me way under an’ through ‘fore they sees an’ down an’ down through ‘em gun-decks an’ orlops what’s all kicked up like a hornets-nest what with every man jack o’ ‘em pitch ‘bout the deck what’s up at a slope an’ yellin’ ‘em heads off an’ tryin’ to make fast what’s slidin’ an’ sloppin’ an’ all ‘em animals on deck screamin’ like theys bein’ butchered live an’ in’t Bean stop nor try make nothin’ fast but hisself ‘til I’s well down the hold what’s hot an’ close an’ dark an’ in’t no shoutin’ nor men ‘cept what’s startin’ to haul ‘em cargo up for pitchin’ to the sea an’ jumpin’ emselfs into sea what’s wild an’ tossin’ an’ tossin’ ‘em ‘gainst the rocks what breaks ‘em back right ‘nough an’ theys bein’ carried under with ‘em flotsam but in’t Bean stop runnin’ and scramblin’ an’ crawlin’ ‘til he wedged tight an’ deep an’ all in what nook or cranny up ‘twix couple o’ crates what can’t none see him an’ where he feel mighty comfortable an’ alone ‘cos in’t Bean tryin’ to kill hisself fixin’ the back o’ a broken ship nor for a crew what’s try to kill him you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D41]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F41]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E41]] </center></u>==> 41% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="C"> Pelseart is already on deck, quivering and cowering in his nightclothes amongst the astounded officers and calling for calm in a voice that offered none. The boatswain Evertsz is trying to bludgeon men into order with his staff, the deck by now aswarm with half-dressed sailors scrambling to action lest they never again see daylight and doing whatever they can think of to reduce the tremendous strain on the hull. I am in a rage to find Ariaen and where I meet him at the rail, roaring out orders, I have to catch him quite by the collar and berate him in what terms I know not in a hectic intensity all of my own all of knowledge and fear, a chaos of thoughts confused and what words I cannot use to command the matter at hand. He roars back at me that we are caught on a reef, that we had chanced upon unanticipated land and will be sundered for certain unless we can get some light, whereupon he issues orders to every man who can hear to begin casting loose from the hold anything not nailed to place, in the hope we will be floated free with the next tide. Everything mobile is hurled overboard as the sails are furled and anything that can be moved is hauled up overboard or rolled straight down the canted deck into the surf. Cabinet furniture, idle possessions, stores and barrels are handled man to man towards the fore, Ariaen and I observing up on deck where orders could be directed. It is nearly impossible to issue directions over the boom and wash of the surf, the crash of rigging and the relentless rain. Pelseart, for his part, only intervenes close towards dawn, when they are at last down to the solid caskets of silver in the ship’s stores, whereupon he bickers endlessly to keep the blasted things. To the Captain they are as much glittering ballast weighing them to the rocks, yet the commandeur, prizing his silver above his life and all of ours together, would not be persuaded to relinquish either one of them. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B42]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D42]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C42]] </center></u>==> 42% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> <p>A ghastly crew.</p> </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F43]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B43]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A43]] </center></u>==> 42% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>About 9 the skipper returned because it was not really possible to get there through the rocks and the reef, for at one spot one could not get over the yawl, whilst at another it would be several fathoms deep. He reported that as far he could see the islands would not be flooded. Because of the great wailing that there was from the ship, by women, children, sick, and anxious people, we decided to put most of the people on land first and meanwhile to get ready on deck the money and the most precious goods, for which I did my utmost. But God the Lord chastised us with many rods, for in spite of all the zeal we made to cant the vessel to leeward or to fall, it turned out exactly the opposite because of the uneven reef upon which it was set, which so caused it that the people could only come out of the ship very slowly. Secondly, the ship had already burst at 10 and all speed and skill had to be used to get some bread out of the bread cabin. Of water we hoped to get enough but our goodwill and diligence were impeded by the godless unruly troops of soldiers, as well as sailors, and their likes whom I could not keep out of the hold on account of the liquor or wine, so that one could not get there and in the meantime the entire hold became flooded, so that hardly 1½ leggers were filled with kitten and buckets and were ready on the deck of the ship.</p> <p>So that day went by and the boat had only done three trips with people, with which we had put on land 180 souls, 20 casks of bread and some small barrels of water. About sunset the skipper came aboard with the sloop who had taken to land a casket of jewels and some people, and said to me, it won't help that we take water and bread on shore, since everyone on land drinks as much as he can, and forbidding has no result unless you order it otherwise. Whereupon I jumped into the yawl on account of our water of which, as far as I could see would be very little available, moreover there was such a great number of people that it had to be better used, and with the intention of returning immediately in order according to our Resolution to get the money from the ship with the next boat. But by God's Truth, I was scarcely from aboard then it began to blow so hard that it was outside human power to reach the ship with the boat. Yea, we could hardly prevent it from drifting away. </p> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A43]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C43]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B43]] </center></u>==> 42% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C43]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E43]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D43]] </center></u>==> 42% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="E"> he hear ‘em move an’ all and shout water an’ all an’ Bean hope every one o’ ‘em rats drown with the ship ‘cos in’t none deserve it less’n ol’ Bean an’ he goin’ in the drink right proper but he don’t got go yet but wait for ‘em to jump an’ fall an’ drink ‘emselfs under an’ then he come out an’ scurry up the crow-bell like lil’ jim done an’ wait for this ol’ execution game to get done an’ all you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D43]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F43]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E43]] </center></u>==> 43% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Within the shadow of the ship</p><p>I watched their rich attire:</p><p>Blue, glossy green, and velvet black.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F44]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B44]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A44]] </center></u>==> 43% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>In the morning before daylight being the 5th, we put some folks with some bread and water on the largest of the islets, for we had been separated in the night into 2 parties, and I sailed from there in the sloop and the skipper in the boat, to go abroad, where I arrived at last about noon after much rowing, and the boat could not sail up against the wind because it had no leeboards, and it went back to the island. Also, on account of the big surf, for the waves broke over the poop, I could not come by the ship with the sloop. I remained a long time in the vicinity of the ship to wait for an opportunity to get aboard, but in vain. At last a carpenter, Jan Egbertsz of Amsterdam, who dared to come to the sloop through the surf, whom the under-merchant Jeronimus Cornelisz, with at least another 70 men who were on the ship, sent with the request to help them, for there was no longer any safe place on the ship.</p> <p>How great a grief it was to me all reasonable people can imagine. I asked if there were no means of getting 5 or 6 planks or pieces to make leeboards for the boat. Secondly, that they should make one or two rafts to save themselves and with the first boat that could come aboard I would get the money. Whereupon the before mentioned Jan Egbertsz swam again aboard and they immediately threw six planks overboard, which we got. Whereupon with great regret I returned to the island, where I found the carpenter very busy making a leeboard out of a piece of topmast which had floated to land. In the afternoon it started to blow very hard out of the north-west and the ship was pounded very much that day by the waves, so that one could hardly see it and it was a miracle that it remained together. </p> <p>In the evening we calculated our water, which we had in the small barrels, and we found ourselves on the smallest islet where we were, with the folks of the boat and the yawl, with about 80 kannen of water, where we were about 40 people, and on the largest island, where there were 180 souls, was still much less. Thereupon the people murmured, why we did not go to the islands or round about in search of water, for otherwise we could not help them, or they us and we should perish in that way all together, which was what the skipper told me, or otherwise it was apparent the folk would take the boat, towards which resolution I would not give my consent. I proposed that we should see the outcome of the weather and the ship. For to leave such a large group of fine people and the goods of the Company, I would be responsible before God and my High Authorities at //Batavia//. They protested very much against, and promised that on whatever land we should find water, be it on the islands or on the main Southland, they were willing to turn back in order to assist the other people with as many water trips as were found to be necessary. </p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A44]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C44]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B44]] </center></u>==> 43% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="C"> As Ariaen continues to shout, I hear only the roaring sea and they both look out to where the tide has ebbed to reveal tall spikes of coral. But then Pelseart nods absently, and both arise and start to edge down the slope of the deck to where the yawl is tossing in the surf. At seeing his the men howl as one, like some great baited animal and, with me among them, surge as one towards the sea and Evertsz catches a young soldier clear in the face with the crack of a musket ball before a freshly loaded piece is handed up by a steersman. The soldier tumbles headfirst into the crashing surf and the mob halts, hurling its abuse as first Pelseart and then our illustrious Captain step into the yawl, followed by Evertsz and his seconds and, to my supreme surprise, the maid Ms. Hendrix, and push off and begin to row away without a backwards glance. I shake off the hands of those of who recognise and grasp at my under-merchant’s cloak, and grope my way into the shuddering dark, through the twists of cabin space that still lurches and bucks from side to side, and roars and scrapes like the din of Hell. All that occupies my mind now is the hideousness of the drowned, the fear and pain of death and the abyss of nothingness that will become my soul, looming awfully ahead and crushing me in its shadow. There becomes an awful preciousness of that horror, a sense that it and everything is soon to be dispensed for naught and that I might never once more have pleasure ever again through all these last few desperate hours. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B44]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D44]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C44]] </center></u>==> 43% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C44]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E44]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D44]] </center></u>==> 45% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Spent steel, and from then on</p><p>To the bottom of the ocean she descends</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F46]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B46]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A46]] </center></u>==> 44% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Worm-drilled by the screeches of water</p><p>The bellies of the moon, her scales.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F45]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B45]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A45]] </center></u>==> 44% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C45]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E45]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D45]] </center></u>==> 43% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="E"> an’ in’t no day nor night in the hold an’ in’t Bean know then whether he wake or sleep but ‘em same nightmares be ‘bout him ‘til all ‘em scurryin’s an’ shoutin’s an’ that seem quieted down an’ that an’ Bean getting’ fashed an’ hurtin’ from how hard he packed up ‘tween ‘em crates so he start wrigglin’ an’ pullin’ hisself ‘til he get free an’ through an’ down to the hull deck an’ hatch what lead up an’ through an’ by ‘em sailers what’s drunk ‘emselves flat or been cut up an’ left down an’ that ‘til I’s up gun-deck an’ he hear ‘em crews mutterin’ an’ that all together up on deck but they in’t arguin’ or nothing but chantin’ an’ then Bean poke his head right up an’ strait then he seen the lot o’ ‘em what’s left upright on ship in a right ring an’ theys prayin’ together an’ it’s that merchant what Bean done served what’s got ‘em prayin’ along like the ol’ preacher done in the day an’ he tellin’ ‘em all ‘em ten-dollar words ‘bout purposin’ an’ retribution an’ takin’ en by an’ by being poured ‘bout by what sea-water he got an’ sayin’ the lords name while they bein’ prayed ‘bout an’ cryin’ out to the sky ‘til the whole deck tip like she fit toss ‘em all down in the drink an’ all the hands is shoutin’ she’s comin’ undone lads an’ grab up your floats an’ in’t the merchant bein’ seen no more but every man jack is grabbing the plank lash an’ barrels they’s been standin’ by waitin’ for the moment we’s all knows is comin’ but in’t nothing ‘bout Bean you understand </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D44]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F44]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E44]] </center></u>==> 44% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="C"> We have not been abandoned half an hour before the stores are broken open. Each toss of the ship in the surf tells every man on board that we cannot sustain for long, and some already seemed itching to make an end of it. The patient sinner must only wait for madness to overcome the world, and it is an instant before every man under the mast is crowding into the officers’ quarters in the stern, kicking and biting and shouting in the flood and wash of it to lay their hands on whatever loot they stumble across. I find one man wrapped in so many sheets of gauze linen from the ladies’ quarters, weeping to himself silently and praying to a God he can scarcely understand. A score of others have broken into the grog casks and are near insensate with drinking the orlops, braced in tight together amongst the remaining tuns and kegs against the rocking of the ship and taking turns from the lips of a heavy broken hogs-head. Some other I hear taking grace of the chaos to settle old scores on the stranded boys and women in some of the orlops’ dark corners. It is as if I were being presented by a premonition of hell in the noise and heat and darkness and rage of clinging, grasping arms and faces each contorted in an agony of terror or horrid joy. By the next morning, the men were busy at work now bundling together stacks of driftwood using felled twine into vast drifting bundles to clutch at hand when the end came and the surf came roaring up to take us all. Some, those cabin-boys and gunners who still recognised my station, came clattering to me demanding orders. Not a ma among us can swim, and they cling to my eyes as dearly as some men clung to their flotations. I could not muster any more direction than I could give myself, yet furnished them with much bootless preparation for the semblance of authority, lest I have the crew as a whole turned loose and every man for himself would have seen us all ended, just shy of our appointed hour. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B45]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D45]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C45]] </center></u>==> 44% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="E"> so I’s get well clear ‘cos the whole deck groanin’ an’ roarin’ like agony isself an’ ‘fore anyone stops me I gets up right to the front an’ I’s shimmying me feet along the bowsprit an’ then there’s this big shout an’ a crash an’ alls I’s ‘member is the feet droppin’ out from me an’ I’s jus’ grabs meself to the sprit as it drops an’ I’s all in the water an’ the water’s all in me nose an’ mouth an’ Bean don’t swim a stroke as I says so I’s all holdin’ like grim death to the sprit an’ it spears down to the bottom an’ jams an’ spins an’ comes up again in the lunge an’ wash o’ it all an’ there’s salt an’ spray all in Bean’s eyes but he can’t see nothing jus’ the sound o’ crashin’ roar an’ shoutin’ more an’ more an’ in’t no ship sides for him to get his bearin’ so I’s jus’ limpet-latched to the wood an’ gasping air when’s I feel it on me skin an’ in’t nothing tearing Bean from his fastenin’ as I’s intended to live if god like it or no you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; and lives I do god be damned ‘cos two days an’ nights past danglin’ on the ol’ bowsprit ‘fore Bean strength give out an’ he feel his feet striking down onto sand not rock nor coral but sand soft-like an’ I’s gets a footin’ an’ all an’ I’s looking up ‘fore me an’ sees this whole beach ringed with folks like from the ship an’ it still dark an’ all but he hear ‘em calling out to him you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; so I lets me hold go o’ the sprit soon as I can get me feet under me an’ head ‘bove water an’ in’t no strength left in either but some ways I know not how I’s wadin’ up through the waves an’ the folks on the beach being o’ the ship they’s more decent than Bean deserve an’ soon as he falls they’s round him putting water to his lips an’ I’s lifted up an’ all an’ in’t I ope me eyes but once ‘cos I’s right done with the seeing world for a while thinks I but when I do ope ‘em I sees it’s the surgeon what’s got me in his big ol’ arms an’ he’s saying something to Bean but in’t I mind it none jus’ then ‘cos I in’t mindin’ nothing at all just then you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D45]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F45]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E45]] </center></u>==> 44% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>At last, after having discussed it very well and weighed up that there was no hope of getting water out of the ship unless the ship should fall to pieces and it should so float to land, or that there should be a good daily rain with which we could quench our thirst (but as these were all very uncertain means), resolved after long debating, as appears out of the Resolution, that we should go in search of water on the islands most nearby or on the mainland to keep them and us alive, and if we could find no water, that we should then sail with the boat without delay to //Batavia//, with God's grace there to inform of our sad unheard of, disastrous happening. But first I requested the skipper that he should order some men to sail with me with the yawl to the other islet, to tell them first of all our intention. But he advised me not to go to the island, saying, they will keep you there, and you will regret it, secondly, there is no one who will sail with you. I persisted that without going to the island I had no intention of sailing in search of water, but that it was better and more honest to die with them, than to stay alive with deep grief of heart if we did not find it. </p> <p>At least I found the high boatswain willing with six men to put me off on the island in the yawl on condition that if they saw I was kept there against my will, they were permitted to make off with the yawl. I took a barrel of water with me to give to the people, but when they came near the shore they did not dare touch land, saying, they will keep you and us, we will not come any nearer. When I wanted to jump overboard, the high boatswain pulled me backwards, and they rowed away before the eyes of all the people who had seen the foresaid so that by God's Truth, I was prevented from my intention and returned back at night.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A45]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C45]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B45]] </center></u>==> 47% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>On 10 do. we kept hovering off and on the whole 24 hours because of the hard wind and had to set adrift the sloop which we had taken with us, on account of the storm that blew out of the n.w., and we also threw overboard portion of our bread and everything in our way, because we could not bail out the water. In the night we were also in great peril of sinking on account of the strong wind and the high seas. Also could not get away from the coast because we could not carry a sail as we could only heave on the sea, it rained the whole night so I hope that our people at the island have also had the rains.</p> <p>On 11 do. in the morning, the weather began to calm down and the wind ran to w.-s.-w., and then we steered round to the north, but the waves ran high as ever.</p> <p>On 12 do. in the afternoon, had latitude of 27 degrees, ran close along the coast, the wind s.-e., but could not find an opportunity to get to land with the boat because of the heavy surf. The coast very steeply hewn without any foreshore or inlets as have other countries, but it seemed to be a dry cursed country without foliage or grass.</p> <p>On 13 do. at noon had latitude of 25 degrees 40 minutes, we found that we drifted speedily towards the north and were round the point where the coast stretches out mostly from n.-n.-e. to s.-south-west, have held during these 24 hours mostly n. The land still entirely red stone hewn off without a foreshore, and generally everywhere at the same level, also it has not been possible to get ashore because of the surf.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A48]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C48]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B48]] </center></u>==> 48% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>There Nidhogg sucks at the corpses of the dead.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F49]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B49]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A49]] </center></u>==> 47% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="E"> an’ already ‘em soldiers an’ ‘em sailers is squabblin’ every day ‘cos in’t a quarter so many women an’ youngin’s such as me so many as ‘em what’s used to havin’ his weapon by him an’ havin’ his pay what jus’ been pitched at the bottom o’ the ocean when ‘em chests split an’ weren’t it half a week ‘fore theys all sayin’ how the commadore done took their pay with him when he done pissed off an’ he eatin’ duck an’ sippin’ fine wine in china while we’s dyin’ o’ thirst what in’t get pay nor nothing from bein’ ‘fore the mast an’ still more sayin’ how the under-merchant done brung ‘em chests back with him when he arrive an’ he keepin’ ‘em chests under gard in ‘em stores an’ he intendin’ to starve us all aways an’ keep it for him ‘cos in’t none got no say-so no more but him so it seem an’ when surgeon see him in the hospital tent he all fagged an’ fashed an’ tellin’ Bean he reckon the merchant done makin’ a sneak an’ he reportin’ from her lady-ship what I done seen what she been sayin’ ‘bout how there was some o’ the men what wanted ahold o’ the ship an’ what they been up to ‘fore the ship done gone down an’ he look Bean dead in his ol’ face an’ he askin’ what I knows ‘bout all this an’ what I said to ‘em men an’ what I been sayin’ an’ strait off Bean go off on his way ‘bout how in’t none o’ it Bean spot an’ how I’s been the subject o’ all ‘em sailers what done drawn him into disrepute since the day he hit the ware-house floor an’ all an’ so on an’ so on but in’t the surgeon want hear it or nothin’ but say what’s past is past an’ sunk with the B-A-T-A-V-I-A an’ restin’ under the sea an’ we’s tryin’ now to make a plan what in’t send us to the bottom with her an’ all so Bean tells him right an’ true an’ bare-bones an’ all he done done with bos’n an’ skipper an’ that with her lady-ship an’ in’t she told or said nothing but I seen it in surgeon’s face what he in’t want know but what he done heard ‘fore but in’t want know for sure you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D48]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F48]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E48]] </center></u>==> 46% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="E"> ‘cos in’t no good done to none else by sitting pretty so the bos’n say an’ soon as the surgeon reckon Bean sound an’ world still rocking an’ all like in’t hardly the ol’ legs carry me ‘cross level ground proper when I’s come out to where theys nockin’ up what tents we’s able from all ‘em guts an’ gubbins come out the ship when she broke an’ I’s makes me useful fixin’ up ‘em hammocks an’ riggin’s an’ pulleys an’ main-lines an’ gun-chains an’ flag-cloth an’ that to make shelter for when it rain an’ in’t Bean ask but he seen what people was there sittin’ or walkin’ or helpin’ out with stitchin’ an’ carryin’ an’ that ‘til he in’t know meself from me hnds and what they need Bean to do an’ by time sun goin’ down he seen the ol’ preacher an’ he seen her lady-ship but in’t she notice ol’ Bean in all the carry-on an’ in’t he see the tiger but done heard o’ him how all they’s all what’s workin’ tellin’ how the commadore an’ the skipper an’ bos’n done pissed off in the long-boat an’ left the lot o’ us on this hell-rock to thirst to death but in’t Bean see it happen or nothing so we’s under say-so o’ ol’ cornelius him bein’ second under the law o’ the company an’ we’s part o’ the company still ship or no ship ‘cos no ship is where we at an’ liable to have us sailers what’s used to ‘em stations an’ offices what make a ship float an’ in’t half o’ us know who got the say-so when in’t it float no more so right ‘nough so I thought an’ we all thought then that what we’s doin’ still is bein’ under what law o’ the company ‘cos if we any o’ us livin’ liable to get usselfs off o’ this damned rock it be by the company hand so I’s does what ol’ cornelius say what with getting’ ready whippin’ up ‘em bits o’ riggin’ an’ sail-cloth what’s washed up on the beach with me into tents an’ that an’ fetchin’ what wood’s left from the wreck and haulin’ it to where ‘em joiners is nockin’ ‘em up into lil’ dingys an’ that an’ fetching what crates o’ water an’ beer an’ vinigar an’ that come up on the reefs an’ we was all fetchin’ it up in one big tent where we got ‘em rifles an’ sabers what they fetched from the ship an’ breakin’ out ‘em barrels so ‘em soldiers with the say-so who gets what an’ in’t none on that rock under the preacher an’ the surgeon say-so who in’t get they cup o’ water at servin’-bell like we’s in the mess again an’ all together again like but in’t no boards to put us apart one from another now but in’t there half ‘nough water day on day what gets shared ‘round an’ in’t Bean get fair share on no ship like he get here what the surgeon got things runnin’ right were in’t no folk what were soldiers nor sailers nor merchants what don’t get equal share what there bein’ no walls nor floors nor decks nor masts on this here island what can come ‘tween ‘em noble folks an’ em cabin-rats what do all ‘em work to keep ‘em right so can’t they do nothing but give us what they done should have been all this while the way I seen it but damned if ‘em rations fair but thin an’ a damned ragin’ thirst but carried up in Bean’s mouth each an’ every day an’ each an’ every hour so the surgeon bein’ a right fair bloke done fetched ol’ Bean a shot-ball from the ship’s stores what done washed ashore what he can chew on’ an’ he swollows ‘em spit what come out an’ get a lil’ drink now an’ again for what it do the me teeth ‘cos in’t Bean goin’ near what sea-water half ‘em sailers quaffin’ all day ‘cos he knowin’ how it turn a bloke doo-lally an’ right fit to cut a lad up like crab-claw when he out under the sun an’ the thirst come on him so in’t Bean got the brain not to be drinkin’ from the sea what make men wild mad an’ that you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D47]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F47]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E47]] </center></u>==> 46% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="C"> I leave the men to their looting and drinking and choose to secrete myself in the utmost of the stern, and by ways make it up to the remains of the Great Cabin. Chairs and table lay haphazard or smashed apart for floatwood, the chests of silver from the stern all prized apart and split and spilt upon the boards. The men have long since pilfered anything of worth, the commandeur having taken only what he could carry and shedding the ornaments of his station and all other things less valuable than his petty life. His cabin too lies denuded of all effects, save the furniture and immobile fixtures. The journal and its reams of draft paper, I notice, were no longer where they had lain at the commandeur’s bedside. The log that was his dutiful record of our voyage had evidently been tossed out of the rear windows by the riotous crew, for I don’t imagine Pelseart much cares for his records, any more. So much the better, think I. Take I on a belt of Pelseart’s finer fabric from his wardrobe, and then a large felt hat that I had never much fancied upon his own head. There is a glass above his toilet, and I made much study of my new apparel. I think that they might have suited nicely, in better straits. The water is over the gunwales on the rear port side, lapping at the stairway to the quarterdeck. Those who would be absolved before their Judgment gather before this deepening pool while I intone the Frisian rites for baptism. They make a docile and devoted congregation, repeating each precious line word by word between hearty swigs of Christ’s blood. I would indulge such men as seek repentance when they hear wings of the Angel of Death fluttering above their heads, not knowing it from the dove. So take I each man, one by one, repeating the rites as they are lowered, one by one into the water. Our sins will not surface, think I. There is no sin. No more. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B47]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D47]]</div> <center> [[Continue->Baptism]] </center></u>==> 45% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>On 6 ditto with the day, I wrote on a leaf of a table-book that we were going with the boat to the islands round about or to the main Southland and would return as soon as possible, and put this under one of the bread barrels which we left there behind, and went off with the boat under sail. Moreover, that day to two different islands, on the largest of which we found some brackish water that was left by the rain in the holes of the rocks on the beach, but the sea water had already washed into most.</p> <p>On 7 do. we remained here in order to build up our boat with planks, for we saw that otherwise it would not be possible to reach the mainland. Against nightfall we saw the sloop, which I had left in the neighbourhood of the ship, come rowing, in it was Third Steersman Gillis Franssz, with yet another 10 men, also come in search of water, but when by the many wells we had dug, they saw there was none, they requested to be allowed to go with us to the mainland, which I permitted. We took also the yawl with us in order that it would be better or easier for us to get through the surf in search of water. As well as there was no one who wanted to sail back with the yawl to the other island or to the wreck.</p> <p>On 8 do. in the morning we sailed from this island to the mainland, after I had read to all people the Resolution taken by us, and commanded them to take the oath, which they did, and which went as follows –</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A46]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C46]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B46]] </center></u>==> 45% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="C"> The water comes up with cruel slowness. The lower decks are all awash by daybreak and filling fast, swallowing up to the orlop’s hatches and spilling up and over into the stern. By the end of the third day, it begins to lap at the cabin’s door where I had sealed myself away for as long as possible with my little cat, who is mewling piteously for whoever will not come to feed her. The calfskin folio of that English poet which kept me so captivated all those hours at sea now lies unbound in tattered pieces on the floor, the work of some deranged saboteur. As the water begins to creep beneath the door, I start to put my things in order, shedding whatever affects might weigh me down as the calico’s panicked mewing grows in pitch, until at the last I cave the beast’s tiny skull in with my ink well. It is a petty kindness, in the circumstances. Would that my Master would have done as such, think I. For the first time since having it hauled aboard, I open the small apothecary chest that had been my last vestige of my former profession. I still had several vials of theriac, tinctures and unguents that had congealed like cream in their thin, dark tubes. Among them was one of black glass that I took and gripped in my fist awhile, the noise of chaos raging overhead and all around. I knew the contents of the vial, and its consequence. It would be quick, mild. I had seen it work on children in the grip. Even so, my will rebelled, and quailed at the sheer thought of mortality. I slipped the vial into a pouch, and that about my neck, the better to have such a solution at hand should it be needed. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B46]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D46]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C46]] </center></u>==> 45% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="D"> <p>Worshipful HUSBAND –</p> Hell is empty, and the Devil holds court over the Batavia’s graveyard. No arrangement of words or sentiment can begin to describe the horrors I have endured these past months, nor might I erstwhile have imagined I would so yearn for my cabin aboard our poor shattered ship, for the innocuous barbs of conversation, for my foolish slattern of a maid and all of the myriad comforts that have been so buried below the waves. For all our Captain’s assurances we should not see land for weeks to come, our ship struck a reef early in the morning of June 4th, when I and ZWAANTIE were flung from our berth in full confusion, and found upon awakening that our cabin was tilted quite to the diagonal and all our meagre affects thrown hither and yon and mingling at its floor and thus impeding our frantic attempt to gather and dress ourselves to see what was the matter, thrown again and again by the rocking of the uneven floor beneath us. Emerging to find all the passageways and decks in confusion, seaman and soldier, woman and squealing babes all rushing about that dark and narrow space – oh, the noise and dread of it all – shouting and panicking and asking one another what the matter was and receiving no good reply. I found somehow the surgeon Hr. JANSZ in the dark, ZWAANTIE having quite deserted me in the throw of it all without my minding, and we with difficulty hauled ourselves up to the canted decks to where the commandeur and officers were crowded about the stern, trying to see afar off by the light of a clear moon, the rock of surf sending us all staggering six or seven times a minute to find new bearings while below scurried all manner of sailors furling canvas and throwing overboard all manner of loaded barrels and pitching whole brass cannons into the surf while the Captain roared order down to them in high fury to lessen the load on the hull to get clear. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C46]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E46]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D46]] </center></u>==> 45% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="E"> ‘til I’s wakened in this big tent an’ all ‘bout me these other blokes what I don’t turn to see ‘cos I only hears ‘em moaning an’ groaning all like fit the depths o’ hell an’ I’s see wooters an’ van huyssen an’ all an’ I knows I’s amongst me ship-wreck fellows an’ ol’ surgeon an’ all what’s come to see Bean an’ give him water an’ bread an’ that an’ say he doin’ fine an’ he done got Bean his own bed in this whole tent what they’s all got set up like his barber-quarters where blokes can rest up an’ easy an’ all that an’ right ‘nough he feel fair jus’ lyin’ there awhile ‘til I gets me legs under him again ‘an right ‘nough Bean thinkin’ he been in a trice again an’ got right away good an’ landed in a right fair spot an’ all with me own cup an’ an’ that but weren’t it long ‘fore ‘em ways the surgeon had an’ what he’s sayin’ ‘bout where we is an’ where the commadore is damn him an’ where the skipper in’t which Bean in’t mindin’ none no more but in’t the trice passed none yet but they’s sit right tight on these here islands ‘til the commadore get back where he bringin’ help now the ship an’ all ‘em vittles’ gone down an’ right by now Bean thinkin’ then in’t no diff’rence goin’ from one grave to diggin’ another but in’t god be damned got him yet you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D46]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F46]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E46]] </center></u>==> 46% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Out of the sea came he!</p><p>And he shone bright.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F47]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B47]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A47]] </center></u>==> 47% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>And on the right,</p><p>Went down into the sea.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F48]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B48]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A48]] </center></u>==> 46% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>Since on all the islands or reefs round about our foundered ship BATAVIA, there is no water to be found, in order to feed and keep the saved people alive, therefore the Commander has earnestly besought us and proposed that we should sail to the mainland in order to see if God will grant that we find water there, to assist the people with as many trips from there until we can be certain that they will be able to remain alive for some considerable time, and meanwhile command someone to bring our sad happenings to the Hon. Lord General, to which we the undersigned have consented now that the need has been placed before us of how greatly important it is to be responsible before God and the High Authorities– Have agreed and resolved to do our utmost duty in order to help our poor companions in their distress. In token of the truth have signed with our own hand and have sworn to it in the presence of all people, this 8th June 1629. <P>Was signed,</p> <p>Claas Jansz Dor &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Francisco Pelsart</p> <p>Claas Willemsz graaf&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Ariaen Jacopsz</p> <p>Michiel Claas &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Claas Gerritsz</p> <p>Hans Jacobs, joiner</p> <p>Jacob Jansz Hollert</p><p>Jan Evertsz</p> <p>At noon had the latitude 28° 13 minutes, saw shortly thereafter the mainland, and estimated to be 6 miles n. by w. of our ship. The wind west, had ground at 25 and 30 fathoms. In the evening about 3 hours, in the night we again went away from the land, and after midnight we ran again towards it. On 9 do., in the morning we were still about 3 miles from the coast, the wind mostly n.w. with some rain, this 24 hours, by guessing, progressed 4 to 5 miles, held n. by w. The coast here stretches mostly n. by w. and s. by e., it is a level rocky land without trees, about as high as Dover in England. Here we saw a small inlet as well as low dune land, where we intended to land, but approaching, noticed that there was a big surf and many breakers near the shore, very suddenly the swell out of the west became so heavy and ran so high against the coast that we could not readily keep off it, and the wind increased more and more.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A47]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C47]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B47]] </center></u>==> 47% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="C"> Even as we stand together on the rocking deck comes there a crash of a final colossal breaker, and a crack and a roar that builds and builds until it consumes the world, and someone close at hand yells ‘God save us’, and in that moment all the world comes undone. With a boom, the stern section where I stand splits asunder under our feet, and as the men are pitched to the floor there is a final abyssal lurch and a great peeling, tearing sound, and I right myself in time to watch as fully two-thirds of the Batavia simply drop from view with a spray of wood and stinging spray, the beams and decks and masts and rafters afore the stern all become so many splinters and hafts of jetsam, some bearing men and boys upon them with so many others among them suddenly tossing together in the wash and roaring dark, bourne aloft for a moment on the white back of the final breaker, then all is swallowed up in its foam with a roar and is dragged from sight. Then all is silent. I remain pinned to the side, one arm caught under a felled rafter board, quite insensate. The tall stern section seems poised to follow the wreckage of the bow and topple into the froth rushing among the spars of coral and decking below, but it simply sways on its place for a moment. God sunders, and God preserves. The floor lurches, the walls twitch. My stomach drops in a pit, and of a sudden the sky falls away and, with a crash, the sea rushes in to fill its void. I feel little. There is no pain. Then, as quickly, the rush ceases. All is still. Overhead, the stars are alight across the sky, rocking gently, rhythmically, side to side. Such strange stars, I think. Water is creeping in at my boot. The remains of the ship about me are creaking softly, rearing on the back of a great wave that wafts us out further from the reef. The coral breakers dim, and recede. Nothing is left but the sound of sea, the sight of stars. //And darkness was on the face of the deep.// </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B48]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D48]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C48]] </center></u>==> 47% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="D"> The women and children thus gathered and bundled into the yaw and larger longboat, which every minute rocked and crashed against the hull while women and their babes were piled atop one another one by one, then made we a hideous fearful voyage across the miles of ocean, with any instant my thinking we should be pitched overboard to a one and drowned in such confusion – but after what seemed an age did we reach land, so-called by the Captain, for it was but a mushroom of coral rubble without soil or shelter, and we laid ourselves upon the rocky beach, solidity at least beneath our backs, prostrate, shivering, weeping and disconsolate as all through the day the boats made their frantic voyages, ferrying first the predikant and his family, then the surgeon and all the fellow passengers to the islet in increments. Many found themselves separated from their spouse of darlings and the desperate cries about the group calling one to another were allayed only by the vocations of despair, despair at the cold and rain and lack of food and water, and I and the doctor always watching out to where the tossing ship by and by became obscured by spray and the fall of night and we made ourselves to settle down to find some rest and await the judgment of the morning, hard fingers of rock jabbed into our backs. In the black, bleak morning, the storm still not cleared and the ship and its remaining passengers apparently given up for the sea, the Captain arranged for we survivors be lifted through a calmer surf to one of the greater islands. Brought he some meagre supplies from the ship, the majority of which stayed on our rocky islet under the commandeur’s keeping. Our new isle was equally barren and rocky, and at finding this, and our little supplies already having perished among so many, even those men and elder women who had kept stern composure began to despair at ever finding sufficient water to subsist, knowing we that our sole hope for escape from that unlovely rock was fast becoming swallowed under salt-spray. One man cried out ‘This is the Batavia’s graveyard, and we all must find our graves’, and at this came up a great wail from all, or some, or many for it seemed in that moment the grief for ourselves quite consumed us all, and it could not be told in that moment who had kept their heart from sinking with our common ship. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C48]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E48]]</div> <center> [[Continue->Stranded]] </center></u>==> 46% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="D"> After many hours came the first cold fingers of dawn while we stood so shivering under a savage lash of rain on deck, I having passed the time with blind and blurry parchments lain on the decks under the surgeon’s coat writing what maddened nonsense I know not to so distract me, and the commandeur having given orders to sound all about us, at length gave the Captain the orders to fell the mast, which after an age of hacking and chopping by six or more soldiers fell with a mighty crash down onto the deck, entangling in the ropes and railings and crushing quite the entirety of the deck beneath it, whereupon the commandeur gave a great horrible groan audible over all the mayhem and wash of it, and seized our Captain about his throat and screamed ¬– “What have you done, that through your recklessness you have run this noose around our necks?” – meantimes the boatswain having clambered to the highest jut of the poop to see afar off by the light of dawn called that he could espy land beyond the reef’s breakers, and the ship’s yawl having been lowered with some difficulty by the mass of crew spilling about the wrecked mast and the Captain and a picked crew made fast to investigate, with us watching in a crush upon the quarterdeck as the receded to the whence the crack of dawn arose, returning in an hour or more with news that the land was habitable and to make safe the women and children of the passengers – this I received in equanimity, though my nerves being quite beyond the attentions of the surgeon for six hours or so I felt a leap of sheer ecstasy that I was not to keep atop that ruined craft to die alongside so many rough and unwashed grauw – for it was in that instant that with a colossal roar the sides at last split and we could see the water below rushing into the voided hull below. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C47]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E47]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D47]] </center></u>==> 49% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>The sons of Bor did find twin stems of wood upon the sea-beach, and from them shaped woman Embla, and man Ask. Endowed them with speech and features. Reason and the power of motion.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F50]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B50]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A50]] </center></u>==> 50% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>In form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a God!</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F51]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B51]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A51]] </center></u>==> 51% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>A mind not to be chang’d by Place or Time.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F52]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B52]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A52]] </center></u>==> 48% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>On 14 do. in the morning we had a slight breeze, but during the day it became very quiet. At noon we had latitude 24 degrees, held n. and the wind s.-e. The current took us daily against our wish to the north, for we ran close along the coast with little sail. In the afternoon seeing some smoke inland, rowed thither hoping to find an opportunity of landing. Were quite rejoiced for I imagined that where there were people there would also be fresh water. I noticed that the ground on shore rose very steeply, full of stones and rocks, and there was also a very big surf, yet 6 men swam ashore, and we remained with the boat at 25 fathoms outside the breakers. Our folk was searching for water and for nothing else until nightfall but found none, saw also four men creeping towards them on hands and feet, when our folk, coming out of a hollow upon a height, approached them suddenly, they leapt to their feet and fled full speed, which was clearly seen by us in the boat. They were black people, entirely naked, without any cover. At night time our folk swam aboard, all very much injured by the rocks upon which they were thrown by the surf, therefore lifting the kedge again, started in search of a better opportunity, sailing close to the coast all night with small sail and keeping outside the breakers, until</p> <p>On 15 do. in the morning we found ourselves at the point where a large reef stretched about one mile to the sea: then we ran between the land reef and the sea reef, which we guessed to be at 23 degrees, and sailed thus along the coast, alongside which stretches a reef, where between the land is very smooth and the water appears still. We did our best to get into it, but found no opening till round noon, when we found an opening in which there was no surf, ran into that, but it was very rocky and sometimes not more than 2 feet of water. This coast had a dune foreland of about one mile width before one comes to the high land, therefore began to dig on several spots, there was salt water. </p> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A49]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C49]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B49]] </center></u>==> 49% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p> A party of folk therefore went to the high land where they found by chance some small holes in a rock that were full of fresh water that the rain had left there, it seemed that the blacks had been there a little while before, for there lay bones of crabs and ashes of fires. Here we quenched our great thirst a little, for we hardly were able to do more, for since the wrecking of the ship we had been except for one or two small mutskens of water without any wine or other drink. Here we also collected upon our drinks, about 80 jugs of water, and stayed there this night until</p> <p>The 16 do. in the morning we continued to see whether there were more such holes in the range. But our search was in vain, it appeared it had not rained there for a long time, nor was there any sign of running water, for beyond the heights the country was flat again, without trees, foliage or grass, except for high anthills thrown up of earth, which in the distance were not unlike the huts of people. There was also such a host of flies, which came to sit in the mouth and the eyes, that they could not be beaten off. Here we saw as well eight black men, each carrying a stick in his hand, and these approached to the distance of a musket shot, but when we went towards them they ran away and we could not get them to stop where they were so that we might come up to them. Towards noon, seeing that there was no more water to be come by, set sail, and ran through another opening of the reef which lay a little more to the north, where we were in the latitude of 22 degrees 17 minutes. I had the intention to run to the river of Jacop Remmessens but the wind ran to the n.-e. so that we could not keep to the coast. Therefore we were forced to take a resolution, because we were more than 100 miles away from the people left by us and had up to now not found water to assist them, as for ourselves only, that we might have the benefit of 2 mutskens daily, to do our utmost in the name of God to further our journey to Batavia as quickly as possible in order that through the Hon. Lord General some order or means might be set to work towards succour.</p> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A50]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C50]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B50]] </center></u>==> 50% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>On 17 do. at noon, had no latitude, but by guessing sailed 15 miles, held n.-w. by north, wind n.-e., a topgallant breeze and dry weather.</p> <p>On 18 do. at noon had no latitude, but by guessing sailed 10 miles this 24 hours held w.-n.-w. in rough weather, with rain, wind n.-e. About noon the wind veered to the north, then we lay round to the east.</p> <p>On 19 do. at noon had no latitude; by guessing sailed 17 miles, held n.-n.-e., the wind n.-w. by west, rough weather with rain.</p> <p>On 20 do. at noon had the latitude of l9 degrees 29 minutes, this 24 hours sailed 22 miles, held north, the wind w.-s.-w., a shaky topgallant and sometimes rain.</p> <p>On 21 do. at noon, had no latitude, by guessing sailed 23 miles, held north, the wind ran from the s.-w., to the s.-e., gradually more breezy, then again somewhat quieter.</p> <p>On 22 do. at noon, had the latitude of 16 degrees 10 minutes, sailed this 24 hours 24 miles, held north, the wind ran from the s.-w. to the s.-e., shaky topgallant, with dry weather. It appeared that the current ran round north, otherwise we could not have gained so much latitude.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A51]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C51]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B51]] </center></u>==> 51% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>On 23 do. at noon, had no latitude, by guessing sailed 16 miles, held n. by w., the wind ran to and from the east to the west, then some breeze, some calmness with rain. In the afternoon a breeze blew from the s.-s.-east.</p> <p>On 24 do. at noon, had the latitude of l3 degrees 30 minutes, this 24 hours sailed 25 miles, held north by west, the wind mostly s.-e. by s., topgallant, with dry weather.</p> <p>On 25 do. at noon, had the latitude of 11 degrees 30 minutes, this 24 hours sailed 31 miles, held n. by w., the wind more to s.-e., topgallant, with dry weather, nevertheless we saw much bladder-weed floating.</p> <p>On 26 do. at noon had the latitude of 9 degrees 56 minutes, this 24 hours sailed 24 miles, held n. by w., the wind mostly s.-east with dry weather.</p> <p>On 27 do. at noon, had no latitude, by guessing this 24 hours sailed 24 miles, held n. by w., the wind s.w., topgallant with some rain. Towards afternoon sighted the land of //Java//, by guessing on the latitude of 8 degrees, and were 4 to 5 miles off. We set our course w.-n.-w. along the coast, until in the evening we saw a cape in front of us, off which lay an island covered with trees. In the evening sailed past this cape, off which stretched a reef and found behind this a big inlet, so sailing n.-n.-west, we dropped the kedge, in 8 fathoms hard ground for the whole night till</p> <p>On 28 do. in the morning with daylight, when we lifted the kedge, we rowed ashore to seek fresh water, where to our luck we found a running streamlet. Thanks and praise the Lord, for we could quench our great thirst at last, here we filled our casks and before noon were again under sail.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A52]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C52]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B52]] </center></u>==> 49% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="C"> Here and there, a waterlogged rat scrambles across the sand, and shortly beyond the wrecked cabin I pass two of the black, bloated creatures tearing at the mouldering body of the ship’s cat where it lies, buzzed about by flies. On venturing up the beachhead, I am met by a delegation of those survivors who had been ferried ashore during the first night, and who had reportedly watched the breakup of the craft from afar. They are a common lot, the majority of the ship’s high command apparently having opted to strike out for the mainland in the yawl several days before, rather than oversee this rabble to what must have seemed certain death. Thus does my own survival bode well for them, and I am received in great relief as the most senior remaining VOC officer left in that place, and bourne among them still wearing Pelseart’s own clothes to their settlement, which proves to be a paltry selection of wind-blown canvas and broken spars sheltering under the slightest of coral outcrops. There am I met by sawbones and that damned predikant, and little though I am relieved to see either of them alive, after the events of the past days the sight of their unshaven, haggard faces induces something approaching joy. I am exhausted, and tell them so, and straight am fetched a berth, dry clothes and what warm food and water they can muster. The robes I fetched from the commandeur’s cabin are laid out to dry, amongst my other salvaged effects. Spilt together about the broken spars and sheets of their impromptu camp, the stranded passengers of the Batavia lie scattered and dying. Some sit in filthy huddles of families or friends under what slight cover can shield them from the wind while others are lying outstretched, prostrate or supine, raving with thirst or with rotting sores I could already smell putrefying under the sun and stings of the black, biting flies. Whilst we stranded aboard had whiled away our days since the crash in drinking our wreck dry, those landlocked have subsisted on the seals and seabirds that colonised this coral quay, which are all but exhausted now. What little rain fell in the days since the wreck is already spent, and in desperation the Batavia’s crew have mustered a makeshift council to manage such affairs as they have left. This raad consists of what petty Company officers remain ashore, as well as those such as the surgeon and predikant who can still muster some measure of regard amongst the rabble by their former station. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B50]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D50]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C50]] </center></u>==> 48% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="C"> //And the spirit moved upon the surface.// As it was, so it shall be. When I come to again, the stars are gone. The sheet of night has not receded, but mellowed to a silken blue tinge. It is not day, nor night any longer. My craft is still, and the break of waves has become a lap and tip at my raft and its broken contents. Feeling about me I find I can prize myself from the wreckage, and feeling at a lump at the base of my skull the fingers come away stained with blood from what wound I cannot recall. By chance or providence, my craft had bourne itself to the distant landmass towards which the women and children had been ferried, an island less than a mile across. The remains of the stern had come to rest, incongruously, horizontal as if it remained as it was before, only opened roughly and torn out from the surrounding ship and transplanted to an oceanside plot. Nothing in the sea remains, only a scum of broken wood across this narrow beach, and here and there the bodies of drowned men slumped in the sand and lapped at by waves. //And I alone am delivered.// </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B49]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D49]]</div> <center> [[Continue->Wreck]] </center></u>==> 50% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="C"> The Batavia’s destruction is our only boon. Over the next days, several barrels of water and the commandeur’s Spanish wine wash ashore, and some others of vinegar and other victuals which by turns are scouted and handled up the beachhead to a central store tent that we keep under tight guard. What spars and canvas are brought to us by the constant onshore breeze we turn over to the surviving carpenters to thrash into new tents and traps to catch rainwater. What scraps of wood wash up along the beach are hammered into skiffs and rafts that they dream may carry them over the waves to the outer nowhere where Pelseart is fled. I order a mass grave to be dug for the five-dozen men and boys who washed ashore since the wreck. A fresh count yields two hundred and eight souls on the island, yet have we fewer than fifty barrels of fresh water now to sustain them, with the difference being treated by what rain-water can be collected during the island’s infrequent squalls. I doubt very much our illustrious commandeur may return, though Ariaen now must surely be with him, inches away from his sleeping throat on board their shared longboat. Already are his men, dismayed at his quick departure, approaching me with hushed voices and entreaties to intervene. Their eyes are now on the raad and the surgeon, and they are due to turn to me as Pelseart’s deputy and caretaker of the Company’s charges in this place. With some little guile, what could not be seized aboard ship may yet be acquired by land. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B51]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D51]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C51]] </center></u>==> 51% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="C"> Some of the survivors remain convinced that the other ships of the fleet, the Dordrecht and the Gravenhage, would soon hove into view over the horizon to bear us through to Java. I have known Ariaen too well, and tell them so. Thanks to the variable driftwinds of lower latitudes, and Ariaen’s intentional straying from the pack, none of the fleet would have known our whereabouts since leaving the Cape, nor any possible indication of our shipwreck until our supposed arrival at Batavia. Alarms will be raised, no doubt, but without exact knowledge of our position upon this vast and formless bowl there is little hope of rescue by the VOC. And so must I explain to them all that we are stranded, inescapably, utterly and alone. Ryckert Woutersz, one of Ariaen’s supporters from before the mast, makes but little attempt to hide his disgust and rage at his Captain’s departure. For days he makes turns about the camp, boasting of what they had planned together and abusing him in public. Whispers now sweep the camp of the planned mutiny, and the mutineers’ presence amongst the settlement. I know not yet whether I am named amongst them. Some of the men say too that the tell-tale sea-crows and sargassum had been sighted days before the wreck and indicated we were not more than thirty miles from land proper, most probably the Great Southern Land that had been guessed towards hitherto, yet can hardly have been on any of the Company’s charts. The Captain steered as if ten thousand miles of ocean lay all about. It was thence Pelseart must have fled with the Captain in their yawl, but nothing being found there, they must surely strike north for Java rather than return here to their certain doom. Such a voyage might well enough kill every man aboard through thirst or confusion or some unknowable calamity upon the vast waves, for all the Captain and his officers remain able seamen. And yet the longboat’s salvation is our own, now, whether or not the mutiny still lives. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B52]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D52]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C52]] </center></u>==> 48% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="D"> We awaited the return of the Captain or commandeur, for they must surely return with further salvage, but none came and the despair persisted, whipped up into such a frenzy amongst so many people that just be amongst such a miserable herd was quite intolerable, bearing so may shrieking voices and common misery even above the lashings of the continuing storm, and I admit I simply fell amongst the beach-sand, my strength having deserted me after such an ordeal, and did not stir until morning for all the surgeon’s brave indication that we were not forgotten, that there were hope yet in the hands of our Captains and in faith in God, I deigned not a sound in reply. On next day was sighted with ecstasy the longboat approaching from the direction of the wreck, bearing the commandeur and a cask or two of supplies rowed by his men, and such ecstasy rounded the group that our band of hundreds in its entirety thronged the beachhead and gave out such clamour at its approach as to deafen heaven – yet the boat stopped some distance offshore, and dallied quite agonisingly out of reach, and was seen the commandeur trying to dismount from the prow and being wrestled back by his crew, whence the boat began to withdraw again presently to a great wail and cry from its expectant crowd, some of whom began to wade out into the shallows, and then to swim, to try and catch it as the oars and current swept PELSEART and his men quite from reach and sight. It was the surgeon’s sad opine that the commandeur was too much afeard of the boat being taken in such a rage of his charges, for surely the desperation at our state had driven some to hatred at him and his failures to provide what abundance remained, and the commandeur had decided to save his own hide with his craft rather than risk any doomed manoeuvre to bring us temporary comfort. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C49]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E49]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D49]] </center></u>==> 49% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="D"> So scattered our huge band of refugees after us, many taking themselves afar to be rid of the cramp of company, some saying in loud voices that they must take themselves away to die rather than pace such a hopeless vantage for deliverance from the devils who had us so abandoned, and the surgeon and I by chance came across the predikant with his scarce and startled family flocked around him in hollow prayer, which we joined awhile, though I caught the surgeon’s eye much straying towards the horizon all the while our heads were bowed. Came there a point at which the cries of thirst from the stranded folk on our island grew so constant a cacophony from all quarters that it could be bourne no longer, and there came from certain persons an emphatic note that the rains might never return or we would surely every one of us perish before they came in such volume to make proper stores, and salt was on every one of our mouths and eyes, but cried one that the ship was still intact, with the water stores aboard surely still unspoiled and that if even a cask might be fetched from her we might stave off the end until the rains came again. Then came the predikant’s servant girl Ms. CLAASEN to the fore of us, making brave of our damnation and saying that she should make an attempt at least to reach the ship and bring back such stores as she could by any means, water being the chief of our needs, but the predikant and his family each made their entreaties that she should stay – not through personal need, for they were as all of us and her besides a state of utter abjection, but that she might be dashed apart on the coral or drowned as so many had on that first night, or else she might make the ship never to return, it now surely being overrun by a band of just such trapped and desperate souls who would claim any surviving stores for themselves and make bloody work of any who came to wrest it from them - but heard she each abjection and countered by the virtues of necessity that they might be dead men all to be so wedded to passivity to await the rains. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C50]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E50]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D50]] </center></u>==> 50% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="D"> Then made we a stout rope to affix to the tall Ms. CLAASEN, her determination on the waters being quite fixed, and having made an estimate of the distance to the wreck still rocking on the very limits our sight, with six men paying out the rope she dove in off the rocky shore and battled against the sweep of water with such powerful strokes as she seemed to bear all the remaining strength of herself and those who watched besides; soon did she disappear from our view for a times, though never from our attentions. Returned she miraculously after a long while kicking ashore behind with a pair of barrels lashed together and of such level quantity as to float her through the waves, and upon her triumphant reception amongst our people she made much talk of the surviving men aboard the Batavia still under the command of the under-merchant, all of whom she claimed had grown ragged and mistrustful with drink, being so trapped aboard without hope, but had they much food and drink left in the hold for all that. The boon of water was gratefully shared about, though Ms. CLAASEN’s heroicism were soon made in vain by the arrival the next day of another squall, whereupon we spread out our sailcloths upon the ground and collected such new stores that the fetched barrels were filled brimful. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C51]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E51]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D51]] </center></u>==> 51% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="D"> It is a dreadful place upon which we are cast, surely at the Earth’s most pitiable extremes from all that any of who us are fair and good call our own and have come to cherish; there is nothing here living but the wind, as it bites and blows upon our bodies as constant as the tides; and the waves; and the sea-birds which circle overhead always; at all times is the isle drab and grey enough to drain colours from the sky and sea about it, with grass coloured as old parchment and no protective shelter larger than outcrops of coral that stand against this hideous wind; there are no hills, no trees nor caves and but little undergrowth, with ground that is as rubble or bare and slippery shingle. A count being made on the second day after the Batavia ran aground, reckoned to be June 5, there are reckoned one-hundred-and-eighty here stranded on this rock, less those who have put off by long-boat, perhaps some fifty, and those still stranded on the ship, however many or for how long can hardly be guessed at, though Ms. CLAASEN reckons but seventy or fewer; those survivors numbering perhaps around one-hundred able-bodied men, seventy of which being of the ship’s soldiers who had previously been confined to the orlops; of the remainder, perhaps twenty women such as myself and as many are youths, babes and cabin-boys; Hr. JANSZ, who commands rank and respect amongst the able-bodied men as well as any man remaining from the VOC, has been instrumental in organising our petty group and in bartering and beguiling some cooperation in the establishment of a tent settlement and raad authority according to the customs of the VOC; he has established a council like to a ship or settlement consisting of himself, the predikant Hr. BASTIAENSZ, the Batavia’s provost Hr. JANSZ, one of the soldiery’s petty officers and one of the upper-merchant’s senior clerks, a Hr. DESCHAMPS; yet the five of them together could do little to quell the indignity of a hundred or more when they are roused by despair and desertion of their commanding officers. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C52]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E52]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D52]] </center></u>==> 48% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="E"> an’ when I’s finished all ‘em things ‘bout the skipper an’ her lady-ship’s maid an’ that the surgeon were quiet a while an’ he say what Bean done known but in’t thought ‘bout or nothing that it were the under-merchant what put all us up to it all an’ he makin’ ‘em same schemin’s here an’ now an’ all an’ he makin’ some bad plans where we’s concerned ‘cos in’t he give a damn over the company nor what nobody need or nothing but hisself an’ ‘ems that follows him so in’t we took look to him for our say-so company or no company ‘cos no company is where we at jus’ right then so we’s best keep our wits ‘bout us an’ all an’ right ‘nough in’t Bean thinkin’ o’ goin’ ‘gainst any company say-so but in’t the regular crew ‘bout us or nothing ashore you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; so Bean make hisself handy with what spades they done fished up ‘cos half ‘em sailers an’ soldiers an’ idlers an’ able-bodied we got left is down on ‘em south beaches what’s diggin’ one big long grave what they’s layin ‘ all ‘em bodies what washed ashore so right ‘nough Bean lendin’ what he’s got into it an’ pilin’ up sand good an’ proper when he feel a hand on him an’ he’s got loos lookin’ him dead angry in his face an’ in’t he got a blade or nothing but he’s talkin’ ‘bout how he know me from servin’ the commadore when he been laid low by flux an’ in’t Bean been in the skipper eye an’ that while we’s on the ship an’ in’t Bean want catch the fair one or nothing an’ right ‘nough he says he is an’ all an’ how he loyl to a crew an’ in’t there no ship no more but there still a crew an’ all an’ Bean half-way through his life story an’ all but in’t loos want give him a beatin’ or nothing but he says right ‘nough I’s part o’ the crew an’ ship or no ship we’s in it together an’ he with me an’ I with him but we’s all with the merchant what’s got the say-so an’ all when in’t no skipper nor bos’n nor commadore nor nothing an’ you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D49]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F49]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E49]] </center></u>==> 49% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="E"> an’ Bean understand right ‘nough so he done clapped me on the ol’ shoulder an’ says I’s diggin’ ‘em holes fair an’ fast an’ that right ‘nough an’ in’t long ‘fore ‘em strong lads is takin’ up ‘em heavy wet bodies by ‘em ankles an’ ‘em necks an’ heapin’ ‘em in the hole what we dug high ‘nough that don’t our sand hardly cover ‘em but it make a lil’ hill but in’t none o’ us got the arms an’ a right thirst on an’ ‘em sun gone so we leaves ‘em to what crabs is gatherin’ an’ the merchant what calls us up says we’s get a cup an’ a half o’ water what’s been diggin’ an’ fair ‘nough I takes it an’ when’ em tents is up an’ all what we’s seen on the beach all hauled up in the big tent an’ everyone what’s lyin’ up in the surgeon’s tent is lyin’ up an’ all in’t nothing for Bean to do where in’t nothin’ proper to fetch nor scrub nor nothin’ to put hisself to cleanin’ or dirtyin’ but nothing but watch each o’ ‘em horizons what in’t getting’ no nearer nor further an’ count ‘em waves what rock up on ‘em beach waitin’ ‘em tides turn an’ have suck bitter strong puss from ‘em sores on his feet what in’t used to ‘em sharp rocks an’ sticky sand or nought outside ‘em red boards an’ the salt an’ spray o’ a indiaman ‘an by an’ by ol’ Bean feel more an’ o’ his own self what he done felt while he livin’ in the white man’s grave an’ all like how the sun beat down on him jus’ the same as this horrible ol’ wind what rip it out you each an’ every breath an’ how Bean got the ol’ orange a day what he could live off an’ a couple o’ cups o’ water an’ be ‘bout his own self an’ in’t no horsey nor nothing for him to mind but hisself so right ‘nough I’s thinkin’ soon what the surgeon thinkin’ an’ most probly what we’s most all thinkin’ what in’t got nothing left worth livin’ for but theyselfs that he’s best get his water an’ fill his own belly ‘fore he try diggin’ a hole for nobody else ‘cos in’t half o’ us livin’ long ‘nough to be grateful but in’t Bean givin’ up or nothing in these waters an’ he in’t see it helpin’ none nor doin’ more good than watchin’ ‘em stars when bos’n were tryin’ to take his balls off or lettin’ go o’ what raft brung him from the reef an’ in’t it never do no good lettin’ go o’ nothing you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D50]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F50]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E50]] </center></u>==> 50% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="E"> so right ‘nough Bean get set in ‘em new duties what’s ‘spected o’ him ‘cos in’t nothing more to be doin’ from sun-up to down but lookin’ t the sea an’ prayin’ with ‘em crowd the preacher keep about him morning noon an’ night prayin’ an’ prayin’ an’ we’s less an’ less o’ ‘em stores what we been eatin’ from since we’s washed up an’ in’t nothing for none of us ol’ crew to do but try an’ ropin’ up ‘em seals what line up ‘em grey long beaches but in’t none get close but they’s bolt strait for the waves an’ that but we’s getting’ three four tired thirsty lads what’s got a rope ‘tween ‘em cirlin’ in an’ hookin’ ‘round what seal’s on the edges so ‘em ropes tangle up his tail but in’t we on one but him start barkin’ and snappin’ an’ settin’ the whole in a right tizzy but his mates all done gone pissed right off an’ he thrashin’ an’ snappin’ an’ tryin’ to get to water ‘til you cut his thoat an’ stab him in the heart an’ bucket up his blood an’ cut off the head an’ rip his guts an’ quarter him an’ carry his blubber up the island where they’s drain him out into ‘em drinkin’ jugs an’ cook him up in what pots they got an’ theys made traps for ‘em mutton-birds what circlin’ an’ screamin’ over head an’ what fish they pullin’ in from ‘em rocks put in a loop o’ twine an’ so Bean spend ‘em days thirstin’ an’ lyin’ belly-flat on ‘em sharp hard rocks an’ with a loop o’ twine in each hand an’ watchin’ ‘em far rocks what’s baited for ‘em filthy fat birds to plop down an’ snatch at it an’ he’s can yank an’ wind an’ rope ‘em up an’ break theys legs an’ necks an’ wings an’ take ‘em back to get blood-wrung an’ cooked up with ‘em bones an’ rocks an’ salt-brine an’ served out an’ in’t Bean catch but two ‘em birds first fort-night but in’t he eat none for it all go to ‘em women an’ youths what don’t do nothing but cry an’ wail an’ drink ‘em blood-water what we’s scrapin’ off ‘em rocks an’ catchin’ in our wash-rags an’ wringin’ out to ‘em pots whats full o’ blood an’ in’t Bean taste nothing but his lead-shot an’ me own cheek an’ salt an’ blood-metal in a month an’ waitin’ to murder ‘em birds what’s screamin’ an’ squawlin’ an’ in’t there longer days on this earth where you in’t thirstier ‘an hell isself an’ the wind what’s pullin’ the heart out o’ you by the ears an’ eyes an’ parched an’ watchin’ an’ waitin’ to kill an’ break an’ drink up hot blood you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D51]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F51]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E51]] </center></u>==> 51% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="E"> so I do what say-so I takes from ol’ corneliesz an’ the surgeon an’ ol’ preacher but more an’ more the merchant an’ more like ‘em goons up from the gun-deck like zevank an’ wooters an’ van hoysen an’ ‘em big sweaters from the cow-deck what Bean don’t like worth a damn but weren’t nothin’ to do with what blokes the skipper had try take his balls an’ can’t he stand up to ‘em or theys the ones who take ‘em next ‘cos ‘em soldiers what they took from the cow-deck got some brutes what are like to take a bloke’s head off blade or no blade so they’s got what say-so god gave ‘em you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; an’ soon ‘nough theys sayin’ we’s to break up the camp what we got ‘cos what the merchant say in’t this rock here what he hisself been callin’ jeronimus but like white man’s grave we taken to callin’ batavia’s graveyard in’t got space nor food for a quarter folks what’s landed an’ there’s people what they sendin’ to ‘em other islands what we see a mile or two yonder when ‘em mist clear an’ in’t many what want leave camp what they’s stayed since the wreck an’ they wantin’ to keep with ‘em food an’ water an’ ‘em family an’ that an’ it be the merchant what’s got say-so o’ who stay an’ who goin’ so ‘em goons goin’ through the camp an’ tappin’ shoulders o’ the provost an’ ‘em women an’ youths what’s been keepin’ us all up with they wailin’ in’t Bean mind a change o’ scene an’ that but in’t he get the tap what make ‘em pack they camp an’ rags an’ make for ‘em boats what we’s got an’ sent into the mist with ‘em families wavin’ from the rocks ‘til they an’ the provost an’ all up in the mist an’ in’t seen an’ in’t we hear nor see nothing more ‘em folks for weeks an’ weeks an’ all but merchant give the say-so that half ‘em soldiers what we got on the island be sent up to ‘em high-lands an’ give it a proper look for water an’ not come back ‘til theys got water for the lot o’ us an’ all so theys sent boat by boat in ‘em ricketies what they done nocked up but still in’t Bean get a tap what’s to send him nowhere an’ when he done asked the surgeon he say theys both stick with ‘em sick an’ ailin’ in what tent he got nocked up for ‘em an’ in’t he nor Bean be sent where ol’ cornelius in’t got no say-so over us an’ right ‘nough he right awhile so Bean keep up with ‘em long days o’ sippin’ at ‘em rain-cloths an’ lyin’ waitin’ for ‘em fat loud mutton-birds to drop in his noose right ‘nough so by an’ by we’s put up in the store-tent what ‘em pilferers want get ‘em fingers under an’ pourin’ water an’ wine like in’t no end to ‘em barrels but we’s all watchin’ an’ waitin’ now an’ watchin’ on the store-tent an’ ‘em rations what gets brung at day-break an’ all but Bean watchin’ by day an’ he don’t sleep none for the pain in his belly an’ mouth what thirstin’ an’ wind an’ screamin’ birds or nothin’ but I sits up by the tent an’ wait you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D52]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F52]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E52]] </center></u><center> Maauhwrr. [[Continue->D30]]</center> ==> 52% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>A sterile promontory.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F53]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B53]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A53]] </center></u>==> 52% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="C"> I wonder often whether Ariaen might have opportunity to catch the commandeur unawares, to pitch him over the side or pull away while he scouts some desert beach for water. But he is not returned, certainly – whether Ariaen believed me dead, or cared not a jot one way or the other. No, in absence I could not count on his return any more than his pursuit of mutiny. He has never a hand for himself, and I know for one how easily the man can lose himself in his own drudge. Then, what if he should try, and fail? and Pelseart should succeed in winning his way to Batavia against wind and current to carry news of our disaster? Ariaen is an able man indeed – but if he ferries his master to the VOC, and that fool woman of his too, they will be found out for certain. As will I, and the mutiny, and all of our worldly ambitions. If a jacht returns, then, if we be yet living, I must control these islands and their people if I am to step ashore again. Somehow, soon, the truth will out. If Ariaen should fall, I shall fail. And I can do nothing for it now. Only wait, and proceed. The council above all else wishes to starve us all out by rationing. They have retrieved the ship’s gardener, Hr. Gerritsz, to try and eke some paltry nourishment from the land and rain. With but few seeds from his bovenhut it is a fool’s errand, as what can be coaxed to existence on this rock may take months or years to sprout, and all else must be snatched out of the air and sea to sustain us. We have but a hundred useful men, and for each of them one frail with sickness, or too young or old or feminine to bear their own weight, which are kept in the surgeon’s sick-tent. Such people are useless and cannot be spared our dwindling resources. If any of us here should to see the Fatherland again, there can hardly be room for sentiment here, in such a place. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B53]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D53]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C53]] </center></u>==> 53% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>On 3 do. before daylight, I let the kedge be lifted and ran towards the ship in order to get some weapons as we did not know how those of //Java// stood and ours, but as we approached we saw that there were three ships, of which the nearest was the jacht SARDAM, aboard which I went. I understood from the merchant, Van Dommelen, that the largest ship was FREDERICK HENDRICK, on which was Lord Raemborch, councillor of India. Therefore I sailed immediately to him, where I had to tell his Hon. with heart's grief of our sad disaster. He showed me much friendship and permitted that I should stay on the ship with him until we reached Batavia. The other ships were BROUWERS HAVEN and WEESP, with which was the Commander Grijph coming in company of the Lord Commander Pieter van den Broeck from Surat, but had been parted from each other.</p> <p>On 4 do. the ship BOMMEL, sailing from Souratte, also came by us, saying that still some ships had been seen outside the Straits, but not knowing whether they were English or our own ships.</p> <p>On 7 do. we arrived at night at the fall of darkness in the roads of //Batavia//.</p><p>God be praised and thanked.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A54]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C54]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B54]] </center></u>==> 53% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="C"> Next, I exhort the raad as its newest and highest member not to have the carpenters reform another longboat from the rescued driftwood, but instead to send parties of our community to the other isles sighted in our archipelago via smaller skiffs with room for no more than six or eight. Here, they are to search for new provisions, scout the outlying land – and, for all I care, die of raging thirst out on those distant rocks. Little good would they do here. My own men I will keep about me on this island, with those remaining under my personal purview. They bend easily to my suggestions and surety of tone, and are frightened enough to obey as meekly as sheep to one of my intellect. Those of my mutineers I send amongst them soon return along with their makeshift skiffs and report no new wells nor fresh game on these other rocks, save for tales of strange tall rabbits that herd the High Land of the largest isle. The smallest, lying to the south, they call Traitor’s Isle, in memory of our former commandeur and his last port of call before fleeing East. But nearer to hand, a thin sandy spit of coarse grass that lies between us and it, they have named Seal’s Island after the herds of these animals that populate its beaches. Many lower sand banks are revealed at ebb tide, vast shallows of mud and quicksand that form treacherous promontories between the far islands. But our island here, which we all have elected to name Jeronimus in my honour, as well as Seal and Traitor’s Island, are quite cut off from the High Land, and perhaps thirty miles from the great Southland that can be spotted afar off from the dunes’ peaks, as bleak and distant as the face of the moon. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B54]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D54]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C54]] </center></u>==> 54% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>A weary time, a weary time!</p><p>How glazed each weary eye.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F55]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B55]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A55]] </center></u>==> 54% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>Governor-General in Council, The Castle of Batavia, 9th July 1629.</p> <p>Monday the 9th July 1629. Informed by the commandeur Francisco Pelseart (arrived here on 7th inst. with the boat of the ship BATAVIA from the Southland) that on 4 June last on //Houtmans Abreolhos// situated between 28 and 29 degrees about 9 miles west of the land of the EENDRACHT, the aforesaid ship BATAVIA was wrecked and that 180 souls therefrom, whereof 30 off were women and children, and a casket with jewels, were landed on a certain coral shallow, that there was not any fresh water at that place and that they had not more than 13 barrels of ships’ biscuit with them; that 12 or 13 persons were drowned and that 70 souls were still on the ship when they had sailed off with the boat (in which 48 persons, whereof 2 were women and one child) in search of water; that the ship had burst and was full of water; that at several places they had been ashore in order to dig for fresh water so that they might have provided those left on the small island, but that they had not been able to find it, whereupon they had resolved amongst themselves to set course to Batavia because they saw that it would not be possible to salvage anything more from the wrecked ship, because of the daily rough weather. </p> <p>It was put forward by His Hon. to the Council, since it was apparent that it was possible that some of the people and also some of the goods might be able to be saved and salvaged, whether it was not advisable that they should be sent thither with a suitable jacht to find out what could be done. The Council having taken notice of the proposal of His Hon., it was found good on a unanimity of voices, and it was resolved to dispatch the jacht SARDAM, arrived here from the Fatherland on the 7th inst.; to provide the same with provisions, water, extra cables and anchors, and to send back thither Francisco Pelseart, commandeur of the wrecked ship BATAVIA, with a crew of 26, amongst them a few //Guseratten//, in order to dive for the goods with the express order to return hither as soon as possible after having done everything for the saving of the people and the salvaging of the goods and cash.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A55]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C55]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B55]] </center></u>==> 55% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>13th. Because Ariaen Jacobsz, skipper of the wrecked ship BATAVIA, is notorious through allowing himself to be blown away by pure neglect; and also because through his doings a gross evil and public assault has taken place on the same ship, on the widow of the late Boudewijn van der Mijl, in his life undermerchant, it has been decided by His Hon. and the Council to arrest the mentioned skipper and to bring him to trial here in order that he may answer those accusations made to his detriment.</p> <p>Considerable disorder and insolence had occurred on the said ship BATAVIA, of which the skipper has been no small cause; the High Boatswain Jan Evertsz of Munnickendam has been hanged on the gallows on account of the mishandling on ditto ship of Lucretia van Mijlen, wife of Boudewijn van der Mijl. The skipper himself was on watch when the ship grounded, being, according to his reckoning, so far from land that one would not think to look out, and thinking that the spray from the sea was the glare of the moon. </p> <p>Jeronimus Cornelissen, having made himself a great friend and highly familiar with the skipper Ariaen Jacobsz, moulded their mood, intelligence, and feelings into one mass, the skipper being innate with prideful conceit, ambitious, so that he could not endure the authority of any over him. Moreover, he was mocking and contemptuous of all people. Further, he was inexperienced or inept in getting on with people, in so far as it did not concern sea-faring. But Jeronimus on the contrary, was well-spoken and usually knew how to give the polish of truth to his usual lying words, he was far more sly and skilled in getting on with people, because in Holland, or more exactly at Haarlem, he had been a disciple or partner of Torentius, which opinion or denomination of belief was still imprinted on him, yea, he did not profess to any religion. </p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A56]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C56]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B56]] </center></u>==> 53% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="D"> Hr. JANSZ at least has negotiated for a hospital tent that he manages with one or two of the women, in which those suffering from the rocks, the thirst or the heat may lay under shade and be tended to. Still, I find the circumstances of our camp utterly inhospitable, for we share all our food and water and meagre living-room on these outcrops with so many strange and roughened fellow faces, those previously set before the mast and put at distance to us that I feel quite uneasy in myself; for all I wish to dispel those lingering privacies and constraints, they are as familiar to me as mine own face in the glass, and, having been disposed of both, I feel slipping slowly further and further adrift from a life which seems as absurdly filled with luxuries and dissimilar to these awful days as is death from life itself. Made I one lucky discovery at this time of a large collection of parchment-paper from the merchant clerk’s quarters which had been washed ashore, along with enough ink that, with a quill Hr. JANSZ had fashioned for me with his razor from a gull’s-feather, I have since put to considerable use documenting the travails that accost us nearly hourly in this hellish place, and the activities amongst our ragged band as we struggle daily for water and for peace amongst our number, whom thirst and fear steadily push towards the edge of desperation. Many debate endlessly over the reason for our commandeur’s disappearance, and the likeliness of his immanent return with fresh stores from the mainland which, as Hr. JANSZ says, cannot be promised nor relied upon, and that it therefore does not do to speculate for but some sprig of hope amongst our band; and there comes many rumours in the following days from those who washed ashore with Hr. CORNELIESZ of dissidence amongst the crew since and prior to the wreck, with many whispering that were it not for Batavia’s crash, those dissatisfied bands of soldiers and sailors might of envy have taken the ship from under PELSEART, being of unsteady minds and violent disposition; those eyes tended towards me in such talk I chose solely to ignore; though Hr. JANSZ assured me such talk is born of common thirst and parting scorn for our commandeur. The children make many frequent demands on our resources and our patience, as we few women endeavour to attend to the care that the men for all their quarrelling have not the time for; and make the predikant’s children many tearful enquiries of me as to how we long we are to stay on this island; their parents being most unresponsive and their father in particular being much occupied with clerical governances. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C54]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E54]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D54]] </center></u>==> 55% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="D"> A further dismay soon came with Hr. CORNELIESZ’ first directives, for as soon as he came ashore he expressed a necessity of distributing our number out upon what rocks in the archipelago his men had scouted, to lessen our number’s reliance on a single settlement; thus with but little assurance of their habitability certain families, whom I marked particular for dissent against Hr. CORNELIESZ and his thickening band of thugs amongst the men, to be sent via their small skiffs to these far islands; the boats returned, and they with but small portions of water and food eke out their survival alone and parted from our community and its precious common stores, which now have been seized by the under-merchant’s men and become a fortified camp, they making use of what muskets and grenades yet survive to make those remaining impregnable to any other, and have of late used much of our precious timber and iron to construct a jail-cell wherein dissolute members of the settlement may be confined as punishment and protection of the rest. We on Batavia’s Graveyard therefore are committed in our dwindling numbers to the oversight of these wild and desperate men in the under-merchant’s control, all while whatever authority was wielded by those of the Company who have us abandoned is taken from us, from the surgeon and the predikant, by those I sense increasingly care little for any but themselves; thus always have the most brave and brutal fed and fattened themselves beyond the reach of those institutions of law, without those strains of pity and reason, which must be grown and nurtured as carefully as hot-house flowers to survive in the hearts of men. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C56]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E56]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D56]] </center></u>==> 52% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="E"> ‘til I sees two o’ ‘em soldiers creepin’ up right close to the store-tent an’ all an’ scurryin’ under what loose end is flappin’ ‘bout in the wind an’ all whiles his mate keeps watch an’ by an’ he comin’ out with a big ol’ cask an’ in’t they see Bean right by ‘em nor hear him breathin’ for the wind but they’s toastin’ all to ‘emselfs when theys out beyond ‘em tents an’ crackin’ ope that cask like a egg an’ takin’ big ol’ swigs ‘til theys voices loud ‘nough couldn’t half the camp tell ‘em blokes was out an’ ‘bout but Bean recognise ‘em an’ all what weren’t both soldiers but what bloke what was keepin’ watch an’ drinkin’ right along were one from the gun-deck what Bean done messed with so right ‘nough that eve I tells the surgeon what I seen like I tells the bos’n on deck ‘cos in’t Bean no thief nor drunker neither an’ in’t no diff’rence seein’ an’ not sayin’ an’ in’t Bean in no mind to get the whip right here an’ now so right ‘nough Bean tell first surgeon an’ preacher ‘fore they pull him front o’ the merchant in his big ol’ tent what’s wearin’ bright fancy clothes like what the commadore done aboard an’ ol’ cornelius lookin’ down-right pretty an’ chuffed what I got to tell him like he been a mind to get some whippin’ done you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D53]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F53]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E53]] </center></u>==> 53% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="E"> but in’t the sun a hand-an’a-half ‘cross the sky ‘fore we hear ‘em big voices ‘bout camp what’s shoutin’ over ‘em birds an’ wind an’ worryin’ souls ‘cos the merchant soundin’ right pissed an’ all callin’ folks this an’ that an’ damned an’ sinnin’ an’ that an’ right ‘nough he come out in a right huff ‘bout what commandments is what says we in’t steal an’ love for our brother an’ in’t the soldier what stole get no whippin’ nor mercy an’ they be puttin’ him to death an’ all an’ theys still to decide on if what god got say ‘bout who’s only been drinkin’ not stealin’ an’ ol’ zevank pipe up that theys listen to the merchant an’ not god an’ half ‘em sailers whats there laughin’ an’ showin’ happy ‘bout ‘em thiefs bein’ dealt how they was like theys at the ol’ execution games an’ all an’ half lookin’ as tired an’ empty as the surgeon what’s come out beside the preacher all like theys in’t watchin’ the execution games but playin’ ‘em you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D54]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F54]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E54]] </center></u>==> 52% ==> June-July, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>On 29 do. in the morning, after the second quarter 26, then we saw a little island ahead which we passed on the starboard side, with the daylight we were near the western inlet, hence the course lies w.-n.-west, though one leaves the coast on account of the curve. But before one reaches the //Trouvens Islands//, land is seen again. At noon had the latitude of 6 degrees 48 minutes this 24 hours sailed 30 miles, held mostly n.-w.-west. About the middle of the afternoon, we sailed between the two //Trouwes islands//, where on the more westerly stand many coconut palms. In the afternoon we were still a mile away from the south cape of Java, and at the third hourglass of the second watch we began to enter the strait between //Java// and the //Princen Islands//.</p> <p>On 30 do. in the morning we were sailing through the Princen Islands, in the afternoon drifted about 2 miles due to calmness, until evening when a slight breeze came up from the land.</p> <p>//Primo jullius//, in the morning it was again calm, at noon we were still 3 miles from //Thwartway Island//, the wind variable, towards evening it began to blow a bit from north west, so that we could pass the //Islands Dwars inde Wegh//, but at night it became very calm and the whole night through we had to row.</p> <p>On 2 do. in the morning we came by //Topper's Hat//, there we lay until 11 hours and waited for a sea breeze, then getting only a slight breeze, so that the whole day we had again to row, making only 2 miles by evening. In the setting sun we saw a sail astern about //Dwers inden Weegh//, whereupon we dropped the kedge under the shore in order to wait for it.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A53]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C53]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B53]] </center></u>==> 53% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Infernal regions. Receive thy new possessor.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F54]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B54]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A54]] </center></u>==> 52% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="D"> Quarrels were grown more common on the third day, all food being consumed and a thorough search of our little islet yielding yet no drinking wells, and the rain having abated to a dry and constant squall which stole all moisture from each of our mouths and skin; mine throat did soon crack, and the intensity of discomfort being suffered beyond endurance, many of the party being driven to drinking urine or seawater and, in the case of the common soldiery, the blood of gulls and seals slain by rope and sling, the predikant urged his family and many others in taking their own water to ease relief, and yet despair did yet rob all of us of all rage and passion but a fatal acceptance and dread wait of the inevitable end. At some time after six or seven days of this thirst did we hear a further commotion upon the rocks, and they being in full view at hardly a mile’s distance each and every man woman and child did watch the Batavia come at last undone and could hear the tremendous wailing therefrom of the men still trapped inside being tossed as one into the barrelling surf and the great hull being smashed to atoms by the furious sea and bourne away piecemeal; thereafter over the next few days did we receive the boon of the ship’s demise as such flotsam came drifting ashore from the depths of its stores that became our situation quite restored; and came there some ten or twenty men swimming or bourne on driftwood who had stayed aboard the ship to add to our community, the last of whom to arrive, to my discomfort, proved to be Hr. CORNELIESZ, his ordeal trapped aboard the sinking ship having by no means seemingly diminished his sly and obsequious aspect. He was all but carried into the camp by a group of our survivors looking somewhat bedraggled but with the same fierce expression I had so disliked aboard; and was greeted by the surgeon, and though he would say no such thing methinks Hr. CORNELIESZ did seem to view our camp both disdainfully and as so much personal property, for immediately did he begin to impose himself upon both Hr. JANSZ’ council and our settlement as an entirety; soon there was hardly an aspect of our lives that was not under his thumb; from the fetching of the water, the collection of storage and guard duties about the camp, the allocation of tents, himself being given a spacious private berth lushly appointed with pilferings from the Great Cabin and PELSAERT’s own wardrobe in which he struts to and fro in great regalia giving smart orders. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C53]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E53]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D53]] </center></u>==> 55% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>From Ymir’s blood made they the seas and the waters; from his flesh the land; from his bones the mountains; of his hair the trees; of his skull the heavens; his teeth and jaws crushed to make the stones and pebbles.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F56]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B56]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A56]] </center></u>==> 54% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="C"> Regardless of the men’s reports, returned I news to the raad that these islands are quite habitable, and capable of supporting as many again who at present still crowd our settlement. The very next day are some twenty sent with but few buckets of water to Seal’s Island, and as many again to Traitor’s Island under command of the provost. Then do I select one member of the surviving soldiery who I sense can oppose our rising here on our island –Hayes, the cadet who bears now some acclaim amongst the grauw – to take some group of twenty of the ship’s fittest surviving soldiers to scout and scour again upon the High Land, for though it be quite bare, I hope the task may yet distract and segregate his number. For this distant hope are they given some flame-flares to signal the discovery of water, though no weapons nor permanent craft – and, from my part, no true assurances of retrieval. Hayes’ soldiers are sent out the very next morning at slack water. Some embrace the women they leave behind, friends from the orlops who wish them God’s speed and swift return with fat skins of groundwater. Once the last are pushed off and rowed away by Pietersz and Zevanck in their little skiff, and the last of the children are too tired to wave any further from the windward clifftops, the predikant leads the hundred or so remaining in prayer and song. Thus, meekly, are my proudest foes on the island sent to die upon our horizon, without quarrel or consequence. Yet He may return at any instant. The pious soul is always in readiness. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B55]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D55]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C55]] </center></u>==> 55% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="C"> Comes there soon the opportune moment, and that right soon. A lad from the remaining cadets is discovered stealing wine from our common lot, and shared his glut with a gunner named Ariaensz. The soldier, Hendricx, cannot expect to live under our law. Yet the predikant will protest, and in dissent may he be deposed. Come the morning, make I much quarrel of Ariaensz’ life in our store-tent before the five tired, wasted members of my raad. Show I all of them which passages of scripture they transgress, how bloated of their own esteem is their deviance from true law, their decadent custom and urbanity. They have not much time left to indulge their pretence of command. The commadore in absentio, I remind the predikant and old sawbones that Company law permits me to choose what council forms my raad. And I choose not those who do not understand the sacred and profane, so I tell them. I may take mine own apostles and, as Christ of this place, choose those who have chosen me, and the one way to salvation. In the morning, Zevanck and Pietersz volunteer for the job of drowning Ariaensz, and it is done in proper ceremony, with all camp in attendance to respect what was once part of our flock. He is held face-down in the coral shallows, kicking and kicking between the twin holds of the two big men. He passes into Christ so, and while the predikant leads a hymn Woutersz and Jannsen take up the shovels. How much effort is saved without the prating of our former raad. With the preacher, surgeon and their fellow clerks dismissed at my authority and Zevanck and Cosijn of the corps now at my right and left for all decisions, our plans for resettlement come far faster to fruit. They are practical men, men of survival and success in violent conditions. They do not dither so ridiculously as the barber and the predikant, who now are mere members of our flock. Mouths to speak, and mouths to feed. We dispose of the gunner-thief the next day and, on the next, two carpenters who all the camp know have planned desertion in one of their self-constructed skiffs. And now, at last, order is restored. We have yet hope. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B56]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D56]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C56]] </center></u>==> 54% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="D"> Of the other women I knew few enough before the wreck, save for the predikant’s wife, but we brave few made us of stone by many small works in the sewing up of ceilings and sails, the weaving and amending of fish-nets, as well as minding the youths and labouring as hard as any three of the men in their bickering about the running of our settlement and attempts to find fresh water springs and further distribute our vital core that barely supported itself; those diligent women who went always on in spite of everything, in spite how our noble husbands dispose of our lives in the end. ZWAANTIE my maid is, naturally, not among those stranded on our atoll; I had not heard nor seen of her since the night of the crash, and had missed her not whether she be lying at that moment at the sea’s-floor or not; but I heard tell in this whirl of rumours that the Captain had taken her on their longboat as they had evacuated the Batavia, for he could hardly be parted from her in their bid for freedom; if he had left her, we might have some hope that he may return; nonetheless, I wish them both to sail into the mouth of hell itself, all alone with each other and their own and our illustrious commandeur, without the privacy of cabins to retreat to for privacy; laying exposed on the open sea and sky and feasting one upon the other. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C55]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E55]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D55]] </center></u>==> 56% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="C"> I spend the next days thinning those disloyal soldiers that remain on Jeronimus. They cannot however be spared on any vestige of the land we have remaining, and they are hardly worth the transit. I advise then my flock that we must send reinforcements to Hayes’ expedition for water on the High Land, of which there is yet no sign. There are volunteers, though I send only those who little like my command here, and send them on skiffs amongst my men behind the closer isles to be disposed of discretely in the waters there. Those that return are my men only, however lately, and are little wondered at by the rest. I had hoped yet that thirst might take care of Hayes’ party on the High Land, that they might expend themselves without hope of rescue and never again bother us. Yet the camp is a-chatter on the thirty-fifth day that a signal had been seen over the High Land, and immediately on hearing this do I top the windward cliffs with my men to investigate, many of the flock trailing at my back to see what is the matter. Then we watch as one mass as a second flare pricks into sight across the great grey interval of mist, and then a third, and a great foolish cheer goes up that met not with the rage in my own heart, for the people saw that Hayes’ men had found water at last. I force my people to disperse and send for the rest of my raad here atop the outcrop where we might see and discuss what to do. Then with mine own eyes do I see skiffs begin to be launched out by the exiles on Traitor’s Island, less than a mile distant to us. Pelseart had taken the ship’s spyglass with him, or else it perished in the wreck, and I could not descry who might be aboard. Yet in that instant, once assembled, do I send Zevanck and van Huyssen to crew a boat with five loyal souls to intercept these skiffs and defeat their purpose. This they do, and when they have safely cleared the mists and have met together between ourselves and the beacon-fires, I descend to my tent to wait and play statesman, cautioning my meek flock against possible subterfuge. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B57]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D57]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C57]] </center></u>==> 54% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="E"> an’ weren’t it ‘til the next day theys fetchin’ out the pilferers what they got locked up in this right big jail made o’ cages what came from the hold an’ ‘em sturdy bars an’ fittin’s what washed up an’ zevank an’ peters that right big soldier basterd yankin’ him up by his arms to the beach what’s all surrounded by ‘em sharp white rocks an’ ol’ cornelius what’s got us all there man woman an’ child what’s got watch so in’t none got no ideas ‘round pilferin’ the common lot ‘cos in’t there none o’ us weren’t pilfered from so we’s all to make our justice on ‘em sinners by shame o’ witness or so the merchant say an’ in’t none speakin’ while he speak but the pilferers what they screamin’ out ‘bout bein’ thirsty an’ in’t none there makin’ it from this rock livin’ an’ what’s the harm o’ a lil’ drink an’ all ‘til peters let the gunner catch the fair one in his belly an’ in’t he make no more words but sobbin’ an’ weepin’ an’ that ‘til cornelius done finished his speech ‘bout justice an’ speak the punishment out an’ lead the lot o’ us in prayer then zevank an’ peters is draggin’ the poor blokes out through the waves what’s poundin’ at they legs ‘til theys out waist-deep then they dunks ‘em head an’ shoulders an’ all below ‘em waves an’ they turnin’ thrashin’ an’ kickin’ like ‘em sharks whats got they fin roped up to a barrel an’s bein’ bit apart an’ crashin’ ‘bout in the waves ‘til in’t they got no strength no more an’ theys stop they thrashin’ an’ still in’t none make no noise ‘til they fetch out the waves an’s draggin’ ‘em off not movin’ no more off down the beach where they done buried the wash-ups an’ in’t we follow to the burial but we’s all led in song an’ that by ol’ preacher an’ told we’s to make usselfs safe again an’ praise the lord in’t none think o’ pilferin’ or ‘sturbin’ the peace or nothing you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D55]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F55]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E55]] </center></u>==> 55% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="E"> an’ in’t Bean see none o’ the surgeon ‘til the sun nearly done kissin’ the sea good-night an’ he come to Bean tent what’s there a gunner’s wife what’s been all up in ‘em hysterics since mornin’ what needs bleedin’ an’ while he goin’ ‘bout his knife an’ bowl an’ that with Bean makin’ her fast like times gone by an’ with Bean talkin’ on ‘bout ‘em soldier an’ in’t it half Bean fault what he done seen an’ what he said an’ what’s to get done ‘bout water an’ makin’ up ‘em boats to paddle us home an’ all but in’t there nothing to be said but he tell Bean in’t it none o’ his say-so no more nor the preacher’s neither an’ we’s listen to the merchant’s say-so from here on an’ right ‘nough Bean think weren’t none closer to the ol’ commadore an’ in’t he care none for ol’ skip an’ bos’n what’s pissed off ‘cos in’t no crew or nothing but what the company put to sea an’ in’t no justice for ‘em pilferers an’ crooks what’s to fear on land but what company bring so in’t there no idlers nor cooks nor surgeons nor preachers neither what’s got say-so ‘bove ol’ cornelius while we’s on this earth ‘cos in’t no ship nor crew no more but what the company says is crew an’ in’t Bean tryin’ to belay company or nothin’ so I’s follow the merchant’s say-so here on you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D56]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F56]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E56]] </center></u>==> 56% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="D"> The worst of all these heaped disasters comes when, for want of water still, those soldiers loyal still to the Company, who have many times stood between us women-folk and those wanton mutineers in these hard days, are sent to explore the tallest of the islands for new wells; they are sent in skiffs and not returned, though each and every day we in our camp strain our necks to see some discovery or supply to be returned to us here. The soldiers left amongst us still are belligerent and angry in that causeless, useless way of men, and this morning there was a great fracas as one of them was caught stealing wine from the storage tent, and had shared some of his pilfered lot with a gunner, and Hr. CORNELIESZ woke the whole camp with his fury and insistence on death for these poor fools under his care, and while I did hear Hr. JANSZ and Hr. BASTIAENSZ protesting visibly for clemency, in particular the case of the gunner, Hr. HENDRICX, who had but shared in the boon and not partaken in theft, and while the merchant’s glossy tongue was bear a sentence to the soldier of death by drowning, when the raad council would not resolve upon the second man, all throughout did hear Hr. CORNELIESZ pronounce that all ‘would have to resolve on something else quite soon,’ and stormed from the council in a rage; though afterwards did Hr. JANSZ have many a kind word for me in my tent; and methinks he is of a quiet heart, but has now quite abandoned hope of our situation and for our future, and did seek much solace by taking my hand and reassuring me that he was sorry, and could not have guessed at the character of the men with whom we had dined with each night at that great table; would that he or I could have belayed that suffering or any one of all the terrible tribulations since our launch; for scarcely ever in my life did I feel so helpless or so scared. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C57]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E57]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D57]] </center></u>==> 56% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="E"> ‘til soon there comes the day when there’s alls a shouting from the west shore an’ Bean recognise peters shouting all as if the sea isself coming up an’ ‘fore I’s knows it he an’ a couple blokes comin’ up all excited an’ shouting ‘bout the flares an’ theys find water at long last deep pure water an’ alls our lives is saved at last I’s happy I’s thirsty an’ not for no ground-water neither but lucky Bean in’t see a drop ‘til every other man woman an’ babe had their first suckle an’ then alls a sudden comes a second shouting over the wind an’ another an’ alls in the middle o’ the day it seems the island is alive an’ every man an’ woman on his feet croakin’ an’ runnin’ one side to another for it sounds like the cry water water comin’ from alls over ‘cos it never rains but it do pour says the surgeon an’ says we’s to better have a look-see first things first an’ ol’ cornelius what’s got the say-so is sayin’ we in’t know not yet if theys found water or they in’t ‘cos they be signallin’ come a few weeks or no if they found something or if they in’t ‘an could be they need rescuin’ or resupply an’ all while all ‘em families got ‘emselfs listenin’ all holdin’ an’ huggin’ on each other an’ we in’t gone got scrob an’ scrounge on a cup a day no more or what trickle off the wind an’ hole up in ‘em rocks an’ can’t we none o’ us see nothing from ‘em shores for the mist an’ the wind but ‘em three lil’ red fires up on the far high land an’ ‘em thin wisp trails o’ smoke so ‘em men o’ merchants goin’ off in ‘em boats what the joiners done nocked up an’ see what’s-what an’ all an’ in’t we see none o’ ‘em when theys round ‘em far rocks an’ all in the mist but ‘em six strong blokes come back out right quick with a boat behind ‘em what we done lent ‘em soldiers but in’t they rowin’ ‘em apart or nothing but all held together so ‘em look-outs sayin’ ‘cos can’t none see where we done hid back in the camp but right ‘nough he comin’ right in with us an’ sayin’ it in’t none of ‘em soldiers what come back in ‘em boats but what brothers an’ fathers an’ that what been sent to ‘em far islands an’ theys comin’ back to us an’ all an’ in’t no sign o’ no water-barrels or nothing but may be that they’s back with news o’ water an’ all but in’t none there didn’t want see o’ new ol’ faces so we’s all follow the bloke back out to the rocks where he done spied it an’ there already a big lot o’ folks all along the beach-head whats holdin’ ‘em looks what put Bean in mind o’ ‘em execution games you understand </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D57]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F57]</div> <center> [[Continue->E57]] </center></u>==> 56% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>From ancient grudge break new mutiny.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F57]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B57]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A57]] </center></u>==> 56% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>So that Jeronimus was the tongue of the skipper and served as pedagogue to insinuate into him what he should answer if I wanted to speak to or admonish him, according to his own free-will confession. At the //Cabo de Bona Esperansa//, the skipper and Jeronimus, taking Zwaantien, went ashore without the Commandeur’s knowledge when he had gone inland in search of beasts. Furthermore, they behaved themselves on the jacht SARDAM, and after that on the ship BUEREN, very beastly with words as well as deeds, so that it was felt obliged to complain about this. Therefore the next morning in the cabin in the presence of Jeronimus and more others, the Commandeur spoke to the skipper about his evil procedures which he had begun, punished both with admonishing and threatening, and said that if he did not cease, should have to take other measures even before we arrived at Batavia. He excused himself that on the one hand he had been drunk, on the other hand that he did not know that one would take a thing like that so seriously. The same day, a short time after this happened, the skipper went above to Jeronimus and said, ‘By God, if those ships were not lying there, then I would treat that miserly dog so that he could not come out of his cabin for 14 days (and were I a bit younger, then I would do something else) then as soon as we lifted our anchor, I would very quickly be able to make myself of the ship.’ Whereon Jeronimus at length asked, ‘How would you be able to do that, the steersmen have the watch, and you have only the day watch?’ He answered, ‘I should manage it, even if I had to do it in my own watch, and I shall very quickly be master of the ship.’</p> <p>At last he gave it away that he meant to make himself master of such an precious and rich ship as never before in his life had sailed out from Amsterdam, in order to try his luck therewith for one or 2 years, they all of them together would become so rich that //Kamphaan// would not stand comparison to them. </p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A57]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C57]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B57]] </center></u>==> percentile ==> month/year <== <p>lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum lorem ipsum </p> link1 \&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp \link2 \&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; \link3 </p>==> 57% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>. To which plan Jeronimus immediately agreed and approved as good, he asked him if one would be able to do this without great peril, whereupon the skipper answered, ‘I shall get most of the officers on my side and the principal sailors, and as far as the soldiers are concerned, we shall nail up their cot at night, until we are masters.’ And it was decided as well to throw overboard or kill the Commander with all the people except for 120 stout men, as the opportunity presented itself to them. Whereupon a short time after that the Commandeur became very ill, so that they hoped, and did not think otherwise, than that he should have died, but after 20 days lying down, he began, contrary to their opinion, to get better, and on 13 May was up for the first time, through which the skipper and Jeronimus saw that their easily accomplished plan had failed, and that they would have to think of a means not only to create a disturbance, but also to put to the test the reliability of those who would bring the matter to execution. </p> <p>That is, the skipper had also taken a great hatred to Lucretia Jansz, whom he had tried to seduce for a long time and not succeeded, and therefore he was very embittered towards her and had chosen her servant Zwaentie Hendrixen with whom to spend his time and do his will, who readily accepted the caresses of the skipper with great willingness and refused him nothing whatsoever he desired. Then the love on both sides became so intense that without taking any thought of his honour or the reputation of his office, had sworn, according to the confession of Jeronimus, that if any one made even a sour face at the foresaid Zwaantie, he would not leave it unrevenged. At last when they were away from the Cabo, he took from her the name and yoke of servant, and promised that she should see the destruction of her mistress and others, and that he wanted to make her into a great lady. At last the skipper and Jeronimus, in the presence and with the knowledge of the foresaid Zwaantie, decided after long debates and discourses, what dishonour they could best do to the foresaid lady, which would be most shameful to her and would be supposed the worst by the Commander, in order therefore that confusion might be sought through her and through the punishment of those who took a hand it in.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A58]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C58]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B58]] </center></u>==> 57% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Brother will fight brother and be his slayer, sister’s-sons will violate the kinship bond and whoredom abounds amongst this hard world.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F58]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B58]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A58]] </center></u>==> 57% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="D"> The camp as a whole was marched to the low-waters at first light today; and there we watched the man be put to death. I did not know the soldier from any of the other soldiers I had seen since the night of the crash; and never before that date – and I confess that I do not now recall the name Hr. CORNELIESZ read from his parchment – sharing this beach with us, taking his daily water, helping to set the unsteady aboard the rocking yawls when they embarked for the islands, tall, steady – what was his name? I must ask the surgeon again when I have mind– But I remember how he was bound, naked, his face was pale and fixed as I have seen only in terrified men who have convinced themselves their fear must not show; and when his crimes had been described, two of CORNELIESZ’ men took him by his elbows, and forced his head below the surf as he tugged and kicked; until he stopped, and then they dragged him ashore and took up spades and wood-levers with many other men to dig the grave, across the island from the campsite, alongside such unlucky sailors as had washed up on the beach in the past few days. The next day, the surgeon arrived again in my tent to tell me that the raad was dissolved, as was Hr. CORNELIESZ’ prerogative under VOC law, and reformed with the positions filled with his thugs and flunkies to ratify any of his abstract desires; this bodes very poorly, and the poor man seemed still further dejected at our situation, as indeed was I. It was less than a day before we are called out again all in flock to watch as Hr. HENDRICX was held under by those two men of CORNELIESZ’; then hears the merchant that same day of some idle gossip of the cabin-boys, that our carpenters had planned to abscond in the skiffs for the Main Land, and called out are they to answer before our under-merchant’s absurd council of self; they spend the night in our new cell, then, the next morning, they are taken out to the beach to be drowned in turn, our poor souls watching without a word but passing amongst us only silent-screaming premonitions of doom specific to us all; only, before they are drowned, now one after another the pair are thrust through with a cutlass from behind with audible cries of joy from the executioners; and we spectators made much of it amongst ourselves, saying it was far kinder a death than the fabled horror of drowning, by all accounts. The merchant’s men need not haul the bodies ashore; they fall where they stand, then are they buried with the rest. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C58]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E58]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D58]] </center></u>==> 57% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="C"> Returned they later, with the intercepted skiff hauled alongside, and once the sight is sounded I return to watch from the clifftops. Pietersz holds the provost under knife in its fore, two youths behind him and some of the women-folk that had been taken to Traitor’s island. Zevanck plants himself in the shallows and wades his way up to where I stand. Before he can reach me, I nod, and Zevanck calls back to those keeping the skiff steady, and the work begins. There being much mishap with the sailors being clumsily put to the sword, and those falling into the shallows and clambering shrieking up to the beach to seek reprieve, much of the flock came gathered again to the headland, my men being engaged and too few at present to quite contain their curiosity, and many were witness to what followed. They shall see how traitors can be given no quarter. Yet must I hardly care now for all the opinions of the ignorant. The fallen always are fallen. It is already decided. Take I the chance to address the assembly then, to claim their allegiance, and to pledge their protection. I remind them all of the purview of the Company and the assurance of its authority most especially in such desperate straits as these. Its orders and mine were not to be belayed. Such mutiny could hardly be tolerated, and at this they are calmed. I cannot now revenge myself on Hayes’ party nor smother their flares, but I have convinced my flock that those on the High Land are as mutineers hoping to lure us all out to their land to dispatch and seize our supplies. If I lie, and there are wells to be found on that far spit, they may last for months yet while we still scrounge rainwater from the canvas and rockpools. It cannot abide. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B58]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D58]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C58]] </center></u>==> 58% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>There she saw wading in turbid streams false-oath swearers and murderers, the seducer of other men’s companions.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F59]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B59]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A59]] </center></u>==> 58% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>Jeronimus proposed that she should be given a cut over both cheeks with a knife, which could be done by one person, and few would perceive that they had been the instigators of it. The skipper was of another mind, that it would be better that many should have a hand in it, then the Commander could not punish the many, or there would be a big outcry, and if the Commander should let it go unnoticed, then there was time enough to give her cuts on the cheeks. At last they decided that they would give the burden of this job to the high boatswain, who had consented to everything, including the seizing of the ship, as well as all they might order him to do. That is to say, that at night, through some men chosen for it by the high boatswain, they would smear with dung, blacking and other filth, the face and the whole body (which they did 14 May in the evening between light and dark), the which was taken very violently and to the highest degree, by the Commander and (although he was still very ill) he thoroughly investigated who had been the culprits. For he more especially suspected, from many circumstances of which he had become aware during his sickness, that the skipper had been the author of it.</p> <p>This has been the true aim which they thought to have brought off, to let it be spread by the high boatswain that the people would be punished or brought to grief for the sake of women or whores, which the skipper would never permit to happen, so long as he lived. In the meantime, some who had had a hand in this, came up to the discussion about seizing the ship, and that now had occasion and opportunity. So when the Commander would put the culprits of this act into chains, they would jump into the cabin and throw the Commander overboard, and in such a way they would seize the ship, towards which they also had some of the soldiers in their following. But have not been able to come to the complete number of those who have known of this, because they did not know one another, and hereafter the ship happened to be wrecked. </p> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A59]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C59]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B59]] </center></u>==> 57% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="E"> an’ right ‘nough what he spied through ‘em legs an’ backs put him right in mind o’ the ol’ snicker-snee an’ he see its hendricks what carvin’ up ‘em soldier-cadet’s what’s strugglin’ ‘bout in the sea an’ one o’ ‘em sailers got a pike to theys throat holdin’ ‘em under an’ turnin’ the water red with zevank and van hoysen what’s rowin’ ‘em women and children back out in they skiff an’ theys screamin’ an’ callin’ back to ‘em bodies whats bobbin’ in the surf ‘til they’s out by the rocks an’ can’t none o’ us hear ‘em cries but we sees ‘em strugglin’ an’ throwin’ theys arms ‘til theys rowed out into the mist an’ in’t none there movin’ no more nor sailers nor us watchin’ nor the merchant what’s been standin’ at us front watchin’ what’s goin’ on with the lot o’ us an’ in’t move a mussle but to nod an’ brush ‘em fine red fabrics ‘til he turns to us to give the say-so what’s what an’ weren’t nothing to worry ‘bout thank god but ‘em traitors what’s been put apart from us righteous lot done tried to pull a fast one an’ have our blades an’ tents an’ food an’ water an’ that but in’t there goin’ to be no traitory goin’ on while the law still got a say so the merchant say you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; so right ‘nough the all o’ us swears we’s loyl to company an’ to usselfs an’ one-another an’ the merchant ‘specially right then an’ there on that beach first ol’ preacher then the surgeon an’ the soldiers an’ all o’ us down to us cabin-rats an’ in’t none pick up ‘em dead soldiers an’ sailers from where theys floatin’ in the shallows they gets they shovels an’ draggin’ up ‘em dead whats all heavy with the sea an’ in’t Bean movin’ a mussle ‘til he feel ol’ loos what’s got him by the shoulder an’ tellin’ him get a shovel an’ make hisself useful an’ right ‘nough Bean take the shovel an’ follow down the beach where theys draggin’ ‘em traitors an’ make hisself useful ‘cos in’t no other way o’ bein’ right then an’ there you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D58]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F58]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E58]] </center></u>==> 58% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="C"> I supervised today the completion of our settlement’s jail. What little iron could be salvaged from the ship’s hull has been bent and split into a row of tall slats that are buried deep into the earth and hammered into one of the Batavia’s forecastle hatch doors that serves as a grated lid that can be swung open or shut and locked up from outside. The survivors burst into applause at seeing it, and join in a hymn prompted by the predikant. They have nothing to fear now one from another, so I tell them. The Great Cameo I find nestled in its box amongst the sacks of silver and ornaments Pelseart had so desperately set ashore while we on the ship floundered and perished. None of the muskets he had mentioned yet survive, though I use one of the iron spades fashioned by the carpenters from scrap to smash the teak-wood box open and so prize out the huge jewel. The face of the heathen Emperor stares coldly towards my tent door now from where he sits on my table, etched in stony relief upon the agate. The cut is perfect, the sneer of command frozen and preserved for all eternity. I can see well how fools may be beguiled by such baubles, and their ownership. The flock at least can hardly help but see sense. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B59]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D59]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C59]] </center></u>==> 58% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="E"> an’ merchant what swears by us protection done had a proper oath what been writ up on ‘em parchments what came from the ship what we’s every one o’ us signs on with us cabin-boys an’ idlers an’ that puttin’ our X below all ‘em tangle ink-lines what the litrite done an’ that an’ Bean keep hisself to hisself an’ his bird-watchin’ an’ that ‘til fetched up from ‘em rocks by ol’ loos what says theys makin’ up crew what’s to go join ‘em soldiers what’s up lookin’ for the water in the high land an’ I’s been picked special by the merchant an’ all an’ I’s to fetch ‘em bits an’ bobs I got an’ report to the beach where they got a boat full o’ ‘em cabin-boys what kept aboard the ship an’ Bean thinkin’ right ‘nough ‘em soldiers need they own holes diggin’ an’ no mistake an’ we push off strait ‘nough with wooters an’ zevank an’ a half-a-dozen other o’ the merchant’s men an’ that at the oars ‘til we’s all swollowed up in ‘em mist an’ the island done fade out behind an’ in’t nothing be seen nor heard up ‘head but we all in this big long white space what in’t see no beginning nor ending but zevank an’ wooters stop ‘em rowin’ an’ tells us we in’t make it to land or nothin’ but theys settin’ ‘emselves on us an’ lashin’ ‘em boys’ hands an’ feet weepin’ an’ beggin’ an’ that can’t none o’ ‘em swim but zevank an’ that heave ‘em right out o’ the boat one by one where they thrash an’ kickin’ an’ that but in’t they swim half as good as a shark with out no fins but they sink right down down but in’t none o’ ‘em men set on Bean but theys got him an’ one cabin-boys left on the boat what’s cried an’ pissed hisself dry an’ his pants wet an’ theys tellin’ Bean I in’t got no place back on land but I give him the last push an’ theys puttin’ a blade in ol’ Beans hand again an’ askin’ if he want bein’ one o’ the merchant’s men or no an’ in’t Bean do what he thinkin’ since o’ cuttin’ ‘em ropes whats got the boy trussed up or cuttin’ zevank ear to ear but they’s give Bean a right long death an’ in’t the knife half so bad as drownin’ so they say an’ weren’t it but a kindness for what’s right fit to drown or thirst they life out on ‘em god-damned rocks an’ right ‘nough in’t Bean got no say-so on no boat out in no-where but he do his duty an’ in’t ‘til I feels me feet back on the beach an’ head all white an’ empty an’ ‘em merchant’s men is clappin’ him ‘bout the back an’ he bein’ led to the store tent an’ bein’ poured a right fat skin from ‘em barrels an’ poured puffs all smoke-drunk an’ laughin’ ‘bout ‘em boys what pissed ‘emselfs ‘fore they go down then Bean got his head ‘bout him again an’ he in’t thinkin’ o’ nothing but her lady-ship an’ the taste what we done an’ how Bean goin’ to live if god like it or no you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D59]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F59]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E59]] </center></u>==> 58% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="D"> Next announces the under-merchant that we are to send skiffs of reinforcing soldiers to our forces on the far islands; the men-folk who have not yet deferred to Hr. CORNELIESZ are taken away in fives and sixes and are not returned; or when returned, side no longer with their brothers and are the merchant’s men from that day forth; for such men are told by a certain eye they have for those amongst them, like wolves gazing at sheep; and they do not eat nor talk with those of us who keep yet not amongst them. Came there a terrific sign this morning; for amongst the camp it was told that fire had been seen on the High Land, and that this was the long-awaited sign that spring water had at last been found, and we were to make ready to reform our party on the far islands with the full soldier corps and such optimism that is as a contagion to the mind of despairing that many of the women-folk were quite overrun and they let loose great weepings and signs of joy that we might last but a month more; the merchant did dispatch some men towards the fires; but did they return presently, and then it was said in a great fracas that some of our settlers were returned here, and many that knew of the families named rushed again to the quay to greet them, myself amongst them for I did hear of many whom I thought transitioned to the southern island rather than to the High Land, and being thus much confused did I happen upon the great assembly upon the beach so thick and racked with appalled horror that it scarce seemed to move, and did I glimpse through their backs a great struggle of men in the bay, and would I have thought us to be under attack from mutineers but for the complete paralysis of those watching, for methought we not such sheep. Then were some whispering Murder and Traitors, and I saw at length that the merchant’s men were returning with red hands, fetching their shovels, and did then Hr. CORNELIESZ address us as if from a pulpit, assuring that we all of us were safe now, and much odd talk of a plot by the sailors to lure loyal settlers to their deaths and seize our water stores, and were several of those among us seemingly assured. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C59]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E59]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D59]] </center></u>==> 59% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>These are pearls that were his eyes.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F60]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B60]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A60]] </center></u>==> 59% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>Proper proceedings have been taken against the skipper, but it will be of little comfort to the Company, such a beautiful retourship with 250 thous. guilders in Cash, as well as so much rich merchandise and victuals, so carelessly neglected, and so many poor people brought into the danger of death; may the Almighty make good the damage to the Company and may he have helped the miserable distressed people.</p> <p>15th. Shalt therefore set sail tomorrow in the name of God, and shalt hasten thy journey with all possible diligence in order to arrive most speedily at the place where thou has lost the ship and left the people, amongst them 30 women and children, left on certain small islands over which the sea breaks at high water, situated about 8-10 miles from the continent, being in the utmost misery, to perish shortly from thirst and hunger; upon which consideration the Commandeur Pelseart has separated himself from those desolate people and in the end decided to come to //Batavia//, and what has resulted from all that, His Hon. will be so good as to hear from his written statement. Following on that, the jacht SARDAM has been sent thither with the Commandeur Pelseart in the hope of rescuing some people and goods, as apparently in the first place the people, a casket with jewels valued at 20,409.15 f., were salvaged on the small island, and 4 chests of Cash have had buoys put on them. What orders have been given to Commandeur Pelseart, His Hon. may see from the letter book of the 15th July 1629. So far the mentioned one has not returned, my God grant he can do something useful.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A60]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C60]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B60]] </center></u>==> 59% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="C"> Yet more of the soldiery declare for me over the coming days, and as many idlers from before the mast. Make I the best of our camp for my loyal acolytes, and the storage-crates are opened for any with the stomach for them. Methinks they are not all of the stock of Zevanck and his ilk, and must be purged of their silliness and restraint. They must have the livers and the stomachs to follow through when the time comes. Had Pelseart half our heart, he would not have abandoned us. Hold I baptisms in the shallows, unsanctioned by the predikant, who is confined now to the common tents. Read I the sins of each new convert to our cause, and receive they my redemption. Then are they taken by Zevanck and Pietersz and submerged until they begin to limpen and their clutch softens and are surfaced again and revived, their souls born anew as they hack and grasp. If Pelseart should return without Jacobsz – if Ariaen fails – then have we still enough men to take a jacht. The rescue party can have but few crew, in the hopes of bearing back the two hundred here, and must they first send a landing party rather than try these perilous reefs a second time. We can surprise them, and deal with those remaining by a skiff assault. Ariaen or no, they will not be killers like we have here. Zevanck sleeps with a wood-axe under his pillow. Yes, we have killers enough, but not against even what weak and worn folks remain on Jeronimus. A rebellious hundred may overwhelm twenty, in sight of rescue. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B60]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D60]]</div> <center> [[Continue->Crabs]] </center></u>==> 59% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="D"> I felt then a hand in mine, and knew it to be the surgeon’s, for next did Hr. CORNELIESZ deliver to us verse and chapter of Company law and making many sly threats as to opposition to his authority that were glozed over by so many promises of propriety and protection; that we must act decisively for the greater good at all times, and not to shed undue pity and mind our own solitary concerns; but together I think all of us privately were fearing far more than ever before. We know now the merchant seeks to murder whomever oppose him, and let starve all who do not, and that he has no intentions to rescue nor protect anyone but himself and his men. They have let a tiger into our midst, and we have never been in more danger all through this treacherous voyage. Dream we all of finding some private escape from this dreadful place, though none yet dreams that they might free any others alongside them; by boat, by their own hands, by entreating the birds themselves to flock down and carry us bodily over the Javan sea; Hr. BASTIAENSZ finding it truthfully harder and harder to confine our minds now to the pious or diligent, to accept the love of a benign or beneficent God. This island being far too small or barren to hide, and with no prospect of reaching any further land but in one of the skiffs the men keep under close guard, were are none of us confined, and I am not permitted now to work or exert myself beyond the bounds of the camp, such menial tasks delegated to the Batavia’s men such as they survive, but when I am permitted to make use of my limbs other than stitching cloth and mending the dozens of fish-nets that have fed us since the wreck, I make certain circuits of the isle at low tide, free of company and the obnoxious perimeters that girdled me aboard ship, and not minding the suck and stain of the mud flats beyond the beaches make my turns amongst the rocks and shells and lapping tides. Once or twice, having been hallooed by one of Hr. CORNELIESZ’ lookouts and made to keep my distance from the approaching tide, I was recalled, little caring now for my own part if the waves should rush in and swallow me down and blot above me the senseless air of this universe –oh, but still the sea goes on, waxing and receding but always stretching ever onwards about this endless beach. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C60]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E60]]</div> <center> [[Continue->Shore]] </center></u>==> 59% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="E"> an’ in’t the surgeon know I’s back on land an’ not in the high land ‘til I comes back to help in his tent for bleedin’ but in’t he ‘spectin’ see ol’ Bean back but he give him the stink-eyes an’ asks weren’t I gone but in’t Bean tell him what been done but the surgeon’s eyes gone right wide cold an’ that an’ in’t nothing Bean sayin’ but how quick fast loud he sayin’ it all but make the surgeon turn back to his knives an’ that an’ in’t he ask Bean help him out no more like times gone past but he stick with ‘em say-so o’ the soldiers what got him patrollin’ the camp an’ lookin’ for ‘em pilferers an’ traitors what put the rest at danger an’ all an’ in’t no more o’ ‘em long hours catchin’ mutton-birds or nothing but in’t a week pass nor half o’ one nor by an’ by a day pass ‘fore we’s found a bloke what’s we’s got punish for traitory an’ pilferin’ from ‘em common stores ‘cos in’t there nothin’ in none o’ ‘em barrels what in’t comin’ to those what’s loyl an’ true to god an’ justice the company what the merchant says an’ in’t no call for mercy nor food nor water to goin’ to ‘em what in’t got love his fellow man but theys get the tap in the night from ol’ loos or peters or van hoysen an’ get tooken to the merchant’s tent an’ in’t Bean see the snicker-snee theys get but we’s all o’ us hear ‘em shoutin’ an’ getting’ the blade an’ it’s Bean what gets sent down the beach with a shovel in the mornin’ what ‘em traitors get tossed in an’ in’t Bean know half ‘em faces but whose piss-pots he done tooken on board but in’t he thinkin’ o’ ‘em or thinkin’ nothing but in’t none goin’ to be diggin’ a wet sandy hole of the beach at world’s end not for ol’ Bean you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D60]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F60]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E60]] </center></u>==> 60% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>For the Commandeur Francisco Pelseart </p> <p>and the Council of the jacht SARDAM, </p> <p>going to the Southland, 15th July 1629.</p> <p>Because the Commandeur and the skipper together with 45 persons arrived here with the boat of the ship BATAVIA on the 7th of this month, bringing tidings of how the aforesaid ship BATAVIA, coming from the Fatherland, sailed off course on the Southern latitude of 28½, and, by God’s Truth, has been wrecked, and the remaining people, about 250 souls altogether, men, women, as well as children, left on certain islands or rocks, situated from 8 to 10 miles from the continent, in the uttermost misery to perish from thirst and hunger –</p> <p>We have decided to unload the jacht SARDAM speedily, and send thither to succour the people in time, and to salvage as much of the money and goods of the before mentioned wrecked ship, bringing all hither as soon as possible. You shall therefore set sail tomorrow in the name of God, and shall hasten your journey with all possible diligence in order to arrive most speedily at the place where you have lost the ship and left the people, being as has been said before, at the latitude 28½ degrees Southern latitude, called //Houtman’s shallows//. Having arrived there expediently, shall try to save as many people and also as much money and goods as can be found there and can be saved with all possible means. In order to dive for money and other goods, with the jacht shall go several expert swimmers and divers, namely, two Netherlanders and four from //Gujarat//. Inspire them that they must do their duty, promising also that they shall be well rewarded by us, and try if it is possible to salvage all the money, so the Company may receive some recompense to balance its great loss. Remember to bring hither the casket of jewels that before your departure was already saved on the small island along with the people.</p> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A61]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C61]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B61]] </center></u>==> 60% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Two needle-holes whose width is bitterness.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F61]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B61]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A61]] </center></u>==> 60% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="C"> In use of so many idle hours, I have been making a study of the crabs that inhabit our little isle with us. On some days, they may be the only moving parts of our land, long scoured clean of seals or nesting birds. They make their homes in the mud and coral, and stagger out when the sun crests to stalk and hop the beach sand in pursuit of one another. Such vicious, hideous beasts cannot be caught by hand, and once set upon by one of our hunters will hiss and scuttle out into the surf, or bury its body in the soil and lash out with its pincers at any offending digit. I could not make out how they might subsist on such a desert, for they cannot delve for fish or scour the air like the mutton-birds that swoop overhead. They must have some source of nutrition, and after many an hour studying their habits in rapt concentration, the better to wean some morsel of existence on these bleak atolls, I discovered that such crabs make do by ravening one upon another. A large crab will set upon a smaller, and claw and gouge it until it is quite pinned upon the pincers and can snatch and scramble no more. Sometimes two or more smaller set upon a larger, for the grandfathers grow cumbersome in their shells at such an age and can be set upon from above and below from within the range of their clawed arms. The meat is a feast, and feeds such meat. And so the crabs play their meagre society, the elders crushing the guileless or vulnerable, the meek surviving by their guile. They have been scavenging on each other since the Creation, here at the very fingernails of God’s reach, and so they will continue, sharking one upon another till until the Judgment. Nothing commands such grace. It only unfolds through necessity. God’s will manifold. Manifest and preordained. The fallen always are fallen. The saved forever saved. It has already been decided. It only awaits the day. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B61]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D61]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C61]] </center></u>==> 60% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="D"> Such distances came ever between us that we never know, I think then – my dear husband and my Captain now departed, our poor society in Amsterdam, think I of the father and mother I never knew, the children that plague tore from my breast and buried certain fathoms below and all the earth and air and water that parts us even now, through eternity. Oh HANS, my LISBET, my STEFANI! you were but little when you were lost to me, and I may be hope that being lost myself, forever and everywhere across this vast and formless bowl, we may together be found. And so I spend myself, trying each day to whittle away this great gap of time in which we are stranded, walking the long cliffs and looking down at the distant figures standing at the edge of the crashing surf, lying still or sitting looking out to sea at world’s end, at life’s end, at the extremest reaches of endurance, our lives bound together by twine and snarled wire with which we fashion our skeleton-tents and driftwood gibbets and snare nooses to catch the stranded rats and scavenger crabs that crawl about the storage-tent by night and which are thrown into the pots by morning. It is not the ceaseless and perpetual wind, nor thirst nor hunger nor the unfathomable distance by which we are divided from all we have ever known, not the jagged rocks that pry at our backs and necks each night – nor the fear unknowing, the waiting and waiting, for each and every one of us to be caught and tried for some imagined offense, and the horror of what may come for us all one by one and the hideous wishing that it might be someone, anyone else – that any of the squawling babes lying beside you might be taken and not your self, the piteous wishing for but another night of thirst and torment without feeling the blade at your own throat – so forgive me GOD, not me, not myself, that I might keep this flame of life but another night longer – and never, never knowing – no; it is not any of these horrors alone, but all of them together, all at once and always, that quite breaks the mind in anticipation, and dread-drugged memory, and the chafing and chafing at the nothingness of each day, and at the nothingness that is to come. To make an end of it, to free the flesh from the anguish of the mind; this is the only remaining action to wrest control free of the brute forces that have laid themselves upon us; to have proven that we are not such nothings to be taken and destroyed at whim; that there is ever place for God in such a dismal pit, and the sole and private self that will not submit nor rest from grasping to itself and to the life it bears so flimsily through a hard and thoughtless world. There will be none to save us but ourselves; none else to damn us and to destroy. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C61]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E61]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D61]] </center></u>==> 60% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="E"> an’ in’t it jus’ men what’s goin’ in ‘em holes but by an’ by hendricks an’ peters tossin’ a lil’ girl what Bean done seen with ‘em soldiers’ families an’ in’t they say nothin’ but ‘em germans what need teachin’ o’ loylty an’ that an’ right ‘nough van hoysen an’ zevank an’ ‘em merchant’s men walkin’ the camp night an’ day keepin’ ‘em folks loyl an’ askin’ high an’ loud who’s wantin’ a box on the ear an’ we’s all to keep to our ration but in’t none keepin’ us what’s doin’ the keepin’ in’t two weeks pass from what Bean been doin’ but loos give him what taps an’ all an’ say the merchant been wantin’ a word with all the lot o’ us an’ I’s right collywobbles an’ all ‘cos in’t I been given half a word by ol’ cornelius since I been aboard ship an’ that to fetch him wine an’ take his pan an’ that so right ‘nough Bean think he comin’ up in the world an’ no mistake with ‘em </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D61]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F61]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E61]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_west_australian_coastal_landscape_f32693fe-432c-4528-93f1-47497eb406c6.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E61]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A61]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F61]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src="https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_billabong_with_red_sand_and_dead_grass_cfd9da64-9112-460d-8732-a81c9c61f15f.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E60]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A60]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F60]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_red_sand_desert_landscape_eaecaa3a-5493-44b6-b60b-51ffe4b9c946.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E59]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A59]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F59]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/progress_image_100_0201fb8c-a2e5-4e1b-a588-225f75ed1ed2.webp?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E58]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A58]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F58]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_red_sand_desert_landscape_3cc266f1-7d56-4efb-a6f7-19a2223f400e.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E57]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A57]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F57]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" 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https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_west_australian_coastal_landscape_0aa3257b-c53a-4fb9-9a11-9be7ca307bc9.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E53]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A53]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F53]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_west_australian_coastal_landscape_d3433b5d-dc24-4ebc-8445-50795edaf782.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E52]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A52]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F52]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src="https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_billabong_with_red_sand_and_dead_grass_e2f788aa-9064-4960-820f-9e5f262b39af.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E63]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A63]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F63]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_west_australian_coastal_landscape_f32693fe-432c-4528-93f1-47497eb406c6.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E51]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A51]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F51]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/progress_image_100_0201fb8c-a2e5-4e1b-a588-225f75ed1ed2.webp?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E46]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A46]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F46]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_red_sand_desert_landscape_3cc266f1-7d56-4efb-a6f7-19a2223f400e.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E45]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A45]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F45]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_billabong_with_red_sand_and_dead_grass_4a1a4045-e520-4891-80e6-fd490e6b0587.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E44]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A44]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F44]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_billabong_with_red_sand_and_dead_grass_2cbdfe26-bb62-42bd-9e37-233074444a54.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E43]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A43]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F43]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E39]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A39]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F39]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_west_australian_coastal_landscape_with_wallaby_3d270ae4-7a03-40d7-8d47-181071c94f97.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E38]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A38]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F38]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src="https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_billabong_with_red_sand_and_dead_grass_e2f788aa-9064-4960-820f-9e5f262b39af.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E37]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A37]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F37]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_red_sand_desert_landscape_eaecaa3a-5493-44b6-b60b-51ffe4b9c946.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E35]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A35]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F35]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_west_australian_coastal_landscape_with_wallaby_3d270ae4-7a03-40d7-8d47-181071c94f97.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E50]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A50]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F50]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_red_sand_desert_landscape_eaecaa3a-5493-44b6-b60b-51ffe4b9c946.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E47]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A47]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F47]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/progress_image_100_19c303fc-9219-490d-8336-05dd77936a1d.webp?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E42]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A42]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F42]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_west_australian_coastal_landscape_0aa3257b-c53a-4fb9-9a11-9be7ca307bc9.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E41]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A41]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F41]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_west_australian_coastal_landscape_d3433b5d-dc24-4ebc-8445-50795edaf782.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E40]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A40]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F40]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src="https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_billabong_with_red_sand_and_dead_grass_cfd9da64-9112-460d-8732-a81c9c61f15f.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E36]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A36]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F36]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/progress_image_100_0201fb8c-a2e5-4e1b-a588-225f75ed1ed2.webp?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E34]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A34]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F34]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> ! </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E49]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A49]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F49]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> ? </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E48]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A48]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F48]] </center></u>==> 61% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Where the blood-mawed fish enter in.</p><p>Whales in search of emeralds.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F62]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B62]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A62]] </center></u>==> 61% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="C"> It must be reckoned how many such an island may sustain, and to reach that number sensibly. A sad necessity that all must acknowledge. Yet still might those too soft for these shores be hardened still. There is one German soldier, a Hans Hardens, who boarded the Batavia with his wife and child and stirs dissent among his fellow corps. He is fresh, he does not yet understand loss, I think. Kinder by far to provide a death than deny life. For who would not take a knife-point over the pinions of thirst and privation? Mercy. A salvation for the damned. Such charity is extended by degrees. A belligerent soldier here, a doomed babe there. I leave such disposals to my men, such detachment to myself as befits fit judgment. God the Father is not God the Son, nor holy spirit. Nor is the judge fit executioner. The sight of blood has a way of confusing the bleeding heart. Invite I my men as one to my tent a-night and, plying them with wine from my private cache and sight of what fineries I have fetched from the commadore’s cabin and his abandoned treasures fetched from Traitor’s Isle, make I much of the riches to be made of piracy and new lives of splendour in the East. Then, they being much thrilled by drink and running their grubbed hands across the commadeur’s cameo and thrust into what worthless sacks of guilders would make a thousand men’s pay in the Provinces, read I new oaths to the cause of loyalty, and to myself. Whenever a Company ship may appear, there will be none left but those with the heart and mind to take her. All we need be is ready, for the appointed hour. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B62]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D62]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C62]] </center></u>==> 60% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="D"> Must this document now become a fearful litany of atrocities, to fill up the evenings and my self with the written record of my own failing heart and the sad facts of life that consume themselves in retelling, and lie awake anight in the storm of the canvas and shrill keening of the mutton-birds and the hum of ropes and mingling breath; as we are now packed into our tents like pigs in a sty to wait for the butcher’s knife and pray each night at the muttering approach of the lantern for these monsters in the guise of men, these highwaymen on lawless roads, to pass us by. In camp by day make we much time of sitting abouts, in pairs or groups, and of telling our life-stories, there being little much else to make use of but our own selves for conversation; thus have I come to know so many of our crew and passage as I might never have encountered at the right hand of the commandeur and his high table, and come to pity them and the common lot we are all landed to as such a pitiable end of so many brave souls at the far end of the world; and anight make I what document I can of their names and tales by the poor light of our oil-torches. Read herein the litany of the atrocities made under the order of Hr. JERONIMUS CORNELIESZ upon Batavia’s Graveyard; HANS HARDENS, being much opposed among the soldiers to the under-merchant’s rule on the island, and being possessed of a surviving family upon the island, was summoned with his wife to dine with the under-merchant of one night in his luxurious quarters; there being entertained, one of his thugs sent to their tent and strangled their little daughter HILLETGIE in her bed; this blameless girl bring then thrown in the common burial pit dug by the ship’s boys, Hr. HARDENS was compelled to end his objections; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C62]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E62]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D62]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_west_australian_coastal_landscape_with_wallaby_3d270ae4-7a03-40d7-8d47-181071c94f97.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E62]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A62]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F62]] </center></u>==> 61% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>In case you do not perceive any of our folk near the wrecked ship or on the small islands lying nearby, which we hope will not be the case, shall find out whether some have gone to the continent and try to discover the place, searching for the folk as much as possible and so far as you are enabled to do. Having salvaged and saved everything you can lay hands on, shall apply yourself hither with all speed.</p> <p>In case through bad weather, storm and hard winds, you are prevented from approaching the reefs where the ship has been wrecked, and do not see any instant means to salvage the money, shall not depart lightly therefrom, and turn hither without having fulfilled the purpose, but keep in mind that the sun comes round to the South, that summer is near and that calm and beautiful weather is to be expected day after day, wherefore shall remain there until better opportunity arises, watching for good weather and calm water in order to save, if possible, all the cash (and we have good hope of that) even if it should take three, four, or more months.</p> <p>Unless on arrival there are still a number of people that you should be compelled to come hither sooner by lack of water, when shall consider everything to the best interests of the Company, especially marking, whether on the mainland. either to the South or the North, is to be found suitable anchorage and water, in order to transport thither to the people and to shelter the jacht until the sun come South of the line, so that without doubt a more opportune time must come and means arise to salvage the cash, which is an obligation to the Company and on which your honour depends. Meanwhile Your Hon. shall control the water carried aboard the jacht , and also gather as much as possible when it rains, so that the vessels may remain filled.</p> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A62]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C62]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B62]] </center></u>==> 61% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="E"> when me an’ zevank an’ wooters an’ all ‘em lads come in what big tent the merchant got all to hisself an’ what in’t seen from the ousside it all dressed with what fine bright things in’t Bean never seen the like o’ but in the great cabin on the B-A-T-A-V-I-A but like to ten o’ ‘em rooms stuffed in one ‘cos in’t a inch o’ that place what weren’t covered in ‘em fine silks an’ like gold threads an’ candle-sticks what’s been made lookin’ like long tall ladies all curved an’ all that an’ big long table like what Bean servin’ to on board an’ like ‘em big tall chairs what he ‘member the commadore sittin’ where ol’ cornelius sittin’ now an’ he in’t see Bean or none o’ us all but like writin’ with feather an’ parch an’ starin’ ‘head o’ him all quiet an’ stern like what Bean in’t never seen the commadore at table an’ in’t move a mussle ‘til loos done spoke up an’ told his cap’n-general what he done brung an’ like that the merchant get up an' he all smart an’ fancy with the lot o’ us like in’t we a whole band o’ whore-son cabin-boys what in’t never have crawled ‘bove the gun-deck but shake our hands an’ askin’ if we’s strivin’ after nothin’ like what the commadore in’t never done an’ in’t he make all that ado o’ rank or say-so or nothing in that tent but every man an’ boy too get a tall gob o’ wine in one o’ ‘em gold silvery cups what in’t none but the commadore been drinkin’ from an’ what give the drink a silvery sharp taste an’ all while he givin’ us that smooth smart talk ‘bout what men is needin’ an’ what they in’t needin’ an’ he come talk to Bean an’ all an’ what loos been tellin’ him what good Bean been doin’ diggin’ ‘em holes out on beach an’ the merchant laughin’ an’ he askin’ after Bean an’ all ‘em questions what Bean don’t ask know how to anser like I’s enjoy what I’s been doin’ or no or did he been takin’ his women or no an’ in’t Bean put his story out proper but wine playin’ in his head like he in’t feel hand nor feet no more an’ thinkin’ comin’ slippy an’ warm merchant clappin’ Bean on the back an’ makin’ him feel right good ‘bout what he said an’ say right ‘nough it for each an’ every man to want for hisself what god done given him a soul for an’ think on his wantin’ an’ make it done but like god hisself he reward bein’ loyl with us getting’ paradise isself you understand </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D62]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F62]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E62]] </center></u>==> 62% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="D"> Must I then record the souls who fell to the mutineers’ blades in the glut of killings which followed; PASSCHIER VAN DER ENDE, a gunner, and carpenter JACOP HENDRICXEN DRAYER, put to death by two of the merchant’s dead-eyed men on trumped-up charges of theft; Hr. DRAYER, being crippled since the night of the wreck, was set upon in his tent with the men making turns for the carpenter’s heart by lamp-light until his chest and throat were quite cut to slivers and their knives blunted by the work; then were they buried with the rest; ANNEKEN HARDENS, Hr. Harden’s wife and mother of their murdered child now kept for common service, they having disposed of all those aged or pregnant who cannot satisfy their interests, the merchant entreated to be disposed of by one of his boys he wishes to blood to his cause; he proving too weak, he was assisted by LIEBENT in holding her legs as Hr. HENDRICXSZ strangled her with her hair ribbon; Kept they CORNELIS ALDERSZ, a boy from Yplendam employed in mending nets, and for a game of an afternoon the men engaged in much talk over the sharpness of the blade and how easy it might be to decapitate him, with the poor boy blindfolded between them in the tent adjoining ours, where we might hear his calls and cries, and the long rasp of the blade being sharpened, the awful sound of its swing, and sawing back and forth over the awful, guttural choking of blood; Next did Hr. CORNELIESZ achieve the nadir of his treachery, for having much aggravated by the crying of the babe of one Fr. MAYKEN CARDOES, whose distress and calls for water did disturb the sleep of the camp and proved impossible to placate; thus was she called before the merchant and prescribed an unction from his apothecary’s chest that sent the child into a half-life between waking and death; this being insufficient, for the child still would cry with the pinched, glottal caw of a crow, the under-merchant made a tool of a most cowardly clerk of the Company who had done nothing to stifle his ascent, Hr. SALOMON DESCHAMPS, whose crime here be recorded for all posterity, being exhorted to steal into Fr. CARDOES’ tent with those killers of the merchant’s, did take the limp babe from its mother’s arms and did strangle it outside in full view of the camp; and did we all afear, and as the mother wept, cast we eyes towards the under-merchant’s tent, though it did not stir, and we did not see CORNELIESZ appear, and were the nights quieter from then on, and as much full of terror; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C63]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E63]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D63]] </center></u>==> 62% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="E"> so Bean sayin’ right ‘nough he loyl an’ we’s all sayin’ it by now what the wine done warmed up an’ the tent done put ousside an’ the merchant clap the lot o’ us one-by-one an’ he go to where he been writin’ on the table an’ read from it right proper what we’s ‘spected under him an’ all like speakin’ the say-so like what he in’t read from ‘em oaths what we all done signed ‘fore but what he put down in ink what can’t be rubbed off an’ all an’ we’s say after him like ‘em prayers what we we follow the preacher when he readin’ from the writ an’ after we’s all raise our cups an’ drink long an’ deep an’ the merchant ope up ‘em chests what he got in the tent an’ showin’ the lot o’ us ‘bout ‘em jewels an’ chains what the commadore had been keepin’ all to hisself so he say but in’t Bean seen the like o’ ‘em bags o’ gilders what we’s let to sink our hands in one by one an’ ‘em pile o’ heathen jewels big as duck-eggs an’ this great green stone big as a man’s head what we’s passin’ hand to hand to see ‘em carvin’s o’ easten kings an’ layin’ on usselfs with ‘em heavy big gold chains an’ pendents ‘til we’s all dressed like drunk great emperors an’ drinkin’ the length o’ our reigns an’ the merchant sayin’ what each o’ us men getting’ when we’s off this rock an’ we’s all o’ us to a one livin’ like we’s one o’ the company seventeen an’ in’t Bean think o’ rulin’ or nothing but ol’ loos pattin’ him back an’ all an’ what fine things he been done seen that night he thinkin’ what good things the commadore an’ her lady-ship known all they lives what in’t been for Bean but ‘fore all that merchant sayin’ we’s needin’ a ship right ‘nough an’ a crew what in’t mind a bit o’ rough work but in’t there none lookin’ over to give us the whippin’ ‘cos in’t none need be carryin’ the piss-pots nor swabbin’ ‘em decks but we’s all do it together an’ in’t there need be no say-so but what the cap’n-general say an’ alls we need is we be loyl an’ we be brave an’ we be ready at the hour for the return o’ the lord you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; an’ the merchant what want bein’ called the cap’n-general now what with merchant title bein’ o’ his former time ‘fore the mast an’ o’ that which don’t befit the none o’ us what got new lives an’ all he given us each a strip o’ his fine fabric what he say bein’ a taste o’ what come by and by an’ in’t ol’ loos give Bean a beatin’ or nothing but he say the cap’n-general done liked what Bean said at the oath-takin’ in his tent an’ I’s to get what I’s wantin’ most an’ all an’ Bean right chuffed an’ all he in’t get the snicker-snee from zevank an’ peters right ‘nough an’ right happy he been put in ‘em crew with ‘em proper lads an’ all you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D63]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F63]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E63]] </center></u>==> 62% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="C"> Still there are those doomed who sip and sup at our provisions. Eleven such invalids as the surgeon has abed in his tent doing nought but for themselves, useless mouths wasting slowly but surely away by scurvy and fever. There can hardly be a man on the island who can abide such waste. Had we on the Batavia such a Captain as would tip such worthless hands to the sharks. Have we here fools that would have us all so starved for the lives of those already forfeit. Others may wait. We so high-minded must act, for act’s sake. I tell Zevanck as much. He is eager, as are such killers as Hendricxs and Pietersz. Such men as were born to wield the world around them. Yet I tell them all how it must be done, to make use of those men still wavering in their loyalty. Such men as have forgotten the smell of blood. Such men as still quail to do the necessary. Make they a night of it, and they return from the surgeon’s tent with hangmen’s hands and despondent men whom we have new-recruited to the cause. Made they much weeping at what had been done, and impress I upon them the expediency of the Lord’s work. Zevanck tells me that the sawbones has been dealt with among his patients, and make I short order to have his body interred before day-break, for much was his repute among the crew and idlers of the island. Little though I begrudge his passing, much might he be missed by those who know little of useful men. The grave is for him. He could not have endured what world we have planned, in any case. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B63]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D63]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C63]] </center></u>==> 62% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>On the voyage, shall keep a detailed journal, taking good note of lands, shallows, reefs, inlets, bays and capes, which you may encounter and discover; everything on its correct latitude, longitude and position. And that during the voyage good order and peace may be kept and proper duty maintained in saving the Company’s people and goods, we have decided to command the Hon. Francisco Pelseart, lately Commandeur on the ship BATAVIA, to have authority over this jacht and the management of the mentioned affairs, as we ourselves order him herewith; ordering and charging all officers and sailors on the jacht SARDAM, also those who may be saved from the wrecked ship BATAVIA and brought hither, to recognise the before mentioned Pelseart as chief over them and to acknowledge him and obey him, in such manner as if all were responsible to ourselves.</p> <p>Done in the Castle Batavia, on 15th July 1629.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A63]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C63]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B63]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_west_australian_coastal_landscape_d3433b5d-dc24-4ebc-8445-50795edaf782.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E64]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A64]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F64]] </center></u>==> 63% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="E"> but loos an’ all sayin’ merchant in’t sure o’ ol’ Bean but I’s to take what he done been offered an’ in’t nothing more needs said nor done to be in with ‘em an’ Bean say what he been sayin’ an’ he right grateful an’ all an’ askin’ what I’s to take an’ loos take Bean by the shoulder not all hard rough like an’ in through ‘em tents whats all dark quiet an’ weren’t a soul ‘bout like in’t none stirrin’ a mussle but lyin’ an’ listenin’ an’ he take Bean all into what tent he in’t never been in but it got a lamp lit with zevank an’ van hoysen an’ that an’ theys standin’ ‘bove a lady what in’t got no garm ‘bout her lookin’ mighty scared an’ all lyin’ on her side an’ another lady what Bean know as her sister beside her an’ one o’ ‘em cryin’ an’ all with they hands tied an’ in’t a stitch on pair o’ ‘em an’ van hoysen standin’ over ‘em tellin’ ‘em quiet or theys catch a fair one an’ all an’ Bean feelin’ zevank blade on him at him back an’ loos tellin’ me I’s share in they common lot an’ all an’ I’s wantin’ to be part o’ they men an’ drink what they’s drinkin’ an’ do what duty I’s given an’ in’t no sin where god an’ ‘em angels in’t see nothing an’ ‘em sisters cryin’ louder an’ zevank holdin’ his blade to ‘em an’ all cuttin’ slow an’ fine ‘til Bean make hisself useful an’ in’t he been killed that night nor he kill that night nor the next but he a man an’ one o’ ‘em men an’ no mistake you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; an’ zevank an’ loos an’ peters an’ ‘em done fetched ‘em boats by theyselfs the next day an’ the next an’ in’t they tell Bean come this time nor where they’s headed at but they’s hooks an’ clubs all bloody with no holes bein’ dug an’ all talkin’ still o’ ‘em soldiers what’s camped out the high-land still loos sayin’ the cap’n-general plannin’ war on ‘em far islands with blade an’ mace an’ axe an’ all an’ in’t they finish theyselfs off by thirst like ‘em idlers on batavia’s graveyard but theys got be dealt with an’ all soon as in’t none left here what’s causing traitory nor sippin’ at our water an’ weighin’ us down like ‘em what the surgeon tendin’ to with the flux an’ in’t Bean like ‘em talkin’ ‘gainst what work the surgeon do like he keepin’ the lot o’ us livin’ much as the cap’n-general you understand </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D64]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F64]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E64]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_west_australian_coastal_landscape_0aa3257b-c53a-4fb9-9a11-9be7ca307bc9.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E65]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A65]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F65]] </center></u>==> 64% ==> August, 1629. <== <span class="E"> so Bean see it but by an’ by zevank an’ all come take up Bean an’ ‘em sharpenin’ theys blades an’ tellin’ how they be riddin’ the place o’ ‘em sick what’s fillin’ up the lot o’ us with plague an’ flux an’ right ‘nough in’t nothing Bean see how they be left to spread ‘em airs ‘round our camp an’ all but still he know in’t the surgeon like it but in’t nothing Bean sayin’ at ‘em blokes whats got they blades ‘bout ‘em but they got one o’ they company boys de vrees what’s been takin’ out in ‘em boats an’ beggin’ for his life still what they given a blade an’ told he’s to prove hisself in the like to ‘em boys what’s doin’ cap’n-general’s say-so an’ all so we’s all leadin’ him to the tent all quiet an’ hush-like in a line an’ righ inside an’ under ‘em oil-torches he doin’ what he done thean’ there one-by-one to ‘em what’s lyin’ in the tent all the while zevank an’ peters is holdin’ ‘em arms an’ legs an’s got they elbow over ‘em mouths puttin’ it ‘cross the neck ‘til theys all smothered up an’ in’t none make a sound but zevank take the torch what’s burnin’ over ‘em an’ he puts it to the tent an’ laughin’ hearty like whiles it go up in fire right quick an’ we’s all scramblin’ for the door-flap an’ out into inky black what’s all smoke an’ people yellin’ out an’ gathered ‘round weepin’ an’ screamin’ names an’ all a sudden Bean hear the surgeon voice an’ he strugglin’ with loos an’ peters an’ shoutin’ out we’s monsters an’ traitors an’ all an’ he seen Bean an’ all what he seen the cold eye an’ Bean lookin’ an’ tryin’ to see with ‘em flame-blind eyes an’ he lookin’ at Bean an’ loos lookin’ back an’ forth an’ zevank give him the blade an’ say what Bean in’t hear over ‘em flames roarin’ an’ the surgeon face all aflicker sorrow-like an’ ‘fraid but in’t he sayin’ nothing to Bean nor none an’ Bean feel the blade all slippy warm bein’ put in his hand an’ what folks he sees lookin’ on in the crowd her lady-ship an’ preacher’s face all full o’ nothing an’ loos holdin’ me shoulder an’ sayin’ is Bean a man now an’ who’s man he is an’ in’t no place what in’t hear what bein’ spoken to ‘em an’ all an’ Bean lookin’ down again down down to bottom o’ the sea an’ lost ‘em way bottom o’ ‘em smoke an’ ashes what brung him to it through it an’ can’t he save him soul but he save his neck an’ in’t none been with him but Bean hisself can’t he save none but hisself you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D65]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F65]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E65]] </center></u>==> 63% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="D"> Must I relate another killing which did grieve me sorely, and ever shall; for Fr. JUDICK, Hr. BASTIAENSZ’ eldest daughter began to be courted by one of the under-merchant’s scoundrels, a jonkers of the soldiery named COENRAAT VAN HUYYSEN; being one of Hr. CORNELIESZ’ chief lieutenants on the island, could hardly be denied, and demanded at once that the two be betrothed by the predikant and be immediately consummated; the other women, being quite outnumbered by such brutish men as have a hold of us here are almost nightly abused with no ability to resist; and so Fr. JUDICK was exhorted by her father to accept the keeping of but one man; thus the lady and her father being lured to dine with the under-merchant, was the entirety of their remaining family, his wife and all those sweet children whom I had acquainted with aboard the Batavia were set upon by a gang of the merchant’s men as they sat in their family tent, and snuffing their cooking fires were massacred one by one, by knife and by hatchet, and the youngest son having escaped was hunted down and slaughtered by adze to his head on the spot he was chased down; may thus here alone be preserved the name and memory of Fr. MARIA SCHEPENS, and her children BASTIAEN, PIETER, JOHANNES, MARIA, WILLEMIJNTGIE, AGNETE, ROELANTE and their servant girl Fr. WYBRECHT CLAASEN, a girl drawn of much admiration for her salvage of water during the first days on the island; then afterwards upon seeing his family’s fate did Hr. BASTIAENSZ and his girl weep most heavily, and call upon God, and were not seen again in the camp but in VAN HUYYSEN’s company; in that same night did the mutineers in a blood-rage dispatch HENDRICK DENYS, a bookkeeper of the Company, in his own tent by another adze to his head and taking turns hacking at the corpse upon the ground; the under-barber Hr. ARIS JANSZ of Hoorn in similar fashion and a cabin-boy CORNELIUS JANSSEN; and Fr. CARDOES who being taken out to the coral outcrop by one of the soldiers and being uncompliant had her head dashed against the coral; these were tumbled in amongst the rest in the common pit. After these were members of our settlement picked off gradually, their names and voices beyond recall for those too emptied of grief and horror to think of anything but the rage of life and keeping each of us the flame inside ourselves alight against the wind and waves and darkness all about. Come they at night for each of them, concocting charges of thievery or planned escape, always by night now, and what sentences the under-merchant concocts carried out beyond sight. Since the culling of the sick, simply to fall ill now or to lag or be lax in any duty about the camp is a certain death-sentence; those with injuries from the wreck that mean they cannot walk or lift a barrel are cut down in their cots, the seal-oil-lamps making shadow’s-play of their executions. Take the men what women suit them, and their duties too they demand at sword-tip, and the women who acquiesce now are much abused even so, and have but little heart by night even to pray when the predikant bids them, indeed has Hr. BASTIAENSZ hardly the spirit to lead a hymn but for the sake of his life, and his daughters, whatever faith still remains in the LORD above. By day, the men and women alike who are trained in trade are set to catching fish and birds; or else watching the boat or campsite; the carpenters are put to work making great of the debris cruel clubs of wood and rope and spiked metal for the hands of the merchant’s men. All the while Hr. CORNELIESZ hold court in his tent, as high and mighty as an emperor at his table, and there makes much show of the case of trinkets he had rescued from Hr. PELSEART’s cabin, the jewels and sacks of gilders purloined by his usurper. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C64]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E64]]</div> <center> [[Continue->Tent]] </center></u>==> 63% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>Daily notes on my return journey to</p> <p>the Southland, sent by the Hon. Lord</p> <p>General Jan Pietersen Coen, with the jacht </p> <p>SARDAM, to search for and to bring back the</p> <p>people of our wrecked ship BATAVIA, with all</p> <p>the cash, and the goods, that can possibly be</p><p>fished up, and we are in God's name.</p> <p>On 15th July, in the morning, have sailed with a land wind. In the afternoon near //Man Eaters’ Island//, met the ship LEYDEN, which had sailed from the Fatherland on 8 May anno 1628, in the company of the ship WAPEN VAN ENCHUIJSEN, which had been blown up on 12 October passing near the //Sierra Lionas//, and only 57 persons from that have been saved by the ship LEIJDEN, up to that time they had more than 170 dead, but the rest of the people were in fair health as they had been refreshed at //Celebar// in //Sumatra//. Towards evening also saw the ship BEETS or WIGGE VAN HOORN, which had sailed in the fleet of the Hon. Lord Jaques Specx.</p> <p>On 16 do. was mostly calm, so that we did not advance with sail but were carried quickly out of the Strait, in the evening we saw the //Princen Islands//.</p> <p>On 17 do. in the morning, we had the //Princen Islands// e.-n.-e. from us, it had been calm the whole night, then before sunrise it began to blow from the s.-e., our course s.-s.-w., towards noon we ran one degree more east, so that we could sail only s. by west, guessed to have sailed … miles, and held s.-w. by south.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A64]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C64]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B64]] </center></u>==> 63% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="C"> Having we skiffs enough now to fish and carry war-bands of our men, I entreat our carpenters to turn their skills to metal-craft, making such weapons as may keep our settlement safe. Soon are our men furnished with clubs and such crude knives that blunt themselves in short use. So armed, send I a war-band to Seal’s Island, lest the settlers there make themselves nuisances as those on Traitor’s Island. At such a distance, the men need little subtlety, and make they such a furore that the islands seals scatter barking into the sea. Half of the settlers likewise flee their first assault by hiding themselves in the rocks and shallows, and my men must return the next day and, surprised in their tents again, blood the survivors upon each other until but one remains to be returned and welcomed back into our flock on Jeronimus. The blood is high, and my men being fit to burst themselves on such survivors as might offer even token resistance. I see they are in need of some diversion, for their pains. There are but seven women left on the island of any stock, the men having torn out those too old or ripe with child to interest them. These are the five soldiers’ wives from the orlops whose protectors had been fled with Hayes or the commandeur – whom I set aside for common usage as befit them – and the two ladies from the stern quarters, the preacher’s daughter and the Captain’s prize, Ms Jans. They will be glad to find some use. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B64]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D64]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C64]] </center></u>==> 64% ==> August, 1629. <== <span class="C"> I do not think the preacher realises his family cannot be saved. The man might have wit enough to see as much. A bankrupt cannot keep such a flock, and every one of his children starve and moan daily, and that maid-girl of his delights no man here. The man himself has use by his hold on the people’s hopes, and Van Huyssen has made many entreaties as to his eldest daughter, whom he has had a long admiration. Therefore I think it the kindest to divert the two of them by inviting them to dinner in my Great Tent. Meanwhile, I leave the particulars for the other eight to Zevanck and the Stone-Cutter, Pietersz. The predikant, his daughter, van Huyssen and I pass a most pleasant evening with a cask of my Spanish wine without much disturbances. I make great pains to stress the predikant’s ongoing and necessary role in our godly life here on Jeronimus, before broaching the subject of van Huyssen’s personal protection of his daughter. She readily agrees, and he for his part is surely grateful of our assurances of his safety. Bastiaensz surely is still more grateful upon returning to his tent and seeing the handiwork of Loos, Bier and the others Zevanck had gathered while we ate. He and his daughter made much weeping for a while, of course, but they were happy of course to have been spared, spared the pain of their lives and the pain of their end in addition. Still, I do not believe Ariaen would begrudge me what he could not obtain – the preacher’s daughter is kept by van Huyssen, and in such splendour as my lieutenants can muster from this fetid isle. Besides, the Captain as no wooer, and had set upon her maid as a dog upon table scraps the moment I let his attention slip. Creesje is a creature of discernment and grace not for the likes of such Godless men, and I intend to honour her above the base conditions our common misfortune has thrust her. If she has the sense I grant her, she shall not resist me – but for the Godly man, to possess the flesh is as much as snatching smoke. I mean to have the girl’s soul. It will die out on the rocks so dispossessed, and I tire of having charmed the hearts of drifted men for so long. They are all common, grasping things, better to be led by the neck than by the hand, and I see nothing of myself in them – none of the flash of God I remember from the Captain’s table, the ring of Creesje’s laugh, and the line of her ivory throat. I am lonely of night, and with such a low kingdom to rule in absolution. It begs a queen, a royal consummation, and I paint such orient dynasties on my walls of my vast and airy tent against the torchlight, my head aswim on Spanish wine. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B65]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D65]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C65]] </center></u>==> 64% ==> August, 1629. <== <span class="D"> Next were executed those invalids whom the surgeon had secluded in the island’s sick-tent; and, being compelled to corrupt and to seduce, was ANDRIES DE VRIES, a man of Zeeland before of much comfort to we in terror of our lives, ordered by the merchant’s men to steal into the tent by night and cut the throats of those lying there, those whose only crime was to fall sick under the constant sun and loads placed upon their poor bodies; these accomplices including a soldier of England, JAN PINTEN, and HENDRICK CLAASZ, a carpenter, those thugs standing always by to make certain the task was completed; thus does the under-merchant make murderers of honest men, and much I grieve now the honesty of Hr. FRANZ JANSZ, with he being roused and set out at once upon hearing of the horrors being performed upon his patients, and refusing to allow them to exercise their cruelty on defenceless men and children, was cut down on the instant by one of the merchant’s men, one of the boys he had kept as an assistant putting the final blade through his very heart, and HANS JACOBSZ smote his head with a morning star, and MATTYS BEER then cut at his scalp with a sword, and stabbed again in the body by a pike to be finished off; and his tent burned until the next morning, when poor Hr. JANSZ thrown in amongst the common lot with his patients the following morning; much did I grieve for the following weeks, and much will I ever grieve him of all those lost, and miss his solace as the sole remaining soul in this hellish place; May GOD damn and torment for eternity the souls of those men of the merchant I know were his and Ariaen’s creatures aboard; for their names are DAVIDT ZEVANCK, ISBRANT ISBRANTSZ, RYCKERTS WOUTERSZ, ALLERT JANSZ whom they call ASSENDELFT, the soldiers WOUTER LOOS and lance-corporal CORNELIS PIETERSZ of Utrecht,the sailer GELLERT WILLEMSZ, MATTYS BEER, COENRAAT VAN HUYSSEN and the raft of cadets and idlers who have abandoned any attempt to resist and thrown in their lot with Hr. CORNELIESZ, the chief architect of all these atrocities; for are they as culpable as any of the named above who will not stop this evil but watch it going on, and say nothing until they feel the cutlass at their own throats. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C65]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E65]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D65]] </center></u>==> 64% ==> August, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>On 18 do. at noon had latitude of 8 degrees 25 minutes, southern hemisphere, the wind s.-e., course s.-s.-w., guessed to have sailed 25 miles, held s.-w. by west.</p> <p>On 19 do. at noon had latitude of 9 degrees 56 minutes, the wind s.-e., course s.-s. west, guessed to have sailed 24 miles, held s.-w. by s.</p> <p>On 20 do. at noon, had latitude of 11 degrees, the wind s.-e. by east, course s. by west, guessed to have sailed 20 miles held s.-s.-w.</p> <p>On 21 do. the wind variable, and sometimes calm. In the morning had some rain, so that we gathered about 30 to 40 kannen; at noon the latitude of 11 degrees 38 minutes, held s.w. by south. Guessed to have sailed 11 miles.</p> <p>On 22 do. had a topgallant gale, the wind s.-e. Course s.-s.-west, at noon had the latitude of 12 degrees 41 minutes, guessed to have sailed 19 miles, and held s.w. by south.</p> <p>On 23 do. a topgallant gale, although the weather was altogether variable, with gentle showers; at noon had the latitude of 14 degrees, guessed to have sailed 22 miles, and held s.-w. by south.</p> <p>On 24 do. the wind s.-e., course s.-s.-w. and held s.-s.-w. by south, at noon had the latitude 15 degrees 14 minutes, and sailed 22 miles.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A65]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C65]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B65]] </center></u>==> 64% ==> August, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>The sand which owns only touch and silence.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F65]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B65]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A65]] </center></u>==> 63% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Above swell</p><p>Unnumbered and enormous polypi</p><p>Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F64]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B64]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A64]] </center></u>==> 62% ==> July, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Since all waves go towards the cold eyes</p><p>Of time glaring under the ocean.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F63]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B63]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A63]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_billabong_with_red_sand_and_dead_grass_4a1a4045-e520-4891-80e6-fd490e6b0587.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E32]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A32]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F32]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_red_sand_desert_landscape_3cc266f1-7d56-4efb-a6f7-19a2223f400e.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E33]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A33]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F33]] </center></u>==> 65% ==> August, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Nothing unless it be a wave time has received.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F66]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B66]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A66]] </center></u>==> 66% ==> August, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>There lain for ages, and will lie</p><p>Battening upon huge sea worms </p><p>‘Til the latter fire</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F67]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B67]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A67]] </center></u>==> 70% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>The great serpent writhes in rage, churns up the waves.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F71]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B71]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A71]] </center></u>==> 67% ==> August, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>From out our bourne of Time and Place</p><p>The flood</p> //</center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F68]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B68]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A68]] </center></u>==> 69% ==> August, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>All time is irredeemable.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F70]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B70]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A70]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/progress_image_100_19c303fc-9219-490d-8336-05dd77936a1d.webp?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E66]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A66]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F66]] </center></u>==> 65% ==> August, 1629. <== <span class="E"> an’ he done what he did an’ see ‘em sick-tent burned down to the rocks an’ rubble an’ folk what been scurried back to ‘em beds an’ Bean made fetch the shovels an’ take ‘em beds an’ ropes an’ the surgeon down to beach an’ dig ‘em holes what need bein’ dug an’ fill ‘em in an’ taken back where cap’n-general takin’ wine an’ tell him what need bein’ told an’ getting’ clapped ‘bout the back an’ shoutin’ an’ singin’ an’ smokin’ ‘em gouda pipes but in’t Bean breathe it chest-deep nor take but a mouth o’ that wine what’s bein’ poured out an’ he wait ‘til ‘em men what burned an’ cut an’ took an’ all to lose ‘emselfs in ‘em wine an’ dark an’ women theys got an’ in’t Bean find his tent but he fetch a cask o’ store-water what sling ‘bout me waist creep all quiet an’ small an’ like without no word ‘cos in’t nothing need bein’ said nor told but he use all ‘em strength diggin’ holes an’ draggin’ ‘em bodies an’ he drag one o’ ‘em boats an’ a oar or two from where we keepin’ ‘em in the big tent from ‘em traitors an’ he take it down slippin’ soft an’ quiet where ‘em birds cawin’ over an’ ‘em seals barkin’ dog-like through the night dark an’ he push it through the wave-break ‘til she floatin’ fair an’ true an’ Bean got a mouth full o’ sea-salt an’ eyes o’ tear-salt he pull hisself up with oars an’ water-cask an’ all an’ she nearly tip but keep sloshin’ out to sea an’ oars put down an’ all I makes it ‘round ‘em rocks an’ out where the sea calm an’ mist cold blank an’ in’t no world nor sound nor stars but the rock o’ the hull an’ in’t no-where an’ in’t no crew but Bean an’ in’t no say-so but Bean say where he go you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D66]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F66]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E66]] </center></u>==> 65% ==> July-August, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>On 25 do. the wind e.-s.-e., course held s.-s.-w., the latitude of 16 degrees 16 minutes, and sailed 17 miles.</p> <p>On 26 do. the wind east. course s.-s.-east, and held south, at noon had the latitude of 17 degrees 52 minutes. Guessed to have sailed 23 miles.</p> <p>On 27 do. at noon, had the latitude of 18 degrees 55 minutes, the wind e. by south, with lulls, guessed held south and sailed 15½ miles.</p> <p>On 28 do. in the morning the wind ran s.-s.-e., therefore turned easterly, with a drizzle and a beautiful wind, at noon, the latitude of 19 degrees 45 minutes, guessed held south.</p> <p>On 29 do. the wind s.-s.-e. with a dark drizzle, at noon had no latitude, guessed to have sailed 20 miles, and held e.-n.-e.</p> <p>On 30 do. the wind again s.-east with dark weather, at noon had no latitude, guessed to have sailed … miles, and held s.-west.</p> <p>On 31 do. at noon the latitude of 20 degrees 9 minutes, and the longitude 132 degrees 8 minutes, as now the wind turned southerly, so that we have steered more east, sailing s.-east by east till night, when the wind ran west s.-west.</p> <p>//Primo augusto//, at noon had latitude of 21 degrees 13 minutes, the longitude 133 degrees 35 minutes, held s.-west by south, the wind s.-east.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A66]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C66]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B66]] </center></u>==> 65% ==> August, 1629. <== <span class="C"> Send I Zevanck with an invitation to my tent, and commands to be gentle. She comes, furnished in a new dress I bid him bring, and I seat her to a sumptuous feast of the ship’s remaining salt-pork and wine. As when the men came to my tent, I show Creesje all the jewels and fine things we had to adorn our lives here, which before had been bound for the bordello of some Eastern king. Have all women the eyes of magpies, and my lady makes many just remarks of wonder at the sacks on sacks of silver I have secreted away, the array of jewels and, in particular, the carven face of the Great Cameo where it lies in its crumpled teak-wood box. The girl scarcely guesses at her own danger. Late a-night I let my idle humble pen sketch out such piteous things as to translate these majesties to her. To persuade is to understand and not be understood, and I showed to her her own sad heart in such lines, mocked and mollied for the liking. And gradually I think she did begin to see, and wish the will into thought. She may be such a simple thing, after all. Nought is sin but which is thought as sin. Even to a vowed woman, such things can be persuaded. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B66]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D66]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C66]] </center></u>==> 65% ==> August, 1629. <== <span class="D"> One of the merchant’s men sent for me late one such night, and in the voice of one of his lackeys commanded to have me delivered to his tent; I was not on the moment threatened the sword, little our under-merchant would have wasted such false courtesy – it was there, nonetheless, in his eyes; no refusal was to be brooked, and upon my acceptance the mutineer Hr. ZENVANK presented me with a beauteous shawl not of mine own possession, but as I might imagine salvaged from the shallows for our new lord to drape and flatter his new-caught captives. I dressed myself in it as plainly as I dared, and was marched to the grand tent with the lackey always at my back, little though I used guidance to find the solitary source of torchlight on this pitiful isle. We arrived, and my guard departed, for in that instant Hr. CORNELIESZ was attending to me, dressed in such ridiculous garments as he had trimmed and cuffed with as much passementerie as possible, and bidding me to sit on one of the scant chairs at his high table and pouring wine from a clean pewter decanter. Simply to be seated was luxury enough, but I could not admit to gratitude, or would not. The table was laid as the commandeur’s on the Batavia had been, with silver cutlery and such spotless crockery as had been held amongst the ship’s hoard – but it was laid for only us two, he beside me at the table, not across – and Hr. CORNELIESZ allowed no intrusion but the cabin-boy to serve and replenish drink as he poured his honeyed words direct to me. Oh, would that FRANZ, or the poor predikant or even that cursed drunkard devil of a Captain had been there to spoil his cursed flattery!– I cared nothing for it, nor for him, but only sipped my tinctures and bore his obsequies and eyed the knives I dared not snatch into my shawl, for all the precious metal might be missed. Though his words were calm and pleasant enough, and he laid not a finger on me that night, he had such flame in his gaze that could not be met, and mine must have searched every chintz pattern and lattice, every fabric of finery in that close room to scape his thrusting eyes. When at last he bade me goodnight there remained not a trace of what was spoken in my mind, yet his bidding lingered, and called he for me again the next night, with the same glozing talk and familiar nothings as to turn his salted meat in my stomach. Oh!– the elongated horror of those meetings, and the pitiful beckons they entailed!– I cannot translate my entrapment my dear, how I silently begged for you there as his hands groped for mine under the table – the smoothness of those hands, that utter noise of a voice!– no, I cannot translate, and dare not; for no good can be brought to the world by speaking of such a thing as this, of such people. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C66]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E66]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D66]] </center></u>==> 66% ==> August, 1629. <== <span class="E"> but in’t no place else to go nor no way for Bean steer but dead reckonin’ ‘cos can’t he face where he headin’ while pullin’ at ‘em oars nor make good no sail nor tiller or nothing what could bring me to it if I did but by an’ by I find meself running aground still dark on’ what beach I can’t figure an’ in’t I think the tides brung me no-where but some far side o’ what rock I done set off from so I’s drag the boat up a lil’ way an’ set ‘em oars an’ me cask beside it an’ creep up to what far dunes cuttin’ off the rest o’ the island an’ reachin’ it on me hands an’ knees an’ all I peers over an’ sees what smaller camp I in’t never seen an’ no part o’ what islands I seen an’ ever known an’ by an’ by come to figure I’s up on seal or traitor’s isle what I seen lyin’ a mile or so offshore but in’t no lights nor noise ‘bout an’ in’t dawn a hour or two off so I’s makes my way quiet-like down to ‘em tents what’s set ‘bout by they pot-pans an’ lines an’ fire-places an’ that an’ in’t Bean get near ‘em tents but he smell that god-awful rottin’ smell what waft up from ‘em beach-pits when they un-dug an’ when I peeks meself in ‘em tents I sees all ‘em famlies what the cap’n-general done sent to the isle all lyin’ cut-up ‘em faces all grey an’ covered in ‘em sand-flies what’s nibblin’ ‘em all up but in’t Bean got the time nor the tools what he can make ‘em buried but to take a look-see for water an’ food what’s all been took already so he make his way back down to beach an’ set off the way he done ‘fore through ‘em waves an’ keepin’ the shore port-side ‘til I’s round the beach-head an’ knowin’ I’s strikin’ out now for the high-land what I can’t see through the night a mile off or five an’ the sun comin’ up real fast-like an’ Bean knowin’ theys findin’ the boat missin’ from the store by light or ‘fore an’ they’s comin’ out for Bean where ever I be soon an’ surely an’ paddlin’ like hell an’ that ‘til light come send the mist away an’ I sees where I’s headed an’ where the land pokin’ up out the sea an’ right soon Bean feel the sand crunchin’ ‘neath where he paddlin’ with dead arms an’ the waves breakin’ ‘bout the sides an’ he steppin’ through the water thigh-high drop his paddle an’ fallin’ an’ crawlin’ where the sand meet his hands an’ he can lie an’ sleep an’ lay me head down where in’t none ‘bout to take me balls or drop me under sand or sea or nothing </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D67]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F67]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E67]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_billabong_with_red_sand_and_dead_grass_2cbdfe26-bb62-42bd-9e37-233074444a54.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E67]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A67]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F67]] </center></u>==> 67% ==> August, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>On 8 do. at noon had the southern latitude of 25 degrees, 20 minutes, longitude 129 degrees 47 minutes, slight breeze, the wind east to southerly, and could sail south to east.</p> <p>On 9 do. at noon had southern latitude of 26 degrees 23 minutes, the wind e.-n.-e. ran towards s.-e., also altogether e.-s.-e. after the wind veered, with very bad water.</p> <p>On 10 do. at noon, we had the southern latitude of 27 degrees 54 minutes, the wind north east, ran most to east according to the wind, in and out, with bad weather. At night, the wind ran to the north-east.</p> <p>On 11 do. at noon the latitude of 27 degrees 57 minutes, the wind before noon ran west, went w. by north at night coming from the s. and s.-s.-west, with a strong breeze.</p> <p>On 12 do. at noon had the southern latitude of 27 degrees 2 minutes, the wind s. by west, course east. In the afternoon the weather changeable, the wind ran to the south-east, so we changed tack in the morning, s.-s.-west across wide hollow water.</p> <p>On 13 do. at noon, the latitude of 25 degrees 50 minutes, rather calm, the wind s.-e., sailed s.-s.-west, and s.-w. by south, variable weather, turned altogether again after the wind turned.</p> <p>On 14 do. at noon had no latitude, then guessed to be on the above mentioned latitude, the wind s.-s.-w. by south, sailed east s.-east, with high seas from the south.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A68]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C68]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B68]] </center></u>==> 66% ==> August, 1629. <== <span class="D"> The merchant’s men, knowing his intentions where I am concerned, do allow me what liberties may be denied to my fellows, and let me take my paces around the perimeter of this island, a walk of hardly a mile where I may lay mine eyes upon the misty blankness beyond the shore, and rest mine ears on the ineluctable rolling of the waves, regarding the scuttling crabs and cawing gulls that people these rocks – how far a panorama from what fantasias of the East I had dreamt of in my cabin and salons that do themselves seem as unthinkable paradises now; and how pathetic to see now what oblivion lies beyond the rim of what world we knew, and disregarded. It is as it might have been at the dawn of time here; dim, blank as slate; primitive. In the midst of such aimless wanderings and thoughts today did darkness fall on the isle, and in finding my way back towards the torches of the camp did I trip on something unseen on the beach, and losing my slip upon what I took as a crab-carcass did I fall and fumble for it again, to find my fingers mingling with another’s; cold, still, stiff and small, those of a child protruding from the sand; and much did I weep, bitterly, hopelessly, before placing my shoe again on my foot and making my way up towards the camp by tell of the cries of thirst and fear that hang there always, day and night. Soon came there sonnets delivered to my tent by the under-merchant’s hand, such hackneyed doggerel as made me wish to laugh or be taken ill by their cloying nonsense; I paid them no mind, nor responded in kind; much as my mind and my fellow survivors remind me that the under-merchant rules now as tyrant on this desolate rock, I cannot make my body nor hand acquiesce to his desires. Try as I might, I cannot even wish it to preserve my life; for what life is there to be had in such a desolate place, as the concubine of a devil. Then came ZEVANCK to my tent after some time, and much did he chide me on behalf of his master that I did displease him, and made much hideous insinuations that if I did not avail myself as the other women-folk had done, that I might find myself soon going the same way as Ms. CLAASEN; thus did he depart, and for upon hearing of the late Ms. CLAASEN again felt I a tremendous and sudden sickness and horror that so brave a girl had been so thoughtlessly massacred by these brutes, and each of the predikant’s babes – for the fear was with me still, I confess, and thick in the air among each of us, for there was not a man unsworn who could sleep in his bed for fear his tent walls would be rent and they would be set upon by the merchant’s men; and thought I most of all in anger of such stories as they had told me, of each precious and specific life of hope and fear held so tight and snuffed like so many candles; and of the stories unspoken, stolen and silenced by the merchant and his men; and so for the first time since the crash I truly resolved to live, for the sake of those untold, of the surgeon and the family of Hr. BASTIAENSZ who could not for all their strength and sweetness rise again to speak to me; and took me to the under-merchant’s tent of that night, and many nights hence, and shamed little for what had been compelled but from my own will. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C67]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E67]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D67]] </center></u>==> 66% ==> August, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>On 2 do. at noon the latitude of 24 degrees 55 minutes, the wind s.-east, held s.-w. by s.</p> <p>On 3 do. at noon, the latitude of 23 degrees, longitude 132 degrees 3 minutes, the wind variable, but most s.-s.-east, and held s.-w.</p> <p>On 4 do. at noon had southern latitude 23 degrees 59 minutes, longitude 131 degrees, 1 minute, beautiful weather, the wind southerly but most variable, have turned for a certain time eastwards.</p> <p>On 5 do. at noon had southern latitude 24 degrees 45 minutes, longitude 130 degrees 8 minutes, the wind s.-s.-east, and sailed s.-west until night, the wind very variable, run round and round, and turned with it.</p> <p>On 6 do. at noon southern latitude of 24 degrees 32 minutes, had a great swell from the s.-west, and the wind variable so that we turned altogether to the east and again to the south.</p> <p>On 7 do. at noon had the southern latitude of 24 degrees 49 minutes, sailed s.-w., the wind most s.-s.-east with a strong gentle gale again had the wind e. to southerly and could sail south to east.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A67]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C67]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B67]] </center></u>==> 66% ==> August, 1629. <== <span class="C"> My mind now is bent against Hayes. I watch the soldiers’ scurrying daily on the far banks and mud flats, wishing them only to die, thirsting away or plague-mottled. I would have them be so many fly-blown corpses rotting in the sun, yet is Hayes as capable a man as I had feared. They will not likely be starved out, nor thirst for their well-water, nor need they anything I may offer. My men chafe every day to conquer the High Land, much as I believe their flares to be a rouse begging for attack. Send I a letter to the High Land explaining the treacherous nature of what refugees have reached the soldier’s camp, prying at what mistrust must always persist between those from under the mast. The cadet I send by raft is never heard from again, and what assaults we have attempted have drowned in the shallows of the mud-flats before they reach land. Try I then a peace offering to try to come to some accord, under the cloak of friendship before surprising them by treason at an opportune time. With my men rowing our strongest skiff, twelve of us make a delegation to Hayes’ force on the High Land. As we clear the mist, a dozen soldiers are standing in the shallows, suddenly close and dressed in the rags of their former uniform and to a man cradling what meagre weapons they have fashioned from wood and broken metal buckles. I fly the flag of peace, and move forward from the boat to treat with their leader Hayes. He is a stocky man, broad-shouldered and his skin dark as a negro’s from the sun. His eyes are hard and suspicious, yet play I on their tattered clothing and make what offers I can for fresh cloth and wine, in exchange for water and meat and what prisoners they keep from Company justice. Make I much of their situation, sowing dissent to play upon the minds of the doubtful and thirsting. Six-thousand guilders a man, and a share in the Batavia’s jewels are offered to each that will join the cause on Jeronimus, and brought I what laken and reams of cloth to passed out amongst the soldiers to feel, to smell. They are all of them a hair’s-breadth from defection to our band, and need only the lightest spark to rise, and to cut Hayes from their minds. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B67]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D67]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C67]] </center></u>==> 69% ==> August, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>On 22 do. at noon the southern latitude of 29 degrees 19 minutes, the wind south, course north east. The steersmen guessed to be now 15 miles from the wreck.</p> <p>On 23 do. had the southern latitude of 28 degrees 14 minutes, the wind s.-west, course east, guessed now in the longitude of the land. Therefore drifted at night, 2 watches with the foresail on the mast.</p> <p>On 24 do. at noon the southern latitude of 28 degrees 25 minutes, the wind s.-west, course east.</p> <p>On 25 do. at noon, the southern latitude of 27 degrees 56 minutes, we found that a current had carried us this 24 hours round to the north in a very unusual fashion, and we also saw many strong cross-currents. We thought about this time that we saw surf and some islands, but it was the reflection of the sun. The wind south, held over to the east, at night in the first watch the wind ran s.-s.-e. Therefore ran westwards, it became calm, and the sea ran very hollow from the s.-s.-w.</p> <p>On 26 do. at noon had the latitude of 28 degrees 5 minutes, the wind south by west, with very high seas. Towards noon the wind shot s.-s.-e., then turned westwards and ran so about 9 to 10 glasses but on account of the hollow swell turned again to the east.</p> <p>On 27 do. at noon, the southern latitude of 28 degrees 13 minutes, this day it became quiet so that we drifted very much westwards, the sea rose strongly from the south. Towards the evening we began to sail somewhat towards the s.-west, held s.-e., but at night was mostly calm.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A70]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C70]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B70]] </center></u>==> 70% ==> August-September, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>On 28 do. at noon, the southern latitude of 28 degrees 35 minutes, the wind s.-s.-w., ran easterly, and I then saw floating around the first seaweed, from which we guessed that we should shortly see land, and ran for two quarters with swift advancement, but during the day watch drifted with the foresail on the mast, in the morning the wind ran again s.-e. by east.</p> <p>On 29 do. at noon the southern latitude of 28 degrees 10 minutes, the wind s.-e. by south, with hard weather, the topsail half topmast, so that have again lost southern latitude. At night turned again seawards, and sailed s.-w. to west, during the whole night.</p> <p>On 30 do. at noon the southern latitude of 28 degrees 55 minutes, the wind s.-e. by south, the sea came up hard from the s.-s.-west.</p> <p>On 31 do. at noon, the southern latitude of 29 degrees 49 minutes, before noon very calm, no wind, but after noon it began to blow westerly and it became fresh. Set our course n.-east by east, for we did not know how far we were from the land, in the morning the wind ran again s.-e., after that e.-n.-east.</p> <p>On //primo September// at noon the southern latitude of 29 degrees 16 minutes, the wind variable, so that it was not possible to come round to the east.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A71]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C71]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B71]] </center></u>==> 67% ==> August, 1629. <== <span class="C"> A boy whom Loos failed to dispose of properly had managed to escape last night after the raid on the sick-tent, taking one of our yawls with him, we assume, to Hayes’ island and their stores of fresh water. Hayes admits as much when I raise the matter, accusing me of sending double agents to cut his throat in his cot, though I say nothing and demand my man back if any peace is to be resumed. Hayes consents willingly enough, in return for some sundry supplies and a few caskets of silver. Zevanck and Woutersz will be glad to practise the tortures they have been planning on the boy since they found their boat missing. Hayes begs only what pay is due his men under Company law, but for all his stern demeanour he lets on far too much. His men are clearly desperate, angry, his own position parlous. Slowly, surely, Hayes’ iron will breaks down. He listens now and, at length, acquiesces. I will return tomorrow with wine, and leave with victory. I tell Pietersz and Zevanck as much as we pull away, back towards Jeronimus. With a taste of saint-seducing silver, I do not doubt his men will turn. I speak with the voice of the Company, the voice of law. They cannot help but hear, if they will not listen. We return the next day, with Zevanck and Pietersz paddling out in the shallows which the day before had been a mile of uninterrupted mudflats. We wait awhile until the party of soldiers descends to the beach, leading a small, bound figure who I realise must be the agent Zevanck had let slip. Foolish, I think, that a lad could give Hayes such unease. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B68]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D68]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C68]] </center></u>==> 68% ==> August, 1629. <== <span class="C"> We approach where they have come out to the shallows, and must Zevanck and Pietersz steady the boat before they disembark, the water coming up to their waists. Other jumps with splashes into the water with armfuls of passmenten cloth I had distributed that they may offer Hayes’ men samples. Must I search for the right words to turn them in the instant, so before Hayes can begin negotiations I rise to address those soldiers assembled directly. They gather round as I arrange my robe and raise my arms to the heavens, their faces suitably awed. But before I begin my oration, one of the men grab at the hem of my robes, too greedy to wait for those my men are handing round amongst them. I cry out in rage, and strike out against more hands I feel coming to grasp my sleeves and at my bejewelled hands. They must know it is death to touch me, and I will not be merciful. But I am cumbersome in my robes, cannot loosen their grip or step aside for its strength or the rocking of the boat, and all once there is action breaking out all around. I see Pietersz felled like a great tree by a blow to the back of his head, and what headway Zevanck is making between the two soldiers already with a hold on him I cannot see as those tangling me at last bring me down with a lurch – There is no sound. No sun nor sea. Only the roar, the weight of my heavy robes dragging me down to the bottom. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B69]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D69]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C69]] </center></u>==> 69% ==> August, 1629. <== <span class="C"> A rough set of hands find new grips on my robes, and I surface and in that very moment receive a colossal blow to the head that brings out stars to cloud the daylight, nothing else intelligible but the splashes and desperate hacking blows of men fighting in the water. I am struck again, a blow to the stomach that steals my wind and my will to strike back at those who have a hold on me. Someone shouts a warning, and the blows cease. The soldiers are shouting now, and I realise the sounds of fighting have abated, and I look up to see Hayes face, flushed and panting. There is a patch of blood across his cheek, already drying. Men are floating in the shallows, most face-down and indistinguishable. Out at sea, our yawl is being rowed away by some four or five men, those in the rear looking back to where the soldiers stand in the surf, roaring their triumph at their retreat. And I am undone. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B70]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D70]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C70]] </center></u>==> 70% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="C"> Yet they do not kill me. They take me up to the High Lands, with the men hooting and cheering, some staying behind to heave the bodies of Zevanck, van Huyssen, Pietersz and others from the sea. They care little for the men they themselves have lost, such is their jubilation. Hayes says little, and only prods me ahead. But I calculate he must be willing to spare me, if only to break my hold on what resistance remains on Jeronimus. I am walked to the edge of a great pit, freshly dug in the sandy earth, and the men bind my hands at my back before one gives me a hefty kick from behind and I fall face-first a full fathom to the bottom. They cheer then, and leave me. I hear them cheering for some time, until night falls, and for some time after. In vinculis invictus. They have stripped me and whipped me. Yet they know not who I am. What they do. They have water and food in boon on the High Lands, enough to make a mockery of my rationing of life. They catch ten seabirds a day and through them down into my pit for me to pluck and gut, the tenth they permit as raw salary for mine own pains. The soldiers call down to me both day and night, and fling down the heads and pieces of my butchered fellows amidst spittle and streams of piss that pool and clump through the pools of guts and offal that settle through the ruts and raw cobbles of earth. O foul descent – that I who erst slaved under God to seat the highest am so thrown low to be mixed with bestial slime and contend with the carrion-crabs for my meals. My robes are torn to rags and I reek to fit the mix of gut and excreta that bakes here under the sun.. I cannot see a way forward, no ordination from on high that can console or plot forth. It is for Jeronimus now to thirst away to bones, while they laugh above and throw down marrow-bits for the picking. Nought can be but which is ordained by God. No rise nor fall. Strive sin and virtue for a common cause. Faith wasted of itself. Even death is but another accomplishment to the worthy. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B71]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D71]]</div> <center> [[Continue->Pit]] </center></u>==> 67% ==> August, 1629. <== <span class="D"> While some in the camp have barely a set of britches to hide their nakedness that is not lain out night and day to catch what rain we can, the under-merchant changes his costume daily with fresh silk stockings and garters in gold lace, and many other such adornments purloined from Hr. PELSEART’s treasury; and do I feel as gaudy and ridiculous as he looks, forced to parade about in such fine dresses and shoes he fetches for me. I cannot help but attract much enmity from my fellow survivors, for though sometimes I would as happily change places with any man or woman who look at me with envious eyes, I am now the sole preserve of the merchant’s, and may not spend time in my old tent nor with the women or men of the ship with whom I am familiar. One clerk of Jan Company Hr. DE VRIES being spotted engaging me in conversation by the under-merchant’s lackeys – indeed the poor man was only asking after Hr. BASTIAENSZ forconfession – yet the under-merchant the following day took great pleasure in presiding as Hr. MICHIELSZ did chase him with a club into the surf, his legs struggling against the waves until he was caught some distance out and fell under, the boy striking at him as all the while the merchant held me by my shoulders to be sure that I watched all the way until the clerk was pulled ashore by his thugs, his bedraggled corpse to be pitched in some hole somewhere along our colony’s lengthening graveyard here at the world’s end. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C68]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E68]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D68]] </center></u>==> 68% ==> August, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>On 15 do. at noon had southern latitude of 26 degrees 30 minutes, the wind south, were able to sail e.-s.-e., with a stiff gale with showery and rainy weather.</p> <p>On 16 do. at noon the southern latitude of 26 degrees 16 minutes, the wind south, at night the wind ran s.-e. by south, turning mostly s.-west by south, again seawards.</p> <p>On 17 do. at noon had no latitude but guessed to have gained 2 miles south, with a stiff gale and high seas from the s.-s.-w. In the morning it became bad weather and the wind veered to the east.</p> <p>On 18 do. at noon had no latitude, but guessed southern latitude 27 degrees 15 minutes, the wind e.-s.-e., with beautiful weather, sailed southwards all day.</p> <p>On 19 do. at noon southern latitude of 28 degrees 29 minutes, the wind e.- s.-e. with mild weather, in the morning the wind came from the s.-s.-west by s., and it became very calm.</p> <p>On 20 do. at noon, the southern latitude of 29 degrees 10 minutes, the wind south, held east by south, at night shaky breeze with variable winds.</p> <p>On 21 do. at noon, no latitude, guessed latitude as before, had held east, the wind S, the swell of the sea from the s.-s.-w., continued to hold east to south.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A69]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C69]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B69]] </center></u>==> 67% ==> August, 1629. <== <span class="E"> ‘til I’s feel a boot right ‘cross me back an’ I’s wakin’ an’ all with the tide up ‘round me knees an’ sun breakin’ down on me as I can’t sees who’s on me but what’s got me arms pinned an’ another set o’ hands what’s reachin’ ‘bout me britches an’ that for what blade in’t there or nothing an’ I’s tellin’ my stories an’ all how in’t none o’ it Bean fault an’ what been done under the merchant’s say-so an’ all an’ one o’ ‘em what’s got me down sayin’ they knows me from the orlops an’ I’s one o’ ‘em cabin-rats an’ in’t Bean ‘splained or nothing ‘fore he’s bein’ hauled up an’ theys takin’ his water-cask an’ lashed right an’ proper an’ ‘em soldiers what I know leadin’ me up the high-land ‘fore ‘em ‘til we get to what camp ‘em soldiers the merchant done sent for water made on the high-land an’ in’t a quarter so big as what camp we got back on batavia’s graveyard but all order-like an’ quiet no cryin’ nor wailin’ or nothin’ an’ I’s brung to what big pile o’ stones like a fort with door an’ all where ‘em cap’n what I knows from ‘fore the wreck what’s called haze an’ tellin’ him all ‘bout the smoke what they done seen weren’t flares or nothing an; long an’ short what been goin’ on since he done left an’ how ‘em merchant’s-men done done what they did an’ weren’t it nothing I could have done nor I got nothing doin’ with it an’ all an’ theys all plannin’ they war on the high-land where they’s stayin’ an’ take what yot the commadore come back for ‘em survivors an’ all they plans but in’t he know Bean from cabin-boy ‘fore the mast what fetch things an’ tell tales an’ in’t he trust ol’ Bean further’n he spit but he put the blade to ol’ Bean an’ make him swears he in’t spyin’ or nothing like he one o’ ‘em what might steal in cuttin’ throats soon as they sleepin’ but in’t he have no reason not b’lieve what I done told but what in’t want b’lieve nor have no way o’ knowin’ but what boy got a blade to his throat half-dead scared already an’ Bean in’t get half-way through his story an’ sayin’ weren’t nothing Bean’s fault but the cap’n takes his blade off me throat sittin’ me down an’ I’s gettin’ a good long swig from ‘em deep cups what they’s got all full o’ well-water an’ all the cap’n sayin’ an’ in’t none anser what fire they sent as signal an’ knowin’ then there bein’ something up they know they bein’ stuck jus’ like the merchant done planned ‘cos weren’t no wood washed up on the high land what they make for boats from an’ in’t no way o’ gettin’ back near the wreck with no boat or nothing nor seein’ further’n a mile what mist an’ wind blow out the murk but they knowin’ from talkin’ weren’t none o’ ‘em there what in’t done summut ‘gainst cornelius some-time an’ he done been set ‘gainst the lot o’ ‘em from the start so in’t they give up or nothing but get to it making the best o’ it an’ keepin’ to they crew an’ what say so haze givin’ an’ keepin’ a eye out for what ship comin’ probable in the comin’ months an’ keepin’ a eye on what wash up from ‘em far islands an’ all an’ all bein’ said an’ ‘splained an’ all ol’ haze say it right by him I stay there ‘til I’an’ have in they water I done proved I makes meself useful ‘bout the camp an’ right ‘nough I knows how me way ‘bout that you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D68]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F68]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E68]] </center></u>==> 68% ==> August, 1629. <== <span class="E"> an' by time Bean rest up from his escape he know the camp an’ all they island bein’ wider by double ‘an batavia’s graveyard an’ taller too with ‘em mud-flats all ‘round what flood up to the tits at low-tide we can use to get to an’ fro ‘em soldiers what make the most o’ ‘em days huntin’ ‘em tall up-right cats what live on ‘em rocks an’ wallupin’ up an’ down on ‘em hind legs what in’t move nothin’ like no beasties what Bean seen in none o’ his born days an’ they take what boat I brung from the island ‘cos in’t no boats or nothing like what’s we’s got made o’ wood like ‘em clubs made o’ metal an’ that what I told the cap’n nor torches an’ we’s all ‘em forty-fifty soldiers gather ‘bout this big fire ‘bout night-time an’ they’s talkin’ in they linguages french an’ deutch an’ english all ‘bout what supplies holdin’ out an’ what they’s needin’ for the days followin’ an’ in’t a man jack o’ ‘em nor Bean neither don’t get they water an’ that nor no no holes what needs bein’ dug or nothing so right ‘nough we’s stayin’ put an’ whittlin’ pikes out o’ what planks they got an’ tippin’ ‘em with long nails an’ gatherin’ up ‘em big rocks what you could stove in a bloke’s head ‘an wait-see what come over the horizon you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; an' ‘til weren’t it no yot we seein’ soon ‘nough o’ a mornin’ but one o’ ‘em skiffs what they done nocked up by ‘em joiners on batavia’s graveyard comin’ up real close to what same beach I done arrived by two weeks past what’s knee-deep in tide-water an’ zevank an’ van hoysen an’ peters an’ the cap’n-general-merchant hisself sittin’ up pride o’ place in the stern while ‘em lads row an’ what with how Bean warned the cap’n ‘bout ‘em blokes particular in’t ol’ haze go to meet ‘em but he got a dozen lads brislin’ with ‘em sticks an’ swords they got but in’t Bean told or nothing but he stay up in ‘em hills while ‘em wind tug an’ blow ‘bout his ears watchin’ ‘em pull two tight lil’ crowds wadin’ through the water ‘til they’s facin’ one another ‘bout twenty paces from where the boat sit an’ merchant an’ the cap’n looks to be changin’ words an’ no mistake an’ can’t Bean hear nothing but he see ‘em movin’ they hands to an’ fro an’ up to the camp an’ back out to ‘em far island what in’t be seen in the mist an’ ‘em men lookin’ stern an’ tense an’ all like theys all waitin’ a moment to smash ‘em heads in with ‘em clubs an’ all but in’t none get bashed or nothing but by an’ by ‘em men movin’ apart an’ gettin’ back in ‘em boat order-like an’ rowin’ off back the way theys came an’ in’t Bean figure it ‘til cap’n come back to camp with ‘em lads talkin’ bout they done reached a deal with ol’ cornelius how we’s to send up what boats we got on the morrow an’ ‘em traitors what’s made they way to the high land an’ theys givin’ us what clothes we needin’ an’ wine an’ that an’ weren’t there none in camp what’s needin’ it but ‘em men givin’ up a right fuss an’ sayin’ ‘em company merchants plyin’ they tricks an’ how they rather take a cup from the devil ‘an take the merchant’s liquor for ‘em boats what gone only be used ‘gainst they traitory an’ fishin’ an’ that you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D69]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F69]]</div> <center> [[Continue->Ambush]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_billabong_with_red_sand_and_dead_grass_4a1a4045-e520-4891-80e6-fd490e6b0587.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E68]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A68]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F68]] </center></u>==> 68% ==> August, 1629. <== <span class="D"> That night JERONIMUS brought his bottle to bed, and dozed on its contents while I watched and mocked the roll and billow of the curtains that separated me from the killing chill, and tried to stifle my eyes from weeping for the hope it might tear my hear to contain, the hope to be rid of him and free of this hideous place. When morning came as mornings must, he had quite forgotten the bottle, stashed as it was by then within the roomy depths of my shawl. It was in me then to crush it into shards when it was safely in my berths and slit the tiger’s throat the next instant he was at rest, and mine own next. I had caught murder from him and his hateful theodicy – but the same grim grip for survival stayed my hand, just as it had so enslaved the predikant when all but his daughter had been torn from him. I have the wine bottle whole still, buried up in the tidal silt where I alone can find it, and when I am done with my record, and reach the foot of this last page, I shall retrieve it again to bind up this spare parchment from the surgeon’s log, and set it on the waves. Whether these mutinous beasts find it, and slay me, or MY LOVE find it and may remember me, or some wordless savage of the South-Land shore who can make nothing of it but mute scribbles – I care not. All modesty and fear has been fired out under this strange sun. <p>From HELL; may we meet in PARADISE; Cr. Aug 20th, y.o. 1629.</p> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C69]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E69]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D69]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src="https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_billabong_with_red_sand_and_dead_grass_cfd9da64-9112-460d-8732-a81c9c61f15f.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E72]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A72]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F72]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_red_sand_desert_landscape_3cc266f1-7d56-4efb-a6f7-19a2223f400e.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E69]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A69]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F69]] </center></u>==> 71% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="E"> but in’t no light nor eye nor hand o’ god’s come down for Bean but he feel his foot kickin’ catch ahold o’ what he don’t know but they draggin’ him up ‘til his ear an’ mouth an’ eyes clear the water an’ splutterin’ to clear ‘em an’ see an’ hear an’ spit out that burnin’ salt what’s turning me throat raw coughin’ an’ wretchin’ ‘til I feel ‘em boat-boards under me an’ the bindin’ o’ me hands an’ ol’ loos shoutin’ something down to Bean he in’t hear an’ sky rockin’ waves slappin’ the side an’ the big basterd peters heavin’ at the oars an’ ‘em soldiers what’s standin’ still on the beach been carried off a ways where theys clubbin’ down in the waves where ‘em sailers sufferin’ an’ strugglin’ still an’ takin’ up ‘em weapons an’ runnin’ ‘em through with ‘em nail-pikes an’ hollerin’ out at where we’s floatin’ out in the mist an’ deeps beyond they reach an’ Bean jus’ ‘bout see the merchant’s head tossin’ to and fro shoutin’ what words Bean in’t hear but god this an’ god that an’ sin sin while ‘em soldiers set ‘bout him with they hands an’ rope an’ loos an’ peters an’ ‘em sailers what got clear in our lil’ boat in’t say nothing but in’t we goin’ back the five six o’ us to get ‘em two-duz’ soldiers what’s standin’ but peters swearin’ blind an’ blue an’ loos tellin’ him an’ ‘em other rowers take us clear an’ pullin’ away ‘til the beach gone an’ that white blank come all ‘bout us again an’ what shoutin’ an’ screamin’ done been swollowed right up an’ soon ‘nough loos settin’ ‘bout ol’ Bean chokin’ him up an’ holdin’ his head under the water an’ all ‘til he tell in’t the cap’n-general liable to be killed or nothing an’ ‘em soldiers what tooken him done dug a pit for keepin’ him ‘til ‘em company men gets back an’ in’t ol’ loos want hear nothing but he start rantin’ an’ that we’s comin’ back full force with the wrath o’ god an’ cuttin’ ‘em soldier basterds up in ribbons an’ feedin’ ‘em to the gulls an’ workin’ hisself up an’ up sayin’ we’s got our own prisoner an’ we’s send him to the highland finger by finger ‘til we get the cap’n-general back an’ Bean thinkin’ what ‘em men thinkin’ in’t it all a likely trade you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D72]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F72]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E72]] </center></u>==> 69% ==> August, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C70]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E70]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D70]] </center></u>==> 69% ==> August, 1629. <== <span class="E"> an’ ol’ haze getting’ a right smart look ‘bout him an’ he go right by ‘em soldiers an’ clap Bean on the back an’ askin’ him if I in’t mind diggin’ a deep big hole right good like I done for ‘em wash-ups bein’ buried on batavia’s graveyard an’ Bean say he can right ‘nough but in’t he feel good ‘bout it or none ‘cos more’n half he feel he diggin’ his own grave an’ all an’ in’t there a spade or nothing on the isle what I ought have brung with me but the cap’n get a couple other stout lads for the say-so an’ mark out a place right close to ‘em tents an’ says we’s to dig with hands an’ feet an’ all ‘til we’s twice the height o’ a tall man an’ in’t we like it but the cap’n done have us brung double water an’ all we’s pawin’ at the sand an’ gettin’ all sand up the pores an’ every nail but in’t we four feet down but the wind don’t play with us no more an’ the sun in’t beatin’ down or nothin an’ we’s carry on all that day ‘til sun gone under when we’s made a hole taller an’ a tall man an’ as far side-to-side too what we need haulin’ out by us sandy wet arms one-by-one an’ the cap’n clappin’ us back sayin’ he need one more o’ ‘em holes right soon an’ not so deep an’ all so we gets our water an’ starts right in on ‘em hole right ‘nough an’ we’s got our water fetched an’ wash hands in the sea an’ over the fire by night the ol’ cap’n give us the say-so as to what we’s do an’ look each a man there dead in his face an’ askin’ what else we’s to do an’ in’t none there got no say-so what we do nor thinkin’ o’ it neither but we’s got one last good hope an’ we’s see home again on it or never you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; in’t Bean got no mind bein’ handed back to ‘em brutes like loos an’ zevank what’s got a mind to have his balls an’ puttin’ me under an’ all for goin’ ‘gainst the merchant say-so an’ takin’ a boat an’ all an’ I tries keepin’ sweet with the cap’n an’ all but he clappin’ me back still an’ sayin’ in none o’ us goin’ back on batavia’s grave-yard but under it an’ lookin’ dead in the eye an’ all an’ tellin’ Bean keep quiet an’ all but I’s to be binded an’ blinded for show an’ me hands bein’ trussed right tight in ‘em riggin’ twine an’ ‘em soldiers gatherin’ what weapons we got two an’ three to a man hid in what britches they got an’ we’s headed back to ‘em mud-flats what’s thigh-high with the tide an’ waitin’ for ‘em merchants-men to come back in they boat what with Bean brickin’ it an’ shiverin’ with the water up to his balls an’ all while we waitin’ </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D70]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F70]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E70]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/progress_image_100_0201fb8c-a2e5-4e1b-a588-225f75ed1ed2.webp?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E70]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A70]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F70]] </center></u>==> 71% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="C"> After such a time in sun and salt, I have come to compare this pit of mine unto all that came before, and all that is to come. There is no fall but of the spirit, no loss but of the self when self-contemplated. All else is constant in its attention and neglects. Our God is the God of circles, eternal and self-stirring. He wastes and He repurposes, births and swallows. Time will come when all resurgence surges round, be it by our will. But now is there no future, no past. No utter change or retribution. Now is the eternity we keep denying, for the myth of change, the lie of else and other minds. God gave us our imagined heaven, and the Devil gave us leave to imagine better. There is no Hell. No bodily pain for a man of spirit. They put Torrentius on the rack. What of his Epicures then? The stoics say the mind can be happy even as the body may be under the strictest suffering. Virtue being their only good. Vice only mine. Yes – the lowliest man in the lowest pit may be happy, were it not for imagination’s taunt. It cannot be seized upon, then it is not. Desire is not belief, nor accomplishment. But nought else is left to Jeronimus but the earth’s contents. Reek of decay. Froth and mock and idle prize. The mortal spile driven through the vessel to drain me out of lifeblood, slowly, slowly. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B72]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D72]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C72]] </center></u>==> 70% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="E"> ‘til we see boat come out o’ the mist what’s bein’ pulled by peters an’ zevank an’ that closer an’ closer ‘til we see ol’ cornelius sittin’ ‘right pretty with his wine casks an’ garms an’ that but in’t he get out the boat where they stopped nor move a mussle but he lookin’ dead at Bean where he standin’ his hands trussed an’ I sees zevank an’ loos lookin’ at me too with ‘em eyes an’ in’t none o’ ‘em reply what haze sayin’ but they keep in they boat ‘til ol’ loos come down in the water up to his shirt an’ zevank an’ peters too an’ they movin’ ‘bout an’ ‘tween us where we’s stood an’ tryin’ to take ‘em soldiers by they hands an’ hand ‘em bits o’ that fine red cloth what the merchant got bolts an’ bolts in his tent an’ ol’ cornelius dressed up in his finery in’t movin’ from where he sat but he lookin’ at the water like he in’t want dip in ‘em fine cloths an’ all an’ callin’ out at where haze is at where’s the boat what been tooken an’ the bloke what tooken it so haze an’ his men is puchin’ me forward by me bound hands an’ peters an’ loos takin’ hold o’ me an’ whisperin’ what theys do when we’s back aground an’ pushin’ him up on the boat where the merchant is sat an’ still in’t none given the sign what we’s waitin’ for an’ the merchant in’t look a glance at Bean but he still demandin’ where all the boats an’ water-casks is at an’ pushin’ back ‘em soldiers what’s come up with me an’s havin’ they hold o’ what meat an’ cloth he got stacked up an’ where Bean sat he see haze’ face lookin’ back right then at that moment when de done gave his big shout an’ ‘em soldiers what’s been standin’ to is raisin’ they clubs an’ pikes an’ settin’ on ‘em sailers below what’s been movin’ ‘mongst ‘em all spread out like an’ ‘em soldiers what’s come close to the boat is grabbin’ the merchant by the hems an’ sleeves o’ ‘em fine robes an’ pullin’ him fit to tip the boat an’ he strikin’ back at ‘em with his hands an’ his fists an’ Bean see zevank lookin’ right scared his shoulder under the water one o’ ‘em big soldier basterd standin’ over him with a club comin’ up an’ he shout some nothing as the club come down an’ the tide-water gone mud-red an’ two o’ ‘em soldiers strugglin’ with van hoysen tryin’ to put him under an’ peters layin’ ‘bout him with one o’ ‘em big maces o’ iron spikes puttin’ ‘em soldiers down an’ every man goin’ which way but three then four then five o’ ‘em soldiers aside our boat got they hands on the merchant an’ Bean feel the boat goin’ over high an’ higher an’ it tip one way an’ the merchant come down mighty hard with all his kit hit the water but in’t the boat go right belly-over but heavin’ up back tuther way an’ Bean hands tied behind him he feel him goin’ an’ can’t hold nor brace nor stand to steady but he go out head-first right down down hit the water an’ in’t there no sound nor sight nor nothing ‘til he hit the mud-bottom not three feet ‘neath the air an' in’t nothing come for Bean but he kickin’ an’ pullin’ ‘gainst ‘em skin-hard ropes an’ feel it all comin’ up black an’ salt-sea tastin’ blood pryin’ at me lips tight an’ comin’ up me nose down me throat an’ in’t Bean fit to die right here an’ now at the end god damn it god damn you this in’t it this in’t the end </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D71]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F71]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E71]] </center></u>==> 70% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C71]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E71]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D71]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_red_sand_desert_landscape_eaecaa3a-5493-44b6-b60b-51ffe4b9c946.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E71]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A71]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F71]] </center></u>==> 71% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>On 2 do. in the morning the wind ran north, with a topgallant gale, at noon the southern latitude of 30 degrees 16 minutes, found ourselves now rapidly drifted to the south, at night the wind veered north west: our course n.-e. to north.</p> <p>On 3 do. in the morning the wind west; eastwards; at noon saw the main Southland, stretching out n.-n.-w. and s.-s.-e., were about 3 miles away, and saw the land still stretching out southwards, by guessing about 4 miles, till the eye could reach, had here clean sand ground at 25 fathoms. It is bare level land with some sand dunes like round the north, had the southern latitude of 29 degrees 16 minutes, took our course n. westwards, the wind w.-s.-west, then the hollow swell sent us very much towards the coast, so that at night we had to anchor one mile from land, and 2 hour-glasses in the first watch, our anchor broke into 2 pieces, let another drop speedily.</p> <p>On 4 do. in the morning, the wind s.-w. by s. with still hollow swell, during the day ran s.-s.-w., then we lifted our anchor, and before noon got under sail, took our course w.-n.-w. to sea, in order to get off the lee shore, at noon the southern latitude of 28 degrees 50 minutes, where the land began to fall off one point, to wit, n. by west and s. by east. After noon, the wind ran s. and went towards the w. and towards night we noticed a shallow straight in front, or west of us and were only a musket shot away from it. But had 25 fathoms clean sand ground.</p> <p>We turned and ran half a mile e.-s.-east away from it, there we anchored at 27 fathoms clean ground; had held w.-n.-w. from noon till evening, and were 5 miles from the mainland. At night it became very quiet and beautiful weather, the wind s. by east.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A72]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C72]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B72]] </center></u>==> 71% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C72]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E72]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D72]] </center></u>==> 71% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>The air is cut away before,</p><p>And closes from behind.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F72]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B72]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A72]] </center></u>==> 72% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>But soon I head the dash of oars,</p><p>I heard the Pilot’s cheer.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F73]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B73]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A73]] </center></u>==> 73% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Alas how fast she nears and nears!</p><p>Are those her sails that glance in the Sun</p><p>Like restless gossamers?</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F74]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B74]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A74]] </center></u>==> 74% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>See! See! She tacks no more!</p><p>Hither to work us weal;</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F75]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B75]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A75]] </center></u>==> 73% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="C"> The crack of muskets continues for much of the day, accompanied now and then by cries of pain which buoy up my heart in mad hatred at each confirmed strike. Even so, my men cannot have brought the fight to hand for its duration. They are not handy men, nor numbered sufficient to storm Hayes’ camp. The muskets can hardly have done for half a dozen soldiers, at the utmost. Then falls silence again, and the muskets do not return. The grim crush of thought has all but overwhelmed me – and then are heard cries anew, but cries quite unlike the raucous calls of battle. The Lord grants me hope once again, for it can only be that my men have taken the camp at last, have sent Hayes and his rough crew scurrying for the highlands and the shipmen’s fight-flushed faces soon to loom over the lip of my pit, lowering hands and scaffolding for their captive Captain. But none comes but the night. The fall of day brings no soul to my trench-edge, no suggestion of failure nor success. But is silence proof enough. I slump into myself, and am lost. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B74]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D74]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C74]] </center></u>==> 77% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Such a tide as moving seems asleep,</p><p>Too full for sound and foam.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F78]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B78]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A78]] </center></u>==> 72% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C73]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E73]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D73]] </center></u>==> 76% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Beyond the shadow of the ship,</p><p>I watched the water-snakes.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F77]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B77]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A77]] </center></u>==> 72% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="C"> After some twelve days, there is a soft and unsoldierly sound of talking near my pit-edge. I look up, and am greeted by the white face of the preacher peering down at me. I greet him joyously, and ask that he might throw something down that I may scramble up and join him. But Bastiaensz says he had been sent to Hayes by those on the far island to parley. I asked then after my men, what terms did Hayes wish to present, that I would speak to my own captors than have demands presented on my behalf. But the preacher said nothing at these queries, and soon I become angry at the manner in which he gazed down on me imperturbably, and repeated my orders sternly to him. But gave he only a murmured prayer, and retreated from the lip of the prison. I made much cursing at him, not knowing whether he stood just out of my sight and might yet hear as I cursed his Godless teachery until deep into the night. There comes then a day once a dozen such or so had passed, when my head is stirred from earth by the cries of men afar, the rebel yells of fear and direction. I stir at last, for it could only be as I had prayed. That the lumpen band who still held Jeronimus are attempting at last one final throw. The unfamiliar cries of Hayes’ men tell in snatches how they sight and move against the sea, and there is much unseen manoeuvring as signs come from first one quarter, then another, and never close enough to give much hope or import to the blind, wishes that stir anew so wild as to weight each silence to the pits of my stomach. Then comes there unmistakable over the wind the crack of a musket, then another, and my hopes were wild then as there carries a cry of staggered pain close enough to descry the Lord’s raw name uttered vainly. I begin to shout myself, whooping with hands clapped about the mouth, vaunting my own name and the strengths and lay of Hayes’ preparations to the winds for my comrade’s aid. Soon comes one of the cadets to my pit edge to bid me quiet or else stove my head in with a rock, and I cry to him to describe me the happenings and how we were set upon. He snarls and abandons me again without word, though the essentials are plain enough, think I. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B73]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D73]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C73]] </center></u>==> 75% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="C"> As soon as I have scrambled to the rim, however, hands are laid upon me and I am cuffed amongst a party of Hayes’ men. I had expected as much. Surely am I to be led as captive wherever I am wanted. Whether I am captive still, or hostage, parlay-piece or bondsman, I care little. Only to be free of that hellish pit and its reek. Perhaps my life was preserved to allay the muskets, think I, and am to be delivered to my men in their exchange. The talk of Hayes’ men is all full of jocularisms, however, and I am man enough still to know they take their moods at my expense. Little though they make of why I am fetched, they make no direct mockery, as one might scorn a freed slave to whip in spite of whipping. They lead me as the predikant’s family were led. As so many excess were led, as pigs to the axe, without mock or warning to spoil the kill. Trudging, file on file, we attain the island’s crest. I can see now to the far islands – I see, and I understand at last. My heart sickens within me, and shakes. There, beyond the island’s closest tip, rocks the sails of a yacht in full flag. Batavia, risen from the depths to seize back her failed crew. The commandeur has returned, at last. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B76]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D76]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C76]] </center></u>==> 75% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>on 17 do. in the morning, with daybreak, lifted our anchor again, the wind north, were then about 2 miles from the High Island, ran towards that for – – . </p> <p>Before noon, approaching the island, we saw smoke on a long island 2 miles west of the wreck, also on another small island close by the wreck, about which we were all very glad, hoping to find great numbers, or rather all people, alive. Therefore, as soon as the anchor was dropped, I sailed with the boat to the highest island, which was nearest, taking with me a barrel of water, ditto bread, and a keg of wine.</p> <p>Coming there, I saw no people, at which we wondered, I sprang ashore, and at the same time we saw a very small yawl with four men rowing round the northerly point, one of them, named Wiebbe Hayes, sprang ashore and ran towards me, calling from afar, welcome, but go back aboard immediately, for there is a party of miscreants on the islands near the wreck, with two sloops, who have the intention to seize the jacht. Furthermore, told that he was Captain over 47 souls, who had kept themselves so long on one island in order to save their lives, as they had murdered more than 125 persons, men, women and children as well, and that 14 days ago he had captured Jeronimus Cornelisz, under merchant, who had been the chief of the scoundrels, also at the same time they had killed 4 of his principal councillors and accomplices, namely Davidt van Sevanck, assistant, Coenraat van Huyssen and Gijsbrecht van Welderen, cadets, and Pietersz of Uutrecht, soldier, had been killed, because they had been attacked twice by them in a felonious way. But they had bravely repulsed them. And they next tried treacherous means to overpower and murder them. For they had then come to establish peace with each other under oath, and not to remember any more what had passed. </p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A76]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C76]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B76]] </center></u>==> 74% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="C"> Morning comes, and with it a pitiless rain that wets my rags and the ruts of my pitted floor. It bobs to the surface all the filth settled from captivity, the mingled gore and excrescence that lay caked and hidden in their nooks. I am wont to bury myself for shelter, to trick my captors that I may have escaped to abandon guard and hunt for me. But I am trapped amongst the swill without assistance, and my will rescinds. Jeronimus shall not triumph over the impossible, this once. The rain makes no willing end, however, and neither does my allotted ration arrive, and soon I am shaking in spite of myself. To have the hand of aid snatched away when at last it seemed to loom has quite dejected me, and I am to be found huddled at edge of pit with my face to the sheer rock, weeping – when a halloo calls down from above. I roll to see, squinting against the rain. There is no one above, but a rope lies slack against the pit’s far side. God is very good, think I. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B75]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D75]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C75]] </center></u>==> 74% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>On 13 do. in the morning, 3 hours after sunrise, we again noticed in front of us breakers and being known to us, we noted had lost one mile north, as the wind had been s.-s.-east, this was the most northerly point of the Abrolhos. Therefore I resolved because we came always too high or too low, and because it was very perilous to approach it from outside on account of the high seas and dirty ground, to sail before the wind below the outermost shoal and tacked towards that again, the wind s.-s.-e., course east, coming in a little immediately had clean sand ground at 30 to 35 fathoms. At noon, the latitude of 28 degrees southern latitude, shortly after saw again the main Southland. </p> <p>At night, because it began to blow very hard, we anchored about 2 miles from the coast in 30 fathoms clean ground.</p> <p>On 14 do. the wind s.-s.-e., but blew hard, so that we could not wind our anchor, and remained lying here the whole day.</p> <p>On 15 do. still blew hard, but towards noon calmed down a little so that we could wind up our anchor, at noon southern latitude of 27 degrees 54 minutes, the wind s.-s.-e., tacked the whole day to gain south, and towards evening found to have made two miles, being dark, anchored in 30 fathoms clean ground.</p> <p>On 16 do. in the morning with daylight, again lifted our anchor, the wind was w.-s.-w., went near enough south, at noon the southern latitude of – – degrees – – minutes, the wind ran towards the west, and after that northerly, so that we could sail south west, towards evening saw the rocks of our wrecked ship BATAVIA and I knew where we were when I saw the High Island, although the steersmen sustained that it was the other land.</p> <p>2 Hours in the night anchored in 27 fathoms clean sand ground until</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A75]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C75]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B75]] </center></u>==> 73% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C74]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E74]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D74]] </center></u>==> 73% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>On 8 do. at noon, the southern latitude of 29 degrees 7 minutes, course n.- east, at evening have seen the breakers again. Therefore ran the whole night w.-s.-west seawards, the wind n.-west, it began to blow so hard that the topsail had to be taken in again.</p> <p>On 9 do. in the morning, have turned again towards land. At noon the southern latitude of 29 degrees, the rest of the day have turned on and off, towards the evening such a storm blew that we sailed with only mainsail, the wind n.-west.</p> <p>On 10 do. in the morning set sail again, had at noon southern latitude of 29 degrees 30 minutes, the wind west, with a top gallant gale. On 11 do. in the morning was calm, but very hollow seas, the wind out of the w.-s.-west. so that we could not make way northwards, either we were on to, or near, the rocks. At noon the southern latitude of 28 degrees 48 minutes, furthermore the wind variable, ran at night with the foresail, and drifted round until it was daybreak.</p> <p>On 12 do. with the day, again set sail to eastward until noon, when took latitude 28 degrees 13 minutes. Therefore ran again somewhat southerly, to reach the land straight on 28 degrees 20 minutes, the wind s.-west, with big breakers.</p> <p>In the afternoon 2 hours before sunset have seen again the rocks, which guessed to be 2 miles away from us. We cast the lead at 100 fathoms clean sand ground, but going half a mile nearer had 30 fathoms foul stony bottom. We turned this night 2 watches to seawards, and in the day watch again to the coast.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A74]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C74]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B74]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_west_australian_coastal_landscape_f32693fe-432c-4528-93f1-47497eb406c6.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E73]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A73]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F73]] </center></u>==> 72% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>On 5 do. in the morning the wind s.-s.-east, and lovely weather, lifted our anchor and sailed one hour s.-s.-w., then we noticed in front and alongside our course more breakers, a shallow and some small islands. The wind veered meanwhile and ran more towards the east, so that we could sail southerly and s.-s.-e. This reef or shallow stretched out s.-s.-s. and n.-n.-east, found along here 27, 28 to 29 fathoms sand ground. </p> <p>At 11 hours before noon the mainland had disappeared from our sight, at noon had the southern latitude of 28 degrees 59 minutes, and the corner of the reef was w.-s.-west from us, with dirty steep ground with depths from 50 to 60 fathoms. </p> <p>After noon it began to become quiet, but the current took us towards the west, and the rocks here stretched out wholly westerly, guessed to be about 8 miles away from the mainland, the whole night it was dead calm, and drifted alongside the rocks so that we heard the surf the whole night, until</p> <p>On 6 do. in the morning, when we had lost sight of the rocks. About 10 hours, a light wind came from the w.-n.-west, ran then slowly towards the rocks. At noon had the southern latitude of 28 degrees 44 minutes, began to blow hard from the n.-west. Tacked off and on in the afternoon and found that the current ran us towards the north-west.</p> <p>At night turned to sea again away from the rocks, cast 40 fathoms ground, but dirty reef. This shallow stretches further out s.-e. and n.-west. At night it began to blow very hard and ran with shortened mainmast sail, the wind variable.</p> <p>On 7 do. in the morning the weather took up, and set sail, at noon found southern latitude of 29 degrees 30 minutes and ran northwards, in order to get the mainland in view again, then the wind freshed seawards w.-n.-west, so that we again had to veer seawards.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A73]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C73]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B73]] </center></u>==> 72% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="E"> an’ in’t Bean see hisself comin’ back to that island his whole life long for love nor money but he see it comin’ up from the mist by an’ by an’ the sand under the boat again an’ soon ‘nough ‘em sad lil’ tents huddled together an’ what men is left comin’ out in what smaller crowd Bean in’t know ‘fore an’ askin’ us where we’s walkin’ back to the tent what’s occurred an’ in’t none o’ ‘em speak but Bean see her lady-ship lookin’ right at him out the group where he bein’ led bound an’ tied an’ lookin’ near ‘nough happy in’t the merchant ‘mongst those comin’ ashore an’ Bean near ‘nough happy too at that but ‘em stragglers start callin’ out where the general at ‘til peters draw his blade an’ askin’ who wants their throat cuttin’ next an’ shoutin’ ‘til they clear off ‘til ‘em men is back in they tent an’ all shoutin’ at once an’ sayin’ what’s bein’ done an’ who got the say-so now an’ peters bellowin’ over us that they’s all be put to the sword an’ in’t none be heard but ‘til ol’ loos call ‘em to task an’ start talkin’ what we seen happen an’ what I done said ‘bout ‘em holdin’ the cap’n-general an’ all an’ how we’s to carry on an’ strait off he take a vote who the new leader be an’ in’t none wantin’ peters for him bein’ a soldier an’ a right brute sort an’ all they done put they vote to loos an’ by an’ by he standin’ on the merchant’s table an’ takin’ a new oath we’s to sign with him crossin’ out cornelius’ name an’ puttin’ his own for ‘em to sign to an’ all sayin’ we’s throw everything at ‘em soldiers an’ take our cap’n back an’ carry on like ‘fore an’ all but in’t they half the crew they’s been ‘fore what with zevank an’ van hoysen an’ wooters lyin’ in ‘em graves Bean dug on the high land an’ loos comin’ down to Bean an’ askin’ him all sorts ‘bout how ‘em soldiers holdin’ the high land an’ what sticks an’ clubs they got an’ how many men an’ that but in’t Bean say nothing but tellin’ hows Bean been kept prisoner all the while on they island ‘em knowin’ all ‘em things Bean done an’ thinkin’ him a traitor an’ not trustin’ him an’ all an’ theys listen an’ nod an’ think right ‘nough in’t no soldier-cap’n put nothing to a cabin-boy ‘cos in’t none ‘spect nothing o’ who in’t worth nothing so by an’ by Bean see the paper bein’ pushed up to me nose an’ ‘em hands is takin’ ‘em ropes off me hands ‘em needin’ every man an’ boy they got fetch merchant back you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D73]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F73]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E73]] </center></u>==> 75% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>And now the storm-blast came, and He </p><p>Was tyrannous and strong.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F76]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B76]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A76]] </center></u>==> 76% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>Nevertheless, whilst Jeronimus was engaged in pretending to make an agreement through the agency of the predicant, whom they compelled to go backwards and forwards, at the same time Davidt van Sevanck, and Coenraat van Huyssen, were engaged in bribing some of the soldiers to treason by offering them six thousand guilders each if they, the next day when the scoundrels came back, would go over to their side, pretending to be friends, in order to help murder the others. So when the people perceived that their lives were at stake, they have killed the above mentioned, as has been told before. Moreover, that some one named Wouter Loos, who had been made their captain after the capture of Jeronimus, had attacked them this same morning with 2 sloops of men, whom they had also repulsed, and there were in the party of the ditto Wiebbe Hayes, four very seriously wounded men.</p> <p>With all these sad tidings which I had briefly learnt, I returned immediately aboard, whilst I ordered Wiebbe Hayes that he should go back again in the little yawl and bring Jeronimus Cornelisz bound to the ship, which he did. But before we got aboard, I saw a sloop with people rowing come round the southerly point of the High Island. Therefore we made all preparations to capture the above-mentioned scoundrels. When they came near the ship, it could be seen that they were dressed mostly in red laken-cloth, trimmed with golden passemente. I called to them, ‘Wherefore do you come aboard armed?’ They answered me that they would reply to that when they were on the ship. I ordered them to throw their weapons into the sea before they came over, which as last they did. When they came over, we immediately took them prisoner, and we forthwith began to examine them, especially a certain Jan Hendricxsz van Bremen, soldier, who immediately confessed that he had murdered and helped to murder 17 to 20 people, under the order of Jeronimus. I asked him the origin and circumstances of this, why they had practised such cruelties. </p> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A77]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C77]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B77]] </center></u>==> 76% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="C"> The men who draw me from my captors are not known to me. Ariaen has failed, and must surely be discovered, and dead or rotting as I am by now. I almost laugh when our longboat draws us close enough to descry the ship’s title. The Sardam was one of the yachts Ariaen spent a night cavorting upon at the Cape. She has faired far better than our retourship, in the months since. The Sardam’s Great Cabin is somewhat smaller than the one furnished for the commandeur aboard the Batavia. The Captain’s table stands to one side, bare, and at the rear stands instead a narrow, taller table behind which sits Francisco Pelseart in the immaculate robes of his station, flanked by a pair of unfamiliar Company clerks who are nearly as richly apparelled. The scribe taking notes at a smaller table to one side I recognise with relief as Solomon Deschamps, one of my own men. The soldier leads me before the table and then joins a broad-chested negro flunky who stands at the far side of the room, watching on with the ugly, expressionless face of a toad. I smile warmly as I enter, remarking what a fine thing it is to see him aboard a fresh command, and begin to explain the state of those passengers whose lives I had preserved on Jeronimus, but he cuts me off that I would be silent, and I see for the first time there was a darkness that had not occupied those eyes aboard the Batavia. He had a pewter cup of wine by his hand, but makes no gesture to fetch one for myself, nor even to have my hands unbound. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B77]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D77]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C77]] </center></u>==> 74% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C75]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E75]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D75]] </center></u>==> 76% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C77]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E77]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D77]] </center></u>==> 77% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C78]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E78]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D78]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_west_australian_coastal_landscape_with_wallaby_3d270ae4-7a03-40d7-8d47-181071c94f97.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E74]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A74]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F74]] </center></u>==> 77% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>Said he also wished to explain how it had been with him in the beginning, saying, that the skipper, Jeronimus Cornelisz, the high boatswain and still more others, had it in mind to seize the ship BATAVIA before it was wrecked, to kill the Commander and all people except 120 towards whom they were more favourably inclined, and to throw the dead overboard into the sea and then to go pirating with the ship. Wherefore Jeronimus and all the people who had been on the island had been certain that the skipper would have killed the Commander overboard or elsewhere or thrown him into the sea. So that Jeronimus, having been for a month on the island after the wrecking of the ship, thought that one should either murder all the people to 40 or less, or else help them to some land, so that when the jacht came, one could seize it, which has been put into action to that purpose, but they could not fulfil their plan because Wiebbe Hayes had been sent with a party of people to a long island, to seek water, which they found after a 20 days search, and therefore they made, according to plan, 3 fires as a signal. But because they were in those days busy with the murdering, Jeronimus did not care about the water, whereupon several parties from 4 to 5 strong saved themselves from the murdering at night on pieces of wood or rafts, and escaped to Wiebbe Hayes’ island, until they were 45 strong. As they understood what had been decided and that daily so many were being murdered, made themselves ready to counter-attack if they should come to fight them, and made weapons from hoop-iron and nails, which they bound to sticks. After they had murdered most people, except 30 men and 4 children they decided to go to the High Island with 2 flat-bottomed sloops to overpower Wiebbe Hayes with his men, for they said, if the jacht comes through the inside passage, he will warn them, and our plan will not succeed, therefore they must be killed, and they had already done three trips against them, but they were unable to do any harm to them except on this day when they had shot some.</p> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A78]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C78]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B78]] </center></u>==> 77% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="C"> Pelseart begins sombrely, that Captain Jacobsz of the former command of the Batavia had accompanied him all the way to the Castle of Batavia, but had been imprisoned there when the Company had learned of his intent to mutiny. His intent while at sea to seize the ship and do murder upon the Company’s officers had been related by his consort Ms. Hendrix, who had evidently fallen out of favour with Ariaen over the long voyage by longboat. Pelseart related all of this coldly, as if I would never have heard of such people, but would know them only by report. He next asks, quite abruptly, whether I had any knowledge of Captain Jacobsz’ plot, and I make great surprise at this and reply of course I had known nothing at all of such mutinous plans on the Batavia, but that it were as well he had been thwarted even by such tragic circumstances as had brought us to these islands. Pelseart nods, evidently satisfied, and next describes how Cadet Hayes had made report on his arrival, at which moment he had been engaged with a furious battle with those mutineer recruits of Jacobsz’ who had been wreaking bloody murder upon the islands in his absence, and who had stranded him on a far island with his men so that they could not intervene. Many of the worst assassins had been killed in the altercation at our exchange, he added, including Lance-Corporal Pietersz, Ryckert Wouters the gunner, and Davidt Zevanck, a Company clerk who had run wild amongst the camp by all accounts. I nod at this, bemoaning the terrible deeds by a mass of desperate men I had been unable to prevent from our makeshift raad, and while I had made entreaties to Hayes’ soldiery to bring order on our own island, had been mistakenly captured and imprisoned where I could do no harm or ill of my own accord, on God’s truth. I would be unbound, before speaking further. Yet I am halted again, and though I see my report taking hold, yet asks Pelseart what had happened to the caskets of silver and jewels he had set ashore before embarking for the mainland, but I objected that I had been able to salvage nothing after the destruction of the ship, and those jewels must have been lost to the sea or to survivors’ greed. Pelseart asks then how many passengers did remain in his charge among these islands, to which I report how hunger and thirst had carried away more than two thirds of my flock in the many months we had been abandoned. Pelseart takes a long draft from his cup, and I take the chance to decry the sad necessity of sparing the sick undue pain and anguish, and the overzealous actions of brutes such as Zevanck and Wouters that had no doubt given those stationed on the High Land such a mistaken opinion. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B78]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D78]]</div> <center> [[Continue->Interrogation]] </center></u>==> 75% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C76]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E76]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D76]] </center></u>==> 78% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>One semblance circles me, a single movement.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F79]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B79]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A79]] </center></u>==> 73% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="E"> an’ while we’s gatherin’ our fightin’ things an’ puttin’ what clubs an’ blades we got in our hands an’ couldn’t Bean do nothing but take up ‘em blades again an’ keep to ‘em traitors say-so with ol’ loos sayin’ we’s set off all ‘em boats at once an’ s’prise ‘em soldiers when they’s ease they gard an’ come from all sides once the tides is low an’ take the island in blood an’ fear an’ all but in’t none there too happy takin’ up ‘em blades an’ all groanin’ an’ gripin’ now the merchant lost in’t none got the say-so an’ in’t no chance o’ beatin’ ‘em thirty forty strong men what in’t been up thirstin’ an’ killin’ these eight weeks runnin’ an’ loos sayin’ we got the card what in’t none o’ ‘em soldiers got goin’ an’ give a say-so to one o’ ‘em boys what scurry in the store tent an’ come out with a couple o’ muskets what loos says they done found ‘bout the wreck these weeks last with shot an’ powder an’ all an’ how first we’s go all ‘round ‘em soldiers then pick up to bits one by one from where ‘em clubs an’ fists in’t reach us an’ ‘em men lookin’ right chuffed an’ we’s each o’ us put our hands an’ eyes to ‘em guns an’ sightin’ gulls an’ crabs an’ that an’ talkin’ right loud how ‘em soldiers in’t worth half a shit with ‘em guns up ‘gainst ‘em an’ sayin’ theys better be diggin’ ‘em holes aplenty up on the high land an’ in’t Bean sayin’ nothing to none ‘cos in’t he care for the merchant no more’n cap’n haze nor ‘em soldiers nor a damn sailer nor none an’ weren’t nothing to be tooken up no more an’ can’t the dead be raised up again nor Bean see the surgeon’s face nor say sorry or nothing but like the surgeon done said in’t there be two men left on a island but one try to have say-so over tuther an’ he find what call he can to take it an’ call his fellow man a traitor an’ a heretic an’ take what silver an’ food an’ water an’ women he got an’ each put each ‘neath tuther an’ strife an’ struggle it over ‘til in’t none to live to profit it but the birds an’ crabs what pick ‘em corpses clean ‘cos weren’t nothing more worth fightin’ for up on ‘em cold dry rocks but the say-so you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D74]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F74]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E74]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_west_australian_coastal_landscape_d3433b5d-dc24-4ebc-8445-50795edaf782.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E76]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A76]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F76]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src="https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_billabong_with_red_sand_and_dead_grass_e2f788aa-9064-4960-820f-9e5f262b39af.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E75]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A75]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F75]] </center></u>==> 74% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="E"> so we sets off the all o’ us men an’ boys an’ that at dawn with all ‘em boats we got piled high with men but weren’t we in ‘em mists a minite but we in’t tell where ‘em other boats got to or see where theys at but us boat with loos an’ peters an’ hendricks an’ a half-duz’ other ‘em men what’s holdin’ the boat an’ rowin’ quiet-like ‘til ‘em high lands come rearin’ up out the mist monstrous tall like leviathan an’ ‘em men rowin’ fit to burst ‘cos we hear ‘em calls comin’ from ‘em rock-cliffs an’ in’t no sign o’ ‘em other boats but ‘em soldiers sure ‘nough gatherin’ together an’ fetchin’ they clubs an’ all ‘cos in’t we fifty paces where the waves breakin’ but Bean see ‘em soldiers crowdin’ up ‘em rocks an’ rushin’ down the mud-flats where we’s come aground an’ peters an’ ‘em sailers seen ‘em too an’ call out so loos take up one ‘em muskets he taken an’ loaded up hisself an’ hold it to his eye an’ point it up where ‘em men is standin’ up ‘em cliffs an’ let fly with a shot clear over ‘em to the sky an’ there go a bang what put the ringin’ in Bean ear an’ ‘em soldiers what’s gathered by the beach scatter right quick back t’wards ‘em rocks while loos tryin’ to get shot an’ wad an’ powder back down the neck ‘gainst the rockin’ o’ the boat an’ raise it up an’ let fly where it spray the waves up not twenty paces off but in’t no soldiers keepin’ where we put ashore an’ all ‘em sailers what’s jumpin’ out with they clubs an’ blades an’ makin’ for the cliffs where they seen the soldiers go up an’ loos takin’ the fore an’ holdin’ up his musket an’ hollerin’ out to take the land an’ Bean followin’ behind with his blade kept tight an’ all we boundin’ up ‘em rocks an’ men up top shoutin’ an’ loos lettin’ fly with ‘em shots an’ goin’ up over the hill where Bean hear sounds o’ men shoutin’ an’ strugglin’ an’ in’t no say-so for none but what Bean hear called out ‘til he come up over ‘em rocks hisself an’ a tall soldier basterd come lurchin’ out with a sharp big rock in his hand an’ catch Bean ‘bout the ear ‘fore he know what’s goin’ on an’ he fall an’ get a face full o’ sand an’ can’t hear nothing but the crack o’ the guns an’ shoutin’ men an’ gulls screamin’ an’ don’t he move a mussle but keep in me head turnin’ an’ turnin’ like when we’s in the hold goin’ down an’ Bean in’t want nothing but the dark an’ the quiet to come an’ not hear ‘em shouts o’ men what’s dyin’ an’ killin’ an’ all o’ the since thinkin’ how in’t none o’ it Bean’s fault an’ he in’t want none o’ it from the beginning an’ didn’t want none o’ it but be livin’ an’ a place to be you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D75]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F75]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E75]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_west_australian_coastal_landscape_0aa3257b-c53a-4fb9-9a11-9be7ca307bc9.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E77]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A77]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F77]] </center></u>==> 75% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="E"> ‘til in’t I hear no more shots or nothing but ‘em shouts what in’t by men dyin’ nor stranglin’ one the other but shoutin’ a ship a ship he’s back damn him an’ Bean lift his head out the sand where he playin’ dead an’ look back where the sea comin’ back in over ‘em mud-flats an’ ticklin’ ‘em feet o’ sailers an’ soldiers what’s lyin’ on the sand an’ the mist comin’ back an’ a tall strait ship what’s comin’ up to the high land with ‘em sails wide an’ a crew scurryin’ ‘bout her deck an’ S-A-R-D-A-M writ ‘long her side an’ droppin’ anchor an’ god damn god but we’s all o’ us saved god like it or no you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; an’ there a boat comin’ from the S-A-R-D-A-M puttin’ out an’ pullin’ up on ‘em far mud beaches all oars pullin’ an’ it all an’ folks steppin’ out what Bean know one o’ ‘em bein’ the commadore what he in’t seen past fourteen week an’ him puttin’ down with crew on far beach an’ lookin’ up an’ down an’ to an’ fro an’ that with what big spyglass he got an’ by an’ Bean see the boat what he done tooken from batavia’s graveyard comin’ round the far side the island all full o’ men Bean can’t tell a distance an’ by an’ by there be shoutin’ out by the hill where Bean sittin’ so Bean jus’ lay down back on the rocks with what mashed ear he got from the rock facin’ up so theys see ol’ Bean as dead as door-nails when who he heard runnin’ past back down the beach shoutin’ ‘bout haze an’ he getting’ to the commadore an’ spillin’ the lot so theys spill him first an’ Bean in’t hear no more but he sit back up an’ see ‘em puttin’ out they boat back down on the beach an’ in’t I think o’ goin’ back down but Bean jus’ sit an’ watch ‘em puttin’ out an’ the far boat creepin’ up where the commadore standin’ closer an’ closer ‘em two boats comin’ together right slow like twin snails racin’ an’ in’t time move at all then but ‘em boats floatin’ out in the mists an’ nought but the wind movin’ an’ makin’ noise ‘bout the ears an’ in’t Bean know what time do but it stand still and don’t never pass when you jus’ standin’ still an’ waitin’ for it pass but the minite you need it done an’ gone time gon’ take his time you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D76]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F76]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E76]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_billabong_with_red_sand_and_dead_grass_4a1a4045-e520-4891-80e6-fd490e6b0587.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E80]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A80]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F80]] </center></u>==> 78% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>Towards evening Wiebbe Hayes brought Jeronimus bondaged aboard, to whom I looked with great sorrow, such a scoundrel, cause of so many disasters and of the shedding of human blood, and he had still had the intention to go on, however it was not according to the plan of God. I examined him in the presence of the council, and asked him why he allowed the devil to lead him so far astray from all human feeling (to do that which had never been so cruelly perpetrated amongst Christians), without any noticeable hunger or thirst, but solely out of cool bloodthirstiness to attain his wicked ends. He answered, that one should not blame him for what had happened, laying it on Davidt van Sevanck, Coenraat van Huyssen, and others who had been beaten to death, that they had forced and willed him to it, and that a man does a lot to stay alive. About the plan to participate in the seizing of the ship BATAVIA, this he denied. And to the idea of seizing any jacht that might come, he said that Sevanck had proposed this, to which he had only consented on account of his own safety without meaning it, for firstly, he believed that they would never be salvaged, and he had also heard here on land from Rijckert Wouterssen that skipper Ariaen intended to seize the ship and to throw the Commander overboard, which made him presume that he would never take the boat to Batavia but that they would veer off to Malacca, or if the other had occurred, and he or the Commander had arrived at Batavia, and some jacht were sent to rescue them, he would have tried to warn them. In this manner with evident lies he tried to talk himself clean with his glib tongue telling, making out that nowhere had he had a hand in it, appealing to the people, who would say the same thing too.</p> <p>Jeronimus Cornelisz bound, and made ready for torture, requested pause, that he would say truthfully what he knew, and he has been asked by the Commander why he advised the skipper Arian Jacobsz to seize the ship BATAVIA, denied the same, yea, that he did not knew anything about it, but wished to tell in full the origin of his shameful life and, being bound and having started to torture him a little, requests a postponement, for he wished to tell which one had asked him, and what he knew. Has been permitted to be heard. The Commander asking him further, because he wished to know when the decision to seize the ship had been made, he denied knowing anything about it. Therefore again made ready to torture. And after a little water has been poured out, says that he will say all that he knows. Again asked if he did not know anything about this before the ship was wrecked, denies, no. Having ordered to go on with the torture, he has again desired to hear some of his accusers, which has been granted him.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A79]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C79]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B79]] </center></u>==> 78% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C79]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E79]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D79]] </center></u>==> 77% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="E"> ‘em men what come to shore come right up the soldiers camp where they keepin’ cornelius in his big ol’ pit I done dug an’ first things first ‘em soldiers fetch him up lookin’ like hell isself come back alive an’ walkin’ with ‘em fine clothes all ripped an’ mucked with dirt an’ he get put in the longboat an’ tooken out where the commadore waitin’ an’ in’t we see nothin’ o’ him nor ‘em soldiers ‘til the next mornin’ they come ashore handin’ out muskets an’ blades case ‘em traitors still out on batavia’s graveyard waitin’ for a chance to strike but in’t Bean get his hands on a gun nor stick nor nothing an’ in’t two three days pass ‘fore ‘em boats come back on the high land to take the lot o’ us back over an’ in’t Bean mind that long trip through mist a bit so long as he know he in’t got make it never again an’ soon ‘nough we’s back where we begun on ‘em rocks an’ sand an’ tents what’s full o’ what folks Bean seen with loos lookin’ proper chuffed an’ flush with what stores got shore from the ship an’ Bean spy her lady-ship speakin’ with the preacher an’ what laugh come close to cryin’ she holdin’ him an’ holdin’ him an’ weren’t it long ‘fore Bean catch her eye but in’t she give ol’ Bean a kiss nor hold him nor laugh nor cry but jus’ look back all cold an’ quiet like she in’t know me from a rock you understand </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D78]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F78]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E78]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/progress_image_100_19c303fc-9219-490d-8336-05dd77936a1d.webp?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E78]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A78]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F78]] </center></u>==> 79% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="E"> but in’t he stay long ‘nough I could ask him nothing more but he pick up a big ol’ spade he keepin’ in prow and walk up t’wards the great tent an' in’t Bean know him from adam but he look a right spicious basterd from how he lookin’ ‘bout an’ walk slow-like like ‘em pilferers comin’ for the merchant’s wine but in’t Bean go tell on no one no more for what they done to the last pilferers what been diggin’ ‘bout but still he think on what ol’ loos done said ‘cos in’t Bean forgot his oath nor think on it ‘til then an’ thinkin’ ‘bout it more an’ more weren’t Bean lookin’ out for none nor damning none neither but the more he think on it the more ol’ Bean see he in a right pickle all over again an’ he more’n likely damned for all that you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; ‘cos from what he seen the commadore got the say-so now what’s the company’s say-so but in’t that no matter below the word o’ god so in’t Bean know half where start or what he do when he see the commadore over his papers or where he an’ ol’ deshamps been writin’ up company law an’ all in ‘em tent ‘cos in’t the commadore know me nor know how the clark done drunk the merchant’s grog to the devil nor nothing but where he left his silver an’ gems an’ there where he sent ‘em tall indian’s swimmin’ an’ in’t Bean know what to do but keep fillin’ the commadore’s cup you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D80]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F80]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E80]] </center></u>==> 78% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="E"> ‘til the preacher leadin’ the lot o’ us in a prayer for safe deliverence an’ praisin’ the lord an’ sayin’ ‘em things o’ the traitors what in’t been said awhile an’ takin’ they amens at that an’ ‘em sailers what come all from java an’ that steppin’ in camp an’ givin’ us say-so like half o’ ‘em what’s left cryin’ out when theys settin’ sail an’ seein’ home an’ all ‘cos they wantin’ to be well shot o’ ‘em rocks an’ crab an’ wind an’ all fair ‘nough but in’t we see the commadore but we told he takin’ time puttin’ the company justice to ‘em traitors an’ in’t we got worry or nothing but we see rights to rights ‘fore we set sail for batavia an’ in’t none o’ us care for ‘em tents nor gull-meat no more’n we’s needin’ but day on day in’t nothing told nor movin’ but ‘em boats put out to ‘em rocks where the ship done wrecked an’ ‘em tall Indians what’s been brung on the ship what’s divin’ down tryin’ to see what they see an’ find what they find but weren’t ol’ Bean left to his own say-so or nothing but soldiers and sailers and whatever ‘em passengers what needs a net mended or get some bit fetched up from shore or need they pans took and’ tipped an’ all an’ can’t do it of their own or nothing an’ in’t learn nothing from what months theys been fending for esselfs with ‘em daggers at their throats but sit up strait again an’ right quick find things what Bean do for ‘em an’ in’t Bean mind or nothing what he in’t lost but got back where’s he’s s’posed to be an’ in’t askin’ nothing else besides ‘til the night I’s asked for by one ‘em company clarks what I know from the merchant’s say-so called deshamps what’s pullin’ up on the island back from where they’s keepin’ ‘em traitors ‘cross the sea an’ all an’ he’s askin’ after me so I’s gets meself down to him right quick thinkin’ he’s needin’ ‘em oars fetched up the tent right quick but in’t he ask nothing but me name an’ is I jansen or isn’t I an’ right ‘nough I says I is an’ ol’ deshamps take me by shoulder an’ say ol’ loos tell him tell me to ‘member my oaths you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D79]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F79]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E79]] </center></u>==> 78% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="C"> Pelseart sets his cup on the table with a sharp rap and says that reports he had received from Batavia’s Graveyard – for so he called the island of Jeronimus, grimly enough – among them the preacher’s testimony, who had acted as Hayes’ intermediary between the islands. Then he enters into a long and unjust litany of foolish atrocities as would blacken the Devil himself, acts of such hysterical cruelty as could only be the work of invention. And all of these, every one, had been laid at my own feet by each and every blameless witness, as if I were some Machiavellian puppeteer controlling the every action of the animals who had committed them. Was I not the orchestrator of the attacks on Hayes on his men, the execution of innocents under my keeping, the wanton abuse of the women and other such nonsense? I objected, naming Zevanck and Wouters and the rest who lay already under Earth, and protested that God’s truth could not ever place a knife in my hand nor blood on my sleeve, for all I had tried to hold back the viciousness of the others. Pelseart remarks that the Company’s men have seized those gems and trinkets I had smuggled aboard the Batavia and preserved during its destruction, and that I may as well forgo any profits I had hoped for my own profits from such illicit trade. I say nothing, damning him in my silence. The Great Cameo, he said, would be in his safe keeping until it reached the port of Batavia. I think the clerk holds me in sympathy, though Pelseart again asks if I would answer these accusations truly and confess my own crimes, and I feel of a sudden a tremendous urge to say nothing at all, yet have it spoken. It would not do to dignify such base and baseless allegations. He seeks to sound my mind on this, for me to explain my self. There is no need of justification for the ways of God to man. Strange and manifold they are, and so are we, one to another. I speak, saying only that the council knew all that was known already, and until my dying day I would not speak another word on it. I thought Pelseart might smile at this, but he held only an expression of rapt thought, as though I had uttered some half-remembered name. He nodded at length, and said that torments would open my lips. The negro steps forward at this, and I see he is holding funnel and iron buckles by which he affixes the table which stands to the side with thick leather straps about its four legs. There is a pair of buckets beneath it, I see now, and feel my bowels clench. There is no fear, though. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B79]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D79]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C79]] </center></u>==> 76% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="E"> ‘til Bean feel a hand on his shoulder an’ he spin turn right quick thinkin’ he ‘bout to get one o’ ‘em wood bayonets in his guts but it in’t loos nor hendricks nor the merchant but it be the preacher what Bean in’t seen since all that on the beach an’ in’t he speak but strait look where Bean lookin’ out where haze boat drawin’ up on that far beach where the commadore standin’ an’ Bean think he sayin’ some prayer in what tung Bean don’t know an’ blessin’ Bean soul an’ blessin’ the preacher soul an’ all our soul an’ off’rin’ up to the father an’ son an’ all for what deliv’rance we done earned an’ thanks an’ sorry an’ all what Bean don’t need hearin’ no more an’ ‘em men big as ants now is talkin’ what ant must be haze to the commadore throwin’ his arms out at that boat what’s full o’ the traitors comin’ up on ‘em right fast an’ up to the high land where the preacher an’ I stood an’ out where the island lie out through the mist an’ soon ‘nough theys scramblin’ for they boats an’ pullin’ at they oars back t’wards ship with ‘em traitors steerin’ out they boat to follow an’ still ‘em boats in’t move but a inch by a inch ‘til it look as though haze an’ the commadore make the S-A-R-D-A-M an’ clamberin’ aboard an’ still the traitors boat creepin’ up stroke by stroke ‘til it look as though they flush right side-by-side but in’t none o’ ‘em come aboard ship but they standin’ up in they bow an’ hollerin’ up to the main-deck what we can’t see who hearin’ or hear what’s said but they pullin’ they guns ‘bout face an’ blokes with ‘em long pikes linin’ the sides an’ in’t it but a turnity an’ ‘em men on the lil’ boat is chuckin’ what they carryin’ in the sea an’ raisin’ they hands an’ bein’ pulled up the one by one an’ the preacher let out a prayer an’ thanks to god an’ Bean amen an’ all but in’t neither o’ us move a mussle but we stay sat there lookin’ out where the ship sat calm as anything an’ in’t we say a word neither but wait an’ look an’ pray they in’t peel right off then an’ there an’ head up the horizon but in’t the ship move neither but the sun comin’ down an’ mist movin’ back in we sees they puttin’ a boat back out an’ rowin’ ashore slow stroke by stroke an’ Bean thankin’ god good an’ proper now not mindin’ his ear nor his thirst nor nothing but thinkin’ he in’t die that day an’ make food for ‘em crabs an’ Bean live to see another day god be damned </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D77]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F77]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E77]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_billabong_with_red_sand_and_dead_grass_2cbdfe26-bb62-42bd-9e37-233074444a54.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E79]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A79]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F79]] </center></u>==> 79% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Mineral sag, the glow of skin.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F80]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B80]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A80]] </center></u>==> 80% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>I labour silently, circling around myself.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F81]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B81]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A81]] </center></u>==> 79% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="C"> Pelseart would not have a Company man abused without due trial of course, and I ask mildly whether I may face my accusers, as is my right in law. As I had wished, the council holds a muttered discussion amongst themselves at this, and make I many respectful entreaties as to the sacred dignity due to an agent of the VOC such as themselves. The coolie has finished his tightening of the straps, and without seeming to hear my words, Pelseart nods to him. The soldier and flat-faced negro strap me to the Captain’s table, facing upwards. They force the funnel between my lips and bring up the first bucket, heavy with water. There is no Hell. No sin. The water comes, falls. The body gulps, cringes and cries. Drink, breathe. Raw on the throat. Time does not pass, until the jug comes again and the water pours. Drink, breathe. Breathe. Drink. There are no words. There is no pain. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B80]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D80]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C80]] </center></u>==> 79% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C80]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E80]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D80]] </center></u>==> 80% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="C"> There is no thought. There is no God. There is no Devil. No thought. No sin. No words. No pain, no pain. No justice. Not here, not here. I will see my accusers. I will stand before true Judgment. It is all I can think to say, drowned and bedraggled. I must know my judges, to know God’s judgment. Then it is over. Time resumes. The water stops, and I am cast down from the table. Must I be supported by the negro’s broad back and be helped from the room, Pelseart and his aides faintly conferring behind me. I am not set back out to sea however, but all but carried below decks to the thick dark space that must serve the Sardam as a brig. There is the clank and jangle of keys in a lock-slot, and then I am hurled into the dark, and strike against something soft and rough. Two men are standing in the cell already, with another, smaller figure lying at our feet on the floor either unconscious or insensate. My knees quickly collapse and I slump at the cell’s other side, using the bars and the ship’s side to support my shoulders. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B81]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D81]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C81]] </center></u>==> 80% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C81]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E81]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D81]] </center></u>==> 81% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>I meditate, weaned among the far-flung seasons</p><p>Yet mean meridian on the maps of silence.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F82]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B82]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A82]] </center></u>==> 83% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Do you want to know more, and what!</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F84]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B84]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A84]] </center></u>==> 85% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Yet all these were, when no man did them know;</p><p>Yet have from wisest ages hidden been</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F86]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B86]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A86]] </center></u>==> 82% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>I pass, like night, from land to land;</p><p>I have strange powers of speech.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F83]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B83]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A83]] </center></u>==> 84% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Dayly how through hardy enterprise,</p><p>Many great Regions are discovered</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F85]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B85]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A85]] </center></u>==> 88% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Is that which was the beginning;</p><p>At the source of the longest river</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F89]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B89]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A89]] </center></u>==> 89% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>There is something dense, unified, struck in the ground of being.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F90]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B90]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A90]] </center></u>==> 90% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>When he left, the sea was still going on.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F91]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B91]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A91]] </center></u>==> 86% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Why then should witless man so much misween</p><p>That nothing is, but that which he hath seen?</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F87]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B87]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A87]] </center></u>==> 87% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>We shall not cease from exploration</p><p>And the end of all our exploring</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F88]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B88]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A88]] </center></u>==> 91% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Revenge,at first sweet,</p><p>Bitter ere long back upon itself recoils.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F92]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B92]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A92]] </center></u>==> 92% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>But somewhere, beyond Space and Time,</p><p>Is wetter water, slimier slime.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F93]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B93]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A93]] </center></u>==> 93% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>In its delicate matter there is the scent of age</p><p>And the water the sea brings, of salt and dreams.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F94]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B94]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A94]] </center></u>==> 94% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>I shall do such things — </p><p>What they are, yet I know not, but they shall be</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F95]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B95]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A95]] </center></u>==> 95% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>O brave new world, with such people in it.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F96]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B96]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A96]] </center></u>==> 97% ==> November, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>May there be no sadness of farewell.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F98]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B98]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A98]] </center></u>==> 98% ==> November, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Fare forward, travellers</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F99]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B99]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A99]] </center></u>==> 96% ==> October, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Once by man and angels to be seen,</p><p>In roaring rise and die.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F97]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B97]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A97]] </center></u>==> 99% ==> November, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>When that which drew from out the boundless deep</p><p>Turns again home.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F100]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B100]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A100]] </center></u>==> 100% ==> December, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> <p>In my beginning is my end.</p> </center> </span> <center> [[Continue->A FIN]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_west_australian_coastal_landscape_with_wallaby_3d270ae4-7a03-40d7-8d47-181071c94f97.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E26]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A26]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F26]] </center></u>==> 82% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>Jan Hendricxen of Bremen, soldier, aged about 24 years, brought in, is asked by the Commandeur why they had wanted to seize the ship, answered, free and unbound, without torture, that more than 6 weeks ago Jeronimus Cornelisz, undermerchant, with his council had taken that plan and sworn to make themselves masters of the first jacht that should come, but that he is innocent of that and in no way consented to it, though several times was requested about it. Asked whether he has been one of the conspirators in the seizing of the ship, he says that he was not one of them, and that he had not known anything of it on board, but that he had heard from several people after the wrecking of the ship, who were dead now, that the skipper, Jeronimus, the high boatswain, Rijckert Woutersz, Allert Jansz of Assendelft, Cornelis Jansz of Haarlem, Gijsbert van Welderen, Coenraat van Huijssen, with 10 to 12 others would have started the same, and that they would have nailed the soldiers' hatch until they had their will with the ship. And in order to come to the straight truth of it, is put to torture.</p> <p>After beginning of the torture he prays to be let free, as he will speak the truth. Says, that Jeronimus has come to him on the ship and has made a proposal to him, whether he would take a hand in the seizing of the ship. But had said neither yea nor nay. When more water has been poured out for the torture, confesses that the high boatswain, Jacop Pietersz stone-mason, and he with still others, had swords lying in their hammocks. Threatened him further confesses, that the skipper was the ringleader, and that as far as he knew they were only 10 to 12 men strong. Has promised of his own free will to say what he knows, after this he was examined, said, that he was persuaded thereto, as well as were all persons who were on the island. The Commander asked him again why they wanted to do that, answered, that he did not know. Furthermore examined how they would have brought it about, says, that already before Jeronimus had been captured by the other party, they had the plan, if a jacht should come, to let the boat come to land first and then make the crew drunk in order the easier to kill them, and they should then have mastered the jacht easily at night time, with the boat, because they guessed that there would only be 20 to 30 men. But no decision was yet taken as to how they would begin it, because while they were fighting with the other party, they suddenly saw the ship.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A83]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C83]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B83]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_red_sand_desert_landscape_3cc266f1-7d56-4efb-a6f7-19a2223f400e.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E81]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A81]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F81]] </center></u>==> 81% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>Of these oaths I have found some, and read as follows:</p> <p>//We undersigned persons being present on this island, councillors as well as soldiers, sailors, accept as our chief, as captain-general Jeronimo Cornelij, whom we with one accord, and each separately swear as God shall help us, to be faithful and obedient in all that he shall order us. And in so far as the contrary happens, we shall be the Devil's own, to which we have bound ourselves with a common hand herewith destroying and casting away all previous promises, public and particular, and oaths which have been taken before this, and others. We undersigned persons, in order to remove all distrust that may be amongst us, or that may arise between us, and nevermore to have any recollection of such, will promise with this written agreement, making to each other the greatest oath that anyone can take, to be faithful in everything, so help us God, and will take the same on the salvation of our souls, to be faithful in everything, also that we shall do no harm to any of us undersigned, nor make any plan before the one has warned the other, Also that the ship's folk amongst us will not be called sailors any more, but will be reckoned on the same footing as soldiers, under one company. And to maintain the given laws with the following women, Lucretia Jansz, Anneken Hardens, Judith Gijsbertssz, Trijntien and Zussie Fredricx, Anneken Bosschieters, and Marretgien Louijs. To be certain, we have written our names with our own hand here below. Thus done on the island of Batavia's graveyard, 20 August anno 1629.//</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A82]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C82]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B82]] </center></u>==> 80% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="E"> ‘til right early next day ol’ deshamps wake me up proper early sayin’ theys needin’ me hands for fetchin’ ‘bout on seals island an’ Bean better get him right quick down the beach where ‘em soldiers castin’off for slack tide so Ben head right quick with his feet goin’ right quick an’ in’t his head say nothing ‘til he reach the boat an’ pull out to seal where ol’ Bean done washed up the night he last say the surgeon an’ it come right back in Bean head an’ no mistake all the things he done seen an’ things he done done an’ what they done made him an’ ‘em dead lads he done seen piled up like a rat’s nest all cut an’ rottin’ an’ all you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; an’ I seen the fire again what burned up the surgeon’s tent an’ what I seen it in they eyes an’ all when the call the commadore’s name ‘cos weren’t there no knowing in ‘em eyes or nothing nor no care for Bean nor no bein’ but ‘emselfs an’ the say-so what they got you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; but right soon ’em soldiers an’ I’s brung up ‘em beach he known from his night o’ fear an’ all up to where they’s raised up the island jail again next to a great big pile o’ wood an’ metal an’ Bean hit the stink o’ ‘em from fifty paces the lot of filthy rough blokes piled in a top each other but in’t a man there pay Bean no mind while he carrying they bucket out or nothing </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D81]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F81]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E81]] </center></u>==> 79% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>On 18 do. before daylight, I and the skipper went with the yawl and the boat to the island of Wiebbe Hayes and got from it 10 soldiers to whom I gave weapons and muskets, and thus we sailed to the island named //Batavia's Graveyard//, which was near to the wreck, where the rest of the scoundrels were, in order to capture and secure them. When they saw us coming they lost their courage, and said to each other, ‘Now all our necks are in the noose’, thinking that they would be killed immediately, and when I came ashore I had them bound hand and foot and so secured.</p> <p>Afterwards, the first thing I did was to seek for the scattered jewels. These were all found, except a ring and a gold chain. Towards evening we went to the wreck, and found that the ship was lying in several pieces, namely, a piece of the keel, with the bottom of the hold, all above water had been washed away except a small piece of the bulwark at the back which was above water, it was almost exactly in the same place where the ship had first struck. A piece of the front of the ship was broken off and thrown wholly on the shallow, there in were lying 2 pieces of ordnance, one of brass and one of iron, fallen from the mounts without anything more. By the foreship was lying also one side of the poop, broken off at the starboard port of the gunners' room. Then there were several pieces of a lesser size, that had drifted apart to various places, so that there did not look to be much hope of salvaging much of the money or the other goods.</p> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A80]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C80]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B80]] </center></u>==> 81% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C82]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E82]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D82]] </center></u>==> 82% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="C"> I can sense the rank odour of my clothes and how my skin is clotted with filth, and it were as well the men cannot see my poor dishevelled state in the gloom. I will need their loyalty at the last. Or, at the least, obedience. The four of us were carried from the Sardam by longboat the next day, the silent occupant of the cell proving to be the cabin boy whom Hayes had held captive before me, and had been reclaimed in the confusion of my ambush. We were not brought to the High land, nor back to Jeronimus, but to the Seals’ Island between them, and I saw when we disembarked that Pelseart’s men had dismantled the makeshift jail I had commissioned for our camp, transported it piece by piece and reassembled here, and filled nearly to bursting with the mass of mutineers all clamouring and cursing at their guards in a kind of pandemonium. This proved to be our new brig, for were we thrown in amongst them unceremoniously and the hatch shut upon us. Loos is received with some apparent relief by the rest of the men, some twenty or thirty in all, though I think they hardly recognise me for the state of my clothes and disgraceful level of filth about my body. I scarcely recognised myself, and as they interrogate Loos as to his audience with Pelseart, I only descend to the sand floor to sit and think, beside a tall pile of worm-bored lumber apparently fetched from the Batavia’s remains that walls up one side of our cell. No hope of rebellion in our island prison. Here, in this cell, the mutineers can do nothing but seethe and stew amongst each other over the next week, rank and dirtied by our own filth and open on all sides to the wind and sun and rain such that the strongest force themselves to the centre to make some shelter from the bodies of the weakest who are cast to the outside. There they spend the days bitterly debating one another’s actions and inaction and flinging blame at one another for their situation. The judgment of the ignorant mean nothing at all. God alone knows all that is in our hearts. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B83]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D83]]</div> <center> [[Continue->Cage]] </center></u>==> 81% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="C"> The two other occupants of the ship's brig prove to be Loos, who is at least to find me alive, and tells me how he and his men had led a spirited assault on Hayes’ island to rescue me from captivity, before the sight of Pelseart’s sails had panicked their party and they had scattered. Even so, some had attempted to storm the Sardam when Pelseart had sent a landing party ashore, hoping to surprise the skeleton crew, but their subterfuge had been undone and they had been captured and imprisoned aboard. The rest had simply surrendered when Hayes’ men had manned the ship’s longboats to the main camp and Pelseart had made it clear to the remaining mutineers that any further resistance was hopeless. The second figure in our cell proves to be Jan Hendricxsz, the voluble young soldier from Bremen who had been one of Pietersz’ early recruits, though he spoke little as Loos and I make conference in low whispers lest our jailer overhear. Pelseart could not know for certain how we all had hoped to surprise the ship, indeed we might as well have done all we had done in the hope of rescue for all he knew for certain. There are none who know all who would speak, and all who know will have their mouths sealed from fear. Silence is our shield. All we need do is nothing, until the ship sets sail again and may be surprised. Hendricxsz pipes up in his thin and reedy voice at this, and begins a bitter diatribe in the gloom against myself and all my directions, laying such recriminations on others as better suit himself until Loos and he are practically at each other’s throats. They squabble weakly in the tight hot space of the brig until I command them cease, though Hendricxsz keeps up his invectives for many hours until he descends into sobs and starts pounding against the solid iron bars with his fists and cursing himself for ever being beguiled to my serpent’s tongue until the jailer quiets him in the dark with some crushing blow that lands him unconscious on the floor. He may as well curse himself, for I never coerced him. What we will may only come through God. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B82]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D82]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C82]] </center></u>==> 81% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="E"> ‘til there’s a hiss an’ Bean turn in’t no soldier by his side where they standin’ talkin’ they shift off a ways an’ ol’ loos peekin’ through em wide bars right out at Bean an’ giving me a grin ike he in’t never gave ‘fore sayin’ how I’s alive thank god an’ in’t ‘em traiters o’ haze cut me up nor the commadore got me tortured an’ hanged or nothing an’ I’s his man an’ in’t Bean no boy no more an’ all that but Bean just watch ‘em soldiers all nonchalont-like like he in’t listen so can’t nothing be seen an’ give Bean a beatin’ ‘cos in’t he fear a beatin’ from what’s stuck in brig an’ in’t likely to find his way out so in’t Bean say a nothing but just watch like one ‘em who in’t even got to play ‘em execution game no more just watch you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; ‘til ol’ loos get right angry sayin’ how I’s a member o’ the crew still or in’t I an’ in’t ‘em soldiers nor the commadore nor the company isself got nothing for Bean but blades an’ beatin’s an’ how he done always looked out for Bean from the out an’ he done stopped zevank usin’ Bean as a darts-board an’ what soldiers under peters would have fucked him bloody if it weren’t for loos an’ I done signed a holy oath with an x by Bean’s name sayin’ I agrees an’ how that’s a holy testament an’ it look like ‘em soldiers is lookin’ over so I keeps me head to me hands where I’s tighten ‘em twine nots at the jail’s main-stay but in’t ‘em soldiers move but keep they’s chat an’ when Bean look back to loos he got ‘em eyes like the boys what’s lookin’ down after a sinkin’ cannonball an’ waitin’ for ‘em beatin’s to fall an’ fall again’ an’ in’t he beg the way Bean done a hunderd times under ‘em boots but try an’ grab out at me where his arm can’t reach an’ curse an’ whisper how I’s got kill pelsert an’ the merchant got poisons in his chest where I knows in his tent an’ weren’t nothing slip a drop or two in his wine an’ I’s fetch loos a knife when I’s called back an’ they’s all surprise the lot o’ ‘em soldiers where they sleepin’ an’ take the commadore’s new ship an’ never see ‘em company basterds again you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D82]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F82]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E82]] </center></u>==> 82% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C83]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E83]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D83]] </center></u>==> 82% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="E"> but in’t Bean say a word but keep ‘em fingers turning on ‘em steel nots an’ in’t he look up nor say a word but loos say I’s a good boy an’ I’s ‘member my oath or be damned for a turnity an’ I’s have me pick o’ pelsert’s treasures what I seen that night in the merchant’s tent an’ signed that oath what ol’ deshamps got now what Bean knew already didn’t he an’ didn’t want the commadore readin’ what where Bean done put a big ol’ x next his name under it you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D83]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F83]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E83]] </center></u>==> 80% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>On 19 do. in the morning, I sent the skipper to bring ashore those who have been kept imprisoned in the ship in order to inquire how they had conducted their lives; namely, Jeronimus Cornelisz, under-merchant, Jacop Pietersz of Amsterdam, here Lieutenant General, and had been one of the councillors, Jan Hendricxsz of Bremen soldier, and one of the main murderers, Rutger Fredricxsz of Groeningen. I have that day in part begun to comprehend from questioning and free confessions, what a godless life it was that has been lived here, the goods of the Company which they have fished up, as laken, fabrics, golden passementen, and other wear, were very shamefully misused by making them into clothes trimmed with as much golden passementen as possible, Jeronimus set the example, as appeared from his clothes found here. Moreover, all my clothes or goods he made his own, yea none was exempt, and he used it as if it had been left to him by will, whereby he gave free rein to the utmost to his pride and devilish arrogance on these poor miserable islands. Furthermore, when the most murders had been committed, they shared the women who remained, or rather whom they had meant to stay alive, namely, Jeronimus took Lucretia Jansz, wife of Boudewijn van der Myijlen, Coenraat van Huijssen Judith Gijsbrechtsz, eldest daughter of the predicant; furthermore, the sisters Trijn and Zussie Fredricx, and Anneken Bosschieters should be available for common service. Jeronimus made several articles to which the women had to be put on oath if they wanted to remain alive, that they had to be obedient to the men in all that they should desire of them. Of such oaths Jeronimus has made several, and he has also taken the oaths of the men he wanted to save, that they should be obedient to him in every way in whatever he should order them, and that they should be faithful to him, he pledged himself on his soul and salvation that those who signed the same, and whom he included, need not have any fear or mistrust that they would be murdered, thought it has nevertheless happened that some of those who signed, or took the oath, had to be killed by hatred or distrust, therefore he tore the oath of agreement publicly, by which action he dismissed the same, and so those who had to die were murdered at night, and then a new agreement was made. </p> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A81]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C81]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B81]] </center></u>==> 83% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="C"> Soldiers come by longboat now, and then and in twos and threes are the prisoners taken away to be questioned as to the events of the past months. When they return, many wear the expressions of the drowned, and they tell how Pelseart keeps Batavia’s innocents in their foul camp under his command while his crew of Indians can be seen day after day diving off the coral breakers where the ship and its cargo were broken. His mind is bent on the Company silver, and as often they are asked after these, and seldom to confess to violence or rape. Hendricxsz makes little secret of his intent to damn me to the commandeur, and to describe the wickedness committed even to exaggeration. When one morning he is called forth and dragged from the cell by the soldiers for his next interrogation, he shoots a look at me that cannot be misinterpreted. He returns that evening, sodden and shaken, but somehow emboldened. He stoops to tell me where I sit that I would see my own Judgment tomorrow, and joins many soldiers together in damning me again and again as a seducer and misguider of their souls, for they knew not what they had done under my command. They will never understand, who have not heard the word of God. There is no fear. There is no sin. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B84]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D84]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C84]] </center></u>==> 83% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="E"> but in’t I say nothing but keeps me head to me hands ‘til night fall and ‘em soldiers what brung Bean is met and give they watch over an’pile up in they long-boat and makin’ for the isle an’ in’t Bean set his legs ashore a minite but they take him up to camp but not so fast ‘em soldiers see where he goes so he wait behind ‘em while they head in the big tent an’ report to the commadore they watch an’ get they tot o’ wine an’ Bean hear ‘em talkin’ from where he stand aside to where he seen ‘em pilferers sneak in under the side what the merchant done for on the beach the next day an’ there go a right fuss inside an’ Bean think he heard ol’ cornelius’ voice sayin’ what Bean can’t tell an’ right soon ‘em soldiers come out makin’ a right caloo to the whole camp callin’ ‘em forth an’ sayin’ how the commadore callin’ on each an’ every one of ‘em for witness an’ testimony ‘fore the sun set an' in’t Bean move a mussle while theys bringin’ the lot o’ ‘em out they tents an’bringin’ ‘em all up ‘fore the big tent from right an’ left but in’t Bean move a mussle from where he standin’ not even when her lady-ship an’ the preacher pass right close ‘nough for her dress brush on his skin like when he feel under ‘em in the ship’s dark right ‘nough but in’t neither nor none of ‘em take much notice o’ Bean for all they lookin’ to the tent but in’t none speakin’ a word like theys watchin’ ‘em execution games from the cliffs all over again but can’t Bean see a thing ‘til the preacher tell her lady-ship all hand-holdy she ought move back an' she do so Bean can see through ‘em people what’s ringed ‘round front o’ the big tent where the commadore standin’ over the merchant what’s lookin’ in a right sorry state an’ all without ‘em fine robes an’ beard all rough an’ long an’ skin an’ eyes lookin’ like ‘em cabin boys what’s had the execution games put on ‘em an’ pelsert behind him sayin’ how the merchant done turned his back on god an’ won’t put no word strait nor true an’ been deceivin’ the lot of us as to what he been meanin’ to do an’ weren’t fess to nothing under terror o’ water or iron or nothing but he take it all back again once it stop you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; an’ merchant bein’ the chief o’ ‘em traiters what been goin’ against the company law an’ law o’ god an’puttin’ ‘em folks to the blade what in’t done a sin nor broken earthly law an’ weren’t nothing been done but weren’t by the merchant’s word an’ we’s all to answer under god’s onist truth if we’s done any o’ what been told o’ the merchant or if he guilty of all what ‘em traiters said was what was done since he left for the castle of batavia o’ the merchant’s doin’ under free fessing aye or nay you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D84]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F84]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E84]] </center></u>==> 83% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>Further examined as to how many people he has murdered, whereto Jan Hendricxen of Bremen confesses of freewill that he has killed 18 to 20 by the order of Jeronimus. Which host of gruesome murders he has very willingly lent himself to do, as well as what they still had intention to do, if the almighty God had not foreseen it, moreover still daily mocking God, while he was one of the first who forbade to pray or to preach the word of God, has very shamefully prevented this, though he says that Jeronimus had ordered it to him, also he has outraged the women, as well as many misdeeds which it would seem have to remain hidden, criminal offences which weight very heavily and which cannot be allowed to be suffered by God or mankind, as nature teaches us sufficiently that such evil-doers cannot as an example to others be allowed to remain unpunished.</p> <p>On 21 do. the wind e.-s.-e. with a hard gale, with it we noticed that the water here remained very low, and because of the hard wind the yawl could not return, we spent this day with examinations.</p> <p>Jeronimus Cornelisz again brought into the tent, and being bound for torture, as one could not get from him the straight truth, and asked whether he had not sounded Assendelft for that, confesses, yea, but that the skipper Ariaen has ordered him such, and that he was seduced by him. He, being asked why the skipper was so embittered against the Commander says, that he does not know, for he often wondered that he accepted him so much and put up with him. Further examined why he had put about the story among the people that the Commander when he left the ship, had ordered him to reduce the number of people to 40, he denies that, and that the Commander had not said this to him, but that Davidt Sevanck thought it necessary to put that to the people, confesses also that Davidt Sevanck and Lucas Jelisz had resolved between themselves to seize the first jacht that came in order to sail with that to Spain or some place nearby, for they all thought that the skipper certainly had smitten the Commander overboard from the boat, and that he had run with the boat to Malacca in order to get a jacht there, to get in that way the folks and the money.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A84]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C84]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B84]] </center></u>==> 83% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C84]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E84]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D84]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_red_sand_desert_landscape_eaecaa3a-5493-44b6-b60b-51ffe4b9c946.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E83]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A83]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F83]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/progress_image_100_0201fb8c-a2e5-4e1b-a588-225f75ed1ed2.webp?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E82]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A82]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F82]] </center></u>==> 85% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="E"> an’ weren’t there but two minites o’ light to go but can’t Bean wait a minite but he see for hisself an’ pull out what he got under his shirt cold and hard an’ he bring it up an’ the sun spark up ‘long that gold an’ metal an’ the white big stone glow like the sun isself catchin’ all that last light an’ the face o’ what king or god Bean in’t know fall in shadows an' staring back out at him an’ in’t change his face the whole while the sun is sinkin’ an’ in’t Bean understand you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; what ‘em men cut an’ killed an’ starved for held in the palm o’ his hand too heavy to carry far nor wear on his sleeve an’ weren’t it half more pretty nor better in hand an’ half the rocks what the wind an’ sea carve smoother still nor half so good as a belly o’ food or what roof or flower-farm or long swayin’ lines o’ negroes Bean seen sweatin’ an’ clankin’ in the sook you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; an’ all while he lookin’ an’ thinkin’ the sun sinkin’ an’ weren’t like like a slit or a sliver poke up where Bean can see it like the ol’ B-A-T-A-V-I-A where it done sunk below the sea where can’t no one see her no more an’ what in’t been seen nor heard in’t never be told so ol’ loos told him an’ Bean hear ‘em voice o’ the heathens an’ ‘em merchants an’ soldiers all whisper-whisper in his ears but can’t Bean hear ‘em from the sound o’ the sea nor what it tryin’ to say what he heard ‘em long nights in hell for the touch o’ a woman an’ warm wine an’ the say-so o’ his own an’ captain-general an’ a island o’ his own an’ all that what gold buy an’ what god put under sea an’ under earth an’ the face o’ the surgeon an’ what look when he see Bean again an’ can’t Bean think nothing just then but what the sea sayin’ an’ what he callin’ back an’ he throw the stone with all his might turn an’ turn an’ flash last with the sun’ an’ burst where it hit the water an’ sink an’ weren’t it half a second but the waves come up an’ where it sunken can’t be seen no more an’ all swollowed up by the wash an’ roar o’ it but for what call weren’t sea nor Bean an’ he turn an’ see her lady-ship standin’ thin an’ fine in the fallin’ light an’ don’t move nor turn but keep on starin’ right where Bean stood an’ in’t Bean nor look to the sea neither but stand while the light goes an’ don’t he move a mussle nor say a word ‘til I think to go to her an’ she turn right then an’ make her way back down ‘em rocks where the camp lyin’ just yonder an’ in’t Bean see her more again after that for a long time you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D86]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F86]]</div> <center> [[Continue->Jewel]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src="https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_billabong_with_red_sand_and_dead_grass_cfd9da64-9112-460d-8732-a81c9c61f15f.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E84]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A84]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F84]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_west_australian_coastal_landscape_f32693fe-432c-4528-93f1-47497eb406c6.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E85]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A85]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F85]] </center></u>==> 86% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="E"> but in’t nothing come ashore for the good ‘til the day Bean followin’ along to the preachers sermons what he an’ his daughter been keepin’ up night an’ day since the commadore come back an’ sure ‘nough Bean feel a hand on his shoulder an’ haze pattin’ him there an’ askin’ how I been keepin’ an’ all an’ sayin’ how the commadore’s wantin’ a word with me an’ I’s to come with him right quick an’ in’t Bean know I’s been asked after but he figure what he done for the commadore ‘fore the wreck an’ all got him some scratch with ol’ pelsert an’ he bein’ asked to pour the wine maybe or put to the swab but in’t ol’ haze say nothing ‘bout it while we’s walkin’ but by an’ by ‘em blokes with pikes an’ muskets put they steel on Bean an’ tell him step-to an’ Bean know the say-so when he hear it so he step right quick upt’wards the big ol’ tent what he in’t been near nor in since the night he seen the merchant on the ground but he sent right in an’ up to where that long table set to the wall what’s got the commadore an’ four blokes don’t Bean know from adam sat behind it with books an’ feathers an’ parchment an’ that what’s lookin’ down on Bean none pleasant like he done brung the wrong wine up an’ dropped it ‘cross ‘em an’ all an’ they’s all stern-like bringin’ up the word o’ ‘em survivors like what the preacher done said an’ her lady-ship too o’ the list o’ ‘em what were under the merchant’s say-so doin’ ‘em killin’s an’ takin’ what he given from the company stores an’ all an’ how they seen Bean to a man cuttin’ up the surgeon cold-blood an’ laughin’ an’ holdin’ a blade to ‘em all an’ callin’ on the merchant’s name ‘fore god an’ all an’ what he done to ‘em sisters on the word o’ hendricks an’ ‘em what was under the merchant’s say-so an’ what the merchant say-so Bean bein’ one o’ his men an’ in’t Bean no man but we was all who was on the island under the merchant say-so right ‘nough an’ Bean tellin’ how it in’t so an’ start his story like in’t none o’ it Bean fault since he done hit the floor o’ the ware-house an’ how he only been followin’ the say-so o’ ‘em what’s got it an’ how he been loyl to the company an’ to god an’ to the commadore an’ the skipper an’ the merchant an’ loos an’ haze an’ in’t there a man under the sun what’s got a rum word for ol’ Bean an’ if they did weren’t nothing on purpose but a mistake an’ all what all ‘em nots slipped ‘cos Bean’s brain all up in his s’poses an’ not on his hands nor his feet nor fingers nor toes but what Bean done he paid for word an’ skin an’ bond an’ all an’ weren’t there nothing left what Bean can give nor the world can take but it been tooken an’ he been naked ‘fore the sea an’ ‘fore god an’ weren’t nothing else be hid but it told ‘fore the end an’ Bean go on ‘til he in’t have no more say to say you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D87]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F87]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E87]] </center></u>==> 85% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="C"> Pelseart orders me unstrapped from my board, and cast from the great tent between the arms of my two tormentors. They throw me to the earth, and on hearing Pelseart’s voice again I raise eyes that are almost clodded shut with damp sand and grime. The entirety of my flock is ringed around us, watching, listening in complete and utter silence. The predikant stands at their fore, without legible expression. Over the flap of the wind, Pelseart is intoning his absurd allegations and calling on the name of Christ again and again and demanding confession. I do not hear him. As he speaks, I search the crowd and seek out the pitiless expressions of those I had saved. Men I had fed and preserved and sheltered through the shadows. I do not see Creesje’s face, cannot tell if she be somewhere in their number. But not one of them raises a word. They will not save their saint. Such ungrateful traitors would have burned Barabbas. God sees all, says Pelseart from his divine throne. Would I not absolve myself before the Day of Judgment? Why did I so damn my very soul by mocking the Company, God and all humanity with such wickedness? There is no mercy in such presumptions. Those damned cannot be saved, who were born sinners. There is no falsity. There is no truth. There is no justice. Only strength. Only control. Ay. No. No, ay. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B86]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D86]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C86]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_west_australian_coastal_landscape_with_wallaby_3d270ae4-7a03-40d7-8d47-181071c94f97.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E86]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A86]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F86]] </center></u>==> 86% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="C"> Pelseart asks all those congregated in his voice of false might whether they agreed to the traitor’s confession. Their answer comes as a thunderclap, a hundred voices joined together. Ay. No. No justice. No mercy. There is no soul in man. Why, asks the commandeur, on pain of torture and my soul’s salvation, had I so deceived the world and turned my back on God? I look on the mass of those I had saved, who had rejected me. They stare back. I replied, that I might live a little longer. Where was my wife? I enquired, for they might have heard tell or seen her in Batavia. I would only see her one last time before making my peace, on God’s truth. Pelseart made no reply at this, but ordered I be bound again and sent back to my prison. The crowd watches, silent, serene, as the negro jailers drag me from Pelseart’s feet. The last words I hear are a prayer muttered by the predikant, with what words I know not. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B87]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D87]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C87]] </center></u>==> 86% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C87]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E87]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D87]] </center></u>==> 85% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C86]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E86]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D86]] </center></u>==> 84% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>Therefore, on account of Jeronimus’ unsteady and variable confessions, practising crooked means though by all people accused in his own presence, in order to prove same to be lies. Have again and for the last time, threatened him with torture and asked why he mocked us, because he has confessed and told everything freely several times before this without torture, the origin and the circumstances concerning the seizing of the ship BATAVIA as well as the gruesomeness that came about afterwards. Confesses, that all that he has said before this, is true, but that what he asks for is delay, in order that he may be brought to Batavia in order to speak again to his wife, and that he well knows that all he has done is evil enough, and he desires no grace.</p> <p>Jan Hendricxz and Allert Jansen of Assendelft have freely informed without being examined, that one night Jeronimus has invited them, and among other proposals, informed them that if the ship had not been wrecked, then it would have been seized, and that the principals were the skipper, he Jeronimus, high boatswain, Coenraat van Huyssen, and others. </p> <p>On the same date in the afternoon, the Commander has read these examinations and confessions publicly before all the people on the island, in the presence of Jeronimus Cornelisz, and asked him if it was not true. Said, something was in it of which Assendelft, Jan Hendricxsz and others accused him wrongly –– Therefore the Commander has again said to the prisoners who had been witnesses sworn before God, that if they lied to him in the least respect they would have to be responsible before the divine judgment chair. Have said and called out as one man that they would die on it, on the salvation of their souls, not to have lied in the least in the things heretofore confessed. Thus has the Commander again asked Jeronimus why he has mocked the council through his intolerable desperation, saying one time that they spoke the truth, another time that they all lied. Confesses at last that he did it to lengthen his life. But that he had done enough evil, as said.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A85]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C85]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B85]] </center></u>==> 84% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C85]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E85]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D85]] </center></u>==> 84% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="E"> an’ weren’t it half a moment but we all of us pipe up with one big aye the lot o’ us man woman child an’ her lady-ship not five feet from Bean an’ Bean hisself o’ course ‘cos in’t none there wait a moment to think on it but we’s all say it together ‘cos weren’t it none o’ us intended doin’ what been done an’ weren’t none put ‘em words in us head or ‘em blades in our hands but the merchant nor do nothing but to put ‘em blades from us own necks you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; so now the commadore ‘splainin’ to us all how each man woman an’ child been under company law sinnin’ or no an’ can’t none be put to death in company law but by his own free fessin’ an’ that go for the lot o’ us blameless an’ the merchant too so he ask again if cornelius ready to fess ‘fore god an’ god’s onist truth or be drowned for now an’ damned for a turnity later an’ cornelius sayin’ what can’t Bean hear but a burblin’ but pelsert ask why he lie and mock at the company an’ it’s people an’ let sin take ahold o’ his heart an’ cornelius sayin’ loud loud now loud’ ‘nough we all hearin’ that voice what tellin’ us all he done it to live a little longer an’ in’t he see that the way for the lot o’ us what done what we done to keep from the pits you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; but now he bein’ carried up by ‘em soldiers what can’t keep his own feet an’ they bearin’ him out down t’wards the beach an’ ‘em lot what’s gathered up at the big tent the preacher an’ her lady-ship an’ the lot o’ ‘em walk slow an’ apart back to they tents an’ weren’t it half a minite but pelsert hisself come out an’ head out in direction o’ ‘em rocks where ‘em indians divin’ for ‘em silver but in’t Bean say a word but wait ‘til they all gone an’ all still an’ quiet like before an’ most the light o’ the day gone an’ in’t none o’ the merchant’s men watchin’ on the big tent Bean can jim up the side o’ the canvas and slide inside all snakey-like on his belly in the dark and fiddlin’ ‘bout on what crates an’ sacks like a ship-hold all dark an’ invisible but for the touch on things an’ where your head tell your hands are at an’ by an’ by Bean make his way careful-like over the back corner where the merchant shown him he keep all ‘em deep sacks o’ silver an’ fine coffers an’ that ‘til Bean fingers find what fine-smooth box with ‘em carvin’s cut like glass an’ heavy like a rock an’ it ope right ‘long a broke hinge an’ Bean’s fingers pullin’ at what soft thin cloth ‘neath it an’ under that grabbin’ what big ol’ egg what can’t two hands hold together but Bean got to slip it ‘neath his shirt an’ start his slither-slide right careful-like through ‘em sacks an’ posts an’ boxes ‘til he reach what thin bit o’ red light he hear flappin’ in wind an’ keep real low an’ like a eye to the ground what can’t see nor hear no boots comin’ past an’ peek out real slow now the light down low can’t none see what’s lower so Bean crawl on his hands an’ kness an’ stand real quick-like an’ make for runnin’ down from ‘em tents ‘cos in’t no cabin-boy s’posed to walk nowhere what in’t got say-so fetchin’ some bucket or sea-water but in’t he see none what give him half a look nor notice what give him the stink-eye or nothing ‘til he get down where ‘em waves breakin’ ‘neath ‘em cliff where ‘em folks came to see ‘em beacons what lit on haze an’ seen where the merchant’s men been puttin’ in an’ puttin’ down where don’t no tides come deep ‘nough to sound the bottom an’ what face out west an’ face all that turnity o’ sea an’ sky over seal’s island an’ off the far high land the sun comin’ down to meet the end o’ the earth an’ what’s lit up all that sea-mist and burned it off in red an’ gold an’ lit up all ‘em clouds like smoke an' flame where it sittin’ like a coal sinkin’ in the snow ‘cos in’t no day stay ‘bout you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D85]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F85]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E85]] </center></u>==> 84% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="C"> I am indeed brought to Jeronimus Island by longboat the next morning and, on seeing its bleak shoreline rise from the mist once again, am I suddenly bourne back to the night when the Batavia had broken at last, and Christ alone had carried me to shore. We alight on the very beach where I held my baptisms, and to my surprise I am led up again into the camp and in between files of those staring people whom I had held in my hands not three weeks ago, through to the great tent where I had held my own headquarters. Inside, Pelseart was sequestered amongst all the reconquered booty salvaged from the Batavia, calmly using my own quill to make fastidious notes as I was examined. With the Hendricxsz’ confession to stoke his suspicion, Pelseart and his lackeys made much more of their redundant questioning as to the plans to seize the Batavia, the mistreatment of the people and, above all, the misappropriation of the Company’s silver. Had I not ordered my men to kill and to glut their appetites on the survivors? Was I not the Captain’s confidante in his planned mutiny, and had I ordered Assendelft and the others to seize the Company ship when it returned to the island? I had not hoped for rescue, said I, and from the others thought the commandeur overthrown on the way to Batavia, to which Pelseart remonstrated against my contradictions and shifting narratives. Was I not Araien’s accomplice, then? Or simply the Devil’s? Made I the same glib replies at their slanders, their hearsay and heresies, admitting all, only to recant again at the last until they tried and tired once more and sent for their heathens to pour our water upon me to watch me writhe and splutter upon their table. But there is no pain. No fear, even. No more. There are no words. God’s truth speaks only in tongues. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B85]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D85]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C85]] </center></u>==> 85% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>Therefore has the Commander read those letters to the whole community and has asked them again, on the salvation of their souls, if they in anything have wronged or unjustly accused him. They answered all together and each in particular, that all they have done has been at his order and that he had been the instigator of all murders, and that all that had happened or would have been happened, giving the salvation of their souls as pledge, that the same was true. Also, Allert Jansz of Assendelft confesses that so far as the seizing of the ship BATAVIA was concerned, he also was implicated in it, but that Jeronimus Cornelisz had firstly brought him to it on the ship. In order to make an end to these variable evasions, have ordered Jeronimus to speak the straight truth or he should be tortured, confesses that all the evasions he tries are to prolong his life, or to be taken to Batavia. Is asked why he mocked the council and why he wished to accuse them of wanting to kill him unjustly. Says, as before, to prolong his life. And confesses on his soul's salvation that all this of which he is being accused, is true.</p> <p>On 23 do. the wind as before, in the morning I had the scoundrels who had been held secure on Seals Island fetched from there for examination, and I have been busy with this the whole day. </p> <p></p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A86]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C86]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B86]] </center></u>==> 86% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>Wouter Loos of Maastricht, soldier, aged about 24 years, who on 2 September, after Jeronimus Cornelisz has been captured on the High Island, has been chosen and accepted by the rebel troop in his place as Captain, to which, on 8 do., he made them swear, confirming his authorisation with signatures and oaths of all the persons, to be obedient to him in everything, whereupon he has resolved on the 17th of the same to go and fight the above mentioned escapees and to overpower them if possible. But after a long fight they did not advance any but that 4 men were badly wounded through musket shots, on account of which appears as inevitable that some will die. Therefore having asked him to what purpose he has fought against these folk, says, because his folk were murmuring and no longer desired a ration of water, but instead wanted to die or to become master of that island, has been persuaded by them, but maintains that he is very sorry he has done such.</p> <p>Furthermore, as we are still informed that he also has been in the predikant's tent when his family was murdered, and that he also has apparently done his share in killing with the others. Further asked how many women he has known carnally here on this island, confesses that he has slept a few times with Trijntgien Fredricx and Annetgien Bosschieters and has done his will with them. Also asked whether he has been with Lucretia Jansz in the tent after he has been made Captain a few days after the capture of Jeronimus. Says, that he will die the death if he has touched her dishonourably or has seduced her.</p> <p>Jeronimus Cornelisz, present at the examination of Cornelis Jansen of Haarlem, alias ‘Bean’, aged about 18 years, and late cabin servant on the perished ship BATAVIA, but here on the island the servant of Jeronimus Cornelisz, under merchant, confesses that on 25 July he called the said Cornelis into his tent and has given him a beaker of wine to drink, also a dagger, saying, stab this into the heart of Fransz Jansz, barber, which Cornelis has done, confesses the above written to be true. Jeronimus Cornelisz, being present, was asked if that was indeed true, if he had so ordered Jansen thus, confesses, yea, because he and the council had decided thus. But that he certainly believes that Jansen had done more than he has confessed, because he was always very willing to offer his services if anyone had to be put out of the way. Further asked whether, if they had been able to carry out their plan to overpower the other people on the High Island, he would have helped to seize the first jacht that should have come to rescue them, confesses that he would have helped the same as any other.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A87]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C87]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B87]] </center></u>==> 87% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>Cornelis Jansen asked how many people he had killed or helped to kill, denies that he had harmed or killed anyone, because there were plenty of others only too ready for that. Therefore have brought him to torture, because we are sufficiently certain that he spoke lies, having suffered pain, he confesses he has become, through his innate corruptness, entirely and wholly a disciple of his master, the Godless seducer and murderer of men, and has followed in his footsteps in murdering, as well as what he still had in mind to do, if he had been able to do so. </p> <p>Through his innate and incancered corruptness, Cornelis Jansen has let himself be used on 14 May 1629, on the ship BATAVIA south of the //Cabo de Bone Esperansa// by the high boatswain Jan Evertsz of Monickendam, to the shameful deed done that night by them on do. ship, to a woman to wit, that he, the foresaid ‘Bean’, together with Ryckert Woutersz of Harlingen, gunner; Jan Jansz Purmer of Amsterdam, gunner; Harman Nanninxen, quartermaster; Dirck Gerrits of Harderwijck; Allert Jansz of Assendelft, gunner, Abraham Hendricxen, gunner; towards night between light and dark, have seized Lucretia Jansz, widow of Boudewijn van der Mijlen, when coming out of the cabin from table, and have thrown her there on the steer-deck and have dragged her from there into the gallery, and have smudged her face as well as under her clothes with black dung and other filth until they had cooled their evil lust, with still other wanton deeds which they have committed on do. ship, who through the evil procedures of the skipper and other officers, were not easily at that time to be cured from that faction, because by God's Truth, it was their plan to seize the ship. Hereupon the ship has been wrecked, and so the foresaid Cornelis Jansz has not only gone beyond himself in wanton drunken drinking, and given himself to suchlike acts. Moreover, has also let himself be found in the plundering of the Commander's coffer, from which he desired his share, the which has been given him. Whereunder was a gold medallion with the visage of His Princely Excellency cut out in agate and embellished, which he kept until the following day, then he put it in his cap with still other valuables and threw it into the sea, saying, there lies the rubbish, even if it is worth so many thousands. He has also had carnal knowledge here of several married women and done his will with them, of whom two were sisters, as well as his gruesome life, mocking at God and cursing and swearing, also conducting himself more like a beast than a human being, which make him at last a terror to all the people, who feared him more than any other of the principal murders or evil-doer. These and more suchlike scoundrelly acts, which here come too long to narrate, have been committed by him and ought to be punished to the extreme, yea, even with death.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A88]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C88]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B88]] </center></u>==> 89% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>On 27 do. the wind out of the south, hard gale not able to do anything about the wreck. Before noon the yawl came with the 2 above mentioned persons Cornelis, and Aris from the High Island, so that we went on with the examining of the scoundrels, and the day was spent doing that.</p> <p>On 28 do. the wind southerly, with hard gale, so that we have not been able to do anything at the wreck. Therefore, after completing a thorough examination of the principal murderers and villains, from their own confessions as well as from numerous witnesses, and God save the mark, have got enough information, as seen by the following written testimonies – I have called together the council, and after ripe deliberation have put to them the question whether those against whom innocent blood is calling for revenge, should be captive taken to Batavia before the Hon. Lord General, or whether they should be punished here with death as an example to others, in order to prevent all disasters that might arise on the ship through suchlike men as Jeronimus and his accomplices. Because some, more hardened, are already impregnated with the bad life, whilst others have sipped a little of the poison, and they could easily become wholly corrupted by the richness of the salvaged wealth which belongs to our Lord Masters, which we have now fished up. Therefore it would not be without danger for the ship and the goods with so many corrupted and half corrupted people to set off to sea, have decided, as appears from the following Resolution:</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A90]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C90]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B90]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_west_australian_coastal_landscape_d3433b5d-dc24-4ebc-8445-50795edaf782.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E88]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A88]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F88]] </center></u>==> 88% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>On 25 do. in the morning when the weather was quiet, I sent the skipper with the steersman to the wreck in order to see if it were possible to begin work. When they reached it, I noticed that they were busy hauling something up, therefore I sent them the other boat, with a crew, in order to help them, and I also went in the smallest boat with 2 cabin boys and a man, to the same spot, and saw that they had fished up a chest with //clatergout// as well as a money chest, which they brought to a shallow a little way from the wreck. I stepped into the other boat, which was also engaged in fishing up, and we got yet another money chest above water. The Gujarati divers said they saw yet another six that could be got. Meanwhile, I brought the money chest which we had bouyed, to the shallow also, and the divers prepared yet another for when the skipper should come, so that we had now 4 chests, when it started to blow again very hard, and the surf came up so that we had to leave the wreck. Therefore we fetched the money chests that had been taken to the shallows and brought them to the Island Batavia's Graveyard. The rest of the day was spent in examining.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A89]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C89]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B89]] </center></u>==> 88% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="C"> Pelseart brought us all before an assembly on Jeronimus again on a day some in our cage reckoned the 28th. Once more much ceremony was made, with Pelseart reading verbatim from a decree issued by his own raad. It was an abstract, conveyed in much haughty language, though some men weep at the judgments implied. To my left, Hendricxsz is weeping and now lamenting his own confession most bitterly. A provisional sentence is read out for five of us, myself included, in so much moralised jargon and pious excuses. It is only an abstract, for all Bier and Assendelft continue to protest and disgrace our collective dignity. Saints care nothing for the laws of men. Where is there justice amongst these cold spits of sand? No justice. Not here. God will not see us subjected for such service. Pelseart has ceased to talk, and I see now all eyes are on me. He still needs my consent, my sanction upon his judgment. Was this God’s truth? God’s truth is my truth, and I nod. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B89]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D89]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C89]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_west_australian_coastal_landscape_0aa3257b-c53a-4fb9-9a11-9be7ca307bc9.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E89]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A89]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F89]] </center></u>==> 89% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="C"> All the men are calling out now, even Loos, whose sentence has been deferred. Someone kicks at me, and I stumble, and as I do someone calls out from the crowd. I turn, and catch the sight of a thin, feminine face amongst the rabble, calling. But then my shoulder is wrenched around as the guards force us back down towards the beach, some of the men still shouting out their innocence in desperation. Pelseart is already gone from sight, and as we approach the waiting longboat we hear across the wind the preacher leading those hundred on Jeronimus in a low hymn. The hours in our cage pass with icy slowness. Now though the majority of the men are too tired or despairing to raise their voice. Most simply lie or sit, staring off into empty space. Those who try and speak or sing little songs to themselves or even ask the day are silenced by one fist or many, the sound of beatings sometimes going on and on and on into exhaustion. The men yet respect my vow of silence, I think, and do not trouble me for some days. Some dignity yet remains in the unbowed and unbroken, but I care little for their worship now. What is thirty pieces split between such a host of Judases? Would they, like Peter, had denied knowing me at all ere the cock crew. Our guards are joined by degrees by small boatloads of the ship’s idlers. Now is the stack of worm-eaten timbers beside our cell explained, as those same crewmen carry armloads of lumber over the far rise of the island to a spot where we hear the noises of hammering and sawing across the wind now and constantly. By the next day, the first arm of the gallows is raised. When they see it, many of the man fall into a new despair, some sitting with their arms twined through the bars, staring at nothing else but the rising gibbets in the distance, or upwards into the direct and pitiless glare of the Southern sun. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B90]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D90]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C90]] </center></u>==> 87% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="C"> Am I called back to the island they are now calling Batavia’s Graveyard once more the two days following, and fetched like a whipped dog by longboat from my cage. When led through into the great tent for the fourth time, I see one of the Batavia’s cabin boys, a young slight lad whose name I cannot recall. The commandeur has found the oaths of brotherhood I had my men sign, and another by Loos, and he waves them both as he accuses me of seduction. The clerk, man named Deschamps whom I had watched strangle a child not four weeks ago, will be his source I imagine, having revealed the documents lest the council seek for witnesses for their testimony. Pelseart now asks me, was this boy, Cornelis Jansen of Haarlem, my accomplice on board the Batavia? And had he been engaged in our diabolical agenda on the Abrolhos? Loos had seemingly landed the poor lad in the cage with him by heaping his own crimes upon him by confession, and the boy now is cowering under the gaze of the ship’s council. He has clearly been tortured. His clothes are soaked both above and below and he keeps up a constant babble of semi-intelligible noise even while Pelseart spoke, how he was innocent and the victim of so many misunderstandings. I look down at the boy in contempt, saying nothing until the heel of one of the Indians crumples him where he lies and the noise stops, save for one, low guttural sob. Why raise up the damned? No saving those whom God has cast down. I was not involved with such murderous doings, said I, having a falling sickness that prevented me even considering blood or violence. I knew nothing, I said, of what young Jansen had done outside my oversight, but he had been as notorious as any of the killers slain in the fight with Hayes. Asked to relate the events of the 25th of June, and the burning of the surgeon’s tent, I confessed I had erred by treating some of the hardest-working men to affine meal in my tent, and that Jansen and the others, after overindulging in our meagre wine stores had taken some weapons there kept and run wild into the night. I had no inkling until the next morning of the sad loss of Hr. Jansz during the conflagration, though it was said the next day that Jansen had thrust a dagger through the man’s heart himself, laughing while he did so. Jansen’s protestations are cut off by another stout kick, and Pelseart kept my gaze as his sobs ebbed down. The surgeon had been a good man, says the commandeur, and tended him in his illness from the Cape. The boy’s voice began, and was stifled again. The murdering of Jansz and his charges in the sick tent was unconscionable, Pelseart went on, and those responsible for his death deserved as much themselves for such an act. More investigations would be made as to these further matters, Pelseart said haughtily, before the council would decide on our sentences. I nodded, showing him nothing but a glass for a face, and make sure to turn before I am urged from the tent. Jansen must be carried bodily, limp and senseless, down to the longboat and out to Seal’s Island to await his next trial. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B88]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D88]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C88]] </center></u>==> 87% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C88]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E88]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D88]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src="https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_billabong_with_red_sand_and_dead_grass_e2f788aa-9064-4960-820f-9e5f262b39af.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E87]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A87]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F87]] </center></u>==> 89% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="E"> an’ weren’t it but that night they brung the merchant back to our cage in they long-boat an’ he curl up an’ in’t speak to none o’ us what sailers they seen in ‘em bars an’ speakin’ ‘em gards what’s there laughin’ all an’ jabbin’ in with they pikes not seein’ where they cuttin’ ‘til we’s shout an’ curse ‘em off an’ all ‘ems what’s in the cage keep jabberin’ an’ findin’ where the merchant’s at but in’t talkin’ an’ askin’ what the commadore say an’ they done sentenced an’ how hendricks been yappin’ to the cap’n an’ sellin’ the lot o’ ‘em to the sharks an’ they start beatin’ on him again where hendricks at an’ in’t make a peep bein’ struck as doin’ the strikin’ an’ the merchant in’t talk an’ can’t we see him in the dark an’ ‘em sailers what in’t get ansered cursin’ an’ all askin’ what we’s to do an’ all hush-like what all can hear how we to take the ship an’ break through ‘em bars an’ that an’ we got god on all on our side in’t nothing meant what he in’t mean an’ all ‘til the merchant speak up an’ tell ‘em all keep quiet an’ give him a place to lie an’ in’t there nothing for now but wait an’ ‘em sailers swear an’ mutterin’ more’n shout after that an’ ‘em stars pass ‘tween ‘em an’ through ‘em bars an’ dancin’ an’ ‘em waves rush an’ wind whistlin’ through ‘em an’ stars shinin’ on an’ on ‘em men an’ water mutterin’ an’ cryin’ like ‘em gulls ‘til the sun come up </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D90]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F90]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E90]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/progress_image_100_19c303fc-9219-490d-8336-05dd77936a1d.webp?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E90]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A90]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F90]] </center></u>==> 90% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="C"> After a great while does one of the men cry out that he could see a longboat approaching from the direction of Batavia’s Graveyard, and another that it must be Pelseart come to carry out our sentences at last. But it proves to be merely the predikant and as he disembarks and approaches, the men send up a huge jeer that rings out over the waves all around. This carries on for some minutes as he approaches, and then as he stands before the jail, simply smiling at us through the bars of our cage and just beyond the range of the thick spittle being launched towards him in wads. When the men’s hoarse voices at last give out, he seeks out my eyes and those of Loos and Bier, one by one, and slowly, deliberately makes the sign of a cross before each of us. He asks whether we are prepared to come at last into God’s grace, and whether we do each of us repent utterly for our sins. I say nothing to this, and only ask him in return whether the commandeur and his council have come to any definite decision as to my own sentence or whether it would be decided once we arrived in Batavia. He asks again whether we would repent, for while we had admitted already and would be punished, yet we might yet escape forever being damned. How I tired of his gloating, and would ask practical knowledge from him as to when our fates were to be carried out, and whether he would carry a letter of supplication to my bondsman on the council. But he makes no reply at this, and merely repeats his questions, sombrely, as if intoning some rite before a congregation. I ask again whether we are to spared this day, or the next. He smiles at this, and says nothing. I tell him that if I were to come into God’s grace, I would be baptised before whatever fate awaited me in Batavia. I order Hr. Bastaiensz sharply again to confer my request for deferment to the council aboard the Sardam, and he says that it were better I ask humbly and in supplication for the Lord’s mercy. I rage at this, but I would not have him beg on my behalf to the High and Mighty of the Company and ask again what decision had been reached by the Council as to my fate, but he merely retreats back to his boat without further word. The men jeer again, but as the boat swims off into the mist an utter dejection falls amongst us, Bier and Loos saying bitterly they should have caved the preacher’s skull in when they had the chance and thrown him in the pit with the rest of his family, and the men all turn their hate upon one another and many hours are spent in intestine arguments until dark falls. I say nothing, but seethe within myself in silence. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B91]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D91]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C91]] </center></u>==> 91% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="C"> There is the pouch wound about my neck still, warmed to my heart. I wonder how Hayes’ men, and the commandeur’s, had missed such a thing tucked below my showy robes. But I do not wonder long. God ordains such things. He would not have me so shackled and sentenced by the ignorant. Where was the Justice on this Earth, after all? Not here. Not here. //In vinculis invictus.// God is good indeed. The predikant comes the next day just the same of course, with his same weak mockeries for his family’s murderers. The prisoners have no phlegm left for him today, and he tells us mildly that the first of the month has been ordained for our day of final atonement. He asks again if I would make final confession, for he wished to hear all, but I throw this aside and tell him only that, of all of us, I at least would not be carried off at their whim on the first of the month. God would see to it. He nods, and agrees, if God wills it. I reply that if only I will it, God will indeed perform such a miracle for my release. He smiles, and retreats for his boat again, and I shout my promise after him, repeating it aloud again and again, that my defiance might reach the very ears of the commandeur. He must know. A saint will not stoop for merchants. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B92]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D92]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C92]] </center></u>==> 92% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="C"> As darkness falls again, and the strange constellations roam over the sea, I slip the vial from its pouch and cradle it in my hand. The men all are silent, lying supine on the sand. I could not see a face, not a feature of the world but the orb of stars overhead. The pouch is about my neck. There is no thought. The lid is crusted shut, and will not yield at first. Then it gives suddenly, and something cold spills over my palm, and I have to quickly cup it to my lips and lick at the bitter liquid that slips and trickles and burns at the raw corners of my mouth and all the way down my gullet. There is no pain. The sensation spreads downwards as time passed, does not pass, stands still while only the stars move, burn, itch and inch across the Heavens. No pain. My guts are aflame, my heart galloping like a madman’s. This continues for some time. No gentle end, only the descending flame. No silence for the groans of agony and effluvia that burst from me without control so the men wake and curse and kick at me where I cower. The guards are called many times to have me escorted to the latrine pit, but they will not billet me apart and merely return me to my cage time and again where the men beat on me to content themselves. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B93]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D92]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C93]] </center></u>==> 90% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C91]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E91]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D91]] </center></u>==> 90% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="E"> an’ all Bean got ‘bout him is ‘em three shot-balls the surgeon done game him for chewin’ away the thirst an’ don’t he think none bout it but chew ‘em shots with the two he keep in his pocket one on one side an’ on on tuther an the third he chew chew a hunderd times on one side ‘til ‘em teeth hurtin’ too hard to do it no more an’ so I move it over tuther side an’ chew chew a hunderd times a hunderd bein’ the biggest number there be an’ move the shot over an' chew an’ chew an’ tuther side ‘til it’s a hunderd times a hunderd bein’ a thousand an’ then I know it time for the next shot so I swaps it out an’ get it ‘tween the thum an finger of the one hand an’ the other goes in me pocket an’ thum an’ finger gets the next ball an' slips it in me mouth on same side an’ a hunderd times on the same side I chews an’ tuther ball in tuther hand goes ‘cross an’ puts in in me other pocket where I’s got the other ball but I knows once I reached a ten an’ twenty an’ fifty an’ hunderd each time it’s on tuther side of my mouth so when I takes it after a hunderd times a hunderd on each side what I’s got in tuther pocket is the same ball what I had before with the third in me other pocket so every other thousand I’s got to reach over with tuther hand an’ slip it in tuther side o’ my mouth so I’s chewin’ all three balls alike an’ in’t the staler ball goin’ back in me mouth when tuther’s the fresher so I’s keeps a count just the same o’ a hunderd-hunderd one where tuther hand goes to same pocket strait down then ‘member next is hunderd-hunderd-two where tuther hand got to cross over an’ put it in tuther side o’ the mouth for the first hunderd chew chew chew ‘til ‘em teeth is hurtin’ too much to chew so chew chew hunderd on tuther side an’ ‘member all the while which hunerd hunerd an’ after so many not sayin’ hunerd-hunerd-one but two thousand three thousand an’ keepin’ ‘em balls turnin’ over an’ over like the turn o’ the sea an’ not thinkin’ ‘bout nothing hunerd on the one side an’ keepin’ ‘em balls fresh so I don’t lose track you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D91]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F91]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E91]] </center></u>==> 88% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C89]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E89]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D89]] </center></u>==> 89% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C90]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E90]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D90]] </center></u>==> 87% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="E"> an’ they sayin’ how theys been hearing testiments o’ my pilferin’ o’ company goods an’ silver an’ company wine an’ my actin’ bein’ that o’ a wild beast an’ all askin’ if I’s fessin’ free an’ willin’ to what they done brung an’ in’t none o’ it nothing Bean can fess to but they in’t try hearin’ it an’ commadore ask again real sharp-like an’ angered an’ Bean in’t no to say nothing but weep an’ tell him in’t nothing Bean done an’ start tellin’ his story from first mistakes an’ in’t they tryin’ to hear it but they bring up jailer what’s got the funnel an’ chair an’ jug o’ water big an’ heavy what Bean can’t hardly carry an’ he go right out his brain for fear an’ yellin’ in’t nothing Bean done an’ took up by me arms an’ yellin’ yellin’ for the commadore an’ havin’ that water put on him cold an’ deep an’ pour down dark on his eyes like smotherin’ an’ chokin’ gasp deep an’ deep deep suck an’ swollow up the sound o’ nothing an’ have the light put on you an’ askin’ again askin’ again an’ in’t Bean the breath for his story or tell half what’s in his ears an’ eyes an’ head gaspin’ beg please don’t don’t put it on me no more again not the next time won’t be breathe gaspin’ weren’t it nothing won’t but be nothing but prayin’ please dear lovin’ god let him break an’ let you take me now pourin’ the water now now comin’ cold an’ deep an’ suck an’ rush an’ swollow voice under goin’ down deep down holdin’ in holdin’ on for the love o’ god take me god love o’ mercy take me an’ the light come on him askin’ an’ askin’ again an’ can’t Bean see further’n the next pour an’ the rag bring put on him again an’ again again again an’ in’t it in Bean to lie or nothing or tell it how it in’t but can’t Bean tell it but he in’t have it in him goin’ down under again down down with no breath no heat an’ not knowin’ if he see the light an’ again again askin’ again an’ so yes he said yes I did yes an’ they sayin’ how theys been hearing testiments o’ my pilferin’ o’ company goods an’ silver an’ company wine an’ my actin’ bein’ that o’ a wild beast an’ all askin’ if I’s fessin’ free an’ willin’ to what they done brung an’ in’t none o’ it nothing Bean can fess to but they in’t try hearin’ it an’ commadore ask again real sharp-like an’ angered an’ Bean in’t no to say nothing but weep an’ tell him in’t nothing Bean done an’ start tellin’ his story from first mistakes an’ in’t they tryin’ to hear it but they bring up jailer what’s got the funnel an’ chair an’ jug o’ water big an’ heavy what Bean can’t hardly carry an’ he go right out his brain for fear an’ yellin’ in’t nothing Bean done an’ took up by me arms an’ yellin’ yellin’ for the commadore an’ havin’ that water put on him cold an’ deep an’ pour down dark on his eyes like smotherin’ an’ chokin’ gasp deep an’ deep deep suck an’ swollow up the sound o’ nothing an’ have the light put on you an’ askin’ again askin’ again an’ in’t Bean the breath for his story or tell half what’s in his ears an’ eyes an’ head gaspin’ beg please don’t don’t put it on me no more again not the next time won’t be breathe gaspin’ weren’t it nothing won’t but be nothing but prayin’ please dear lovin’ god let him break an’ let you take me now pourin’ the water now now comin’ cold an’ deep an’ suck an’ rush an’ swollow voice under goin’ down deep down holdin’ in holdin’ on for the love o’ god take me god love o’ mercy take me an’ the light come on him askin’ an’ askin’ again an’ can’t Bean see further’n the next pour an’ the rag bring put on him again an’ again again again an’ in’t it in Bean to lie or nothing or tell it how it in’t but can’t Bean tell it but he in’t have it in him goin’ down under again down down with no breath no heat an’ not knowin’ if he see the light an’ again again askin’ again an’ so yes he said yes I did yes </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D88]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F88]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E88]] </center></u>==> 88% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="E"> ‘til what turnity o’ sayin’ what I been sayin’ weren’t none o’ it Bean’s fault or nothin’ an’ pelsert talkin’ over his head an’ Bean look up an’ see the merchant what’s standin’ tall an’ bound but still goin’ with his voice an’ fine talk what in’t changed a drip for all the beats they been put on him an’ in’t Bean say nothing but wait be spoken to an’ heard ‘em merchant say how weren’t none o’ his doin’ givin’ Bean wine not how he put a knife in me hand nor that quill what signed a x neither an’ sayin’ what Bean been doin’ like a animal to ‘em girls an' how Bean did for the surgeon what cared for the commadore when he was sick an’ sickenin’ an’ weren’t none o’ a word o’ it true but soon as Bean try speak ‘em big negro basterds put a boot in his gut an’ can’t Bean speak nor breathe ‘til the merchant gone damn him an’ they askin’ just the same an’ the water pour down again you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; but in’t they tryin’ to hear his story an’ in’t the commadore know me adam for all Bean done on him an’ weren’t there nothing more bein’ said that day but they sent Bean hence with haze an’ right back in boat an’ struck from shore to seals island an’ into that cage what’sgarded all ‘bout with ‘em sailers from the S-A-R-D-A-M an’ stuffed chock-full ‘em sailers what followed the merchant an’ loos lookin’ sick as pig in a sty an’ hendricks what’s wearin’ a black eye an’ all ‘em marks o’ a beatin’ like he in’t got half a face left what they done to him an’ in’t none o’ ‘em mindin’ Bean but weren’t nowere to sit nor lie nor get a drink but all pressed up with ‘em sweatin’ swearin’ men what’s all shoutin’ they traitory all barkin’ an’ shoutin’ blame one to tuther all day an’ night too ‘em what with out no pity but fear at what the commadore fixin’ for ‘em an’ makin’ ‘em foolish plans o’ breakin’ loose an’ takin’ the ship s’prised an’ all that they been talkin’ for months an’ months an’ all an’ in’t Bean payin’ it no call nor keepin’ with ‘em or nothing </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D89]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F89]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E89]] </center></u>==> 92% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C93]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E93]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D93]] </center></u>==> 92% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="E"> ‘til ‘em come in two o’ ‘em boats where they fetch the lot o’ us an’ all rowin’ up on us spit o’ land an’ ‘em soldiers gatherin’ ‘bout our jail-cell an’ callin’ out to us what’s in here an’ laughin’ an’ swingin’ out the hinges grabbin’ the merchant first foremost an’ pullin’ the lot o’ us along an’ up again with kicks where we’s fallin’ down weak an’ covered in shit an’ all ‘til we reach up the boats an’ over the sea to batavia’s graveyards up that bluff to the tents all over again an’ a crowd like what been gathered to damn the merchant ‘fore an’ see ‘em gunners drowned in the sea an’ all again so quiet you hear ‘em strings creak an’ sail-tents flappin’ an’ over ‘em the commadore an’ the preacher standin’ by lookin’ noble grave but in’t Bean hear nothing but the commadore readin’ out from a bit o’ parchment what’s flutter in the breeze like a snatchin’ bird an’ can’t Bean see nothing but that movin’ to an’ fro nor hear nothing but the tearin’ o’ the air an’ bang o’ blood in the ears an’ the voice o’ the commadore what Bean know from his fever-dreams pattin’ his brow tellin’ what’s to happen as we die an’ how we’s have our hands cut off an’ hand by the neck an’ in’t Bear hear what names came ‘fore his own an’ nothin’ after but the blood an’ the wind in his head an’ roarin’ o’ the men ‘bout him abusin’ the merchant an’ the men what’s to die callin’ out to god an’ the preacher callin’ back down an’ couldn’t Bean go to the lord an’ not say that loud an’ clear over ‘em others ‘til they all o’ ‘em fall quiet the preacher an’ the merchant an’ the commadore an’ ‘em noble ladies an’ soldiers what’s been under our blades these months all lookin’ down on Bean like a animal him weepin’ an’ tellin’ ‘em weren’t none o’ it up to Bean but he follow ‘em say-so an’ in’t he do nothing but what the lord put in his heart an’ screamin’ an’ callin’ on god ‘til ‘em soldiers put the beatin’ on Bean an’ put him to the dirt at the feet o’ ‘em other traitors what in’t said a word since they heard what’s bein’ done but the commadore lookin’ down on Bean like the pity o’ god ut in’t pity do no good in god you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D93]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F93]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E93]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_red_sand_desert_landscape_3cc266f1-7d56-4efb-a6f7-19a2223f400e.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E93]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A93]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F93]] </center></u>==> 91% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C92]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E92]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D92]] </center></u>==> 91% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="E"> an’ in’t there nothing else but the rustyguts an’ burn o’ the un an’ sting o’ sand an’ thirstin’ up the throat an’ crash o’ the sea comin’ up the beach an’ the roar what peel out again an’ again ‘long the shore like the sky tearin’ all boom an’ hiss that build an’ spread an’ fade an’ sink an’ quiet half a second ‘fore the boom an’ crash an’ spread an’ hiss an’ fade out farther an’ father up ‘long the shore an’ boom up high an’ hiss down low an' tearin’ ‘long the shore out an’ out an’ up an’ up boom an’ crash an’ gaspin’ roarin’ up an’ out an’ don’t it seem like half a second but a minite an’ half a hour an’ a hunderd days o’ waitin’ in the quiet an’ still raw throat hot bright sun an’ stingin’ sand an’ ‘em men all about you skin on skin rough the stink an’ rustyguts sting an’ on an on an on an’ boom the waves crash an’ spill an’ spread all up an’ out an spread an’ rise again ‘til the tide ebb slow an’ bit by bit the sun do down an’ dark come an’ the sound o’ crash an’ hiss dim down an’ fade further out but don’t time turn but the speed o’ the stars an’ moon as they inch slow by slow ‘cross the sky slow as a ship tackin’’gainst the wind slow an’ slower an’ burn up an’ fade brighter an’ turn faint comin’ up with the sound o’ ‘em waves cmin’ back up ‘til the sun come up over the far rise harsh as a slap ‘cross the face an’ you thank god all the night done passed an’ you right pleased just seein’ the sun again you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D92]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F92]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E92]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_billabong_with_red_sand_and_dead_grass_4a1a4045-e520-4891-80e6-fd490e6b0587.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E92]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A92]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F92]] </center></u>==> 93% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C94]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E94]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D94]] </center></u>==> 90% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>On this day the 28 September 1629 on the</p> <p>island named //Batavia's Graveyard// situated</p> <p>near by the wreck of the lost ship BATAVIA,</p> <p>on the latitude of 28½ degrees Southern</p> <p>latitude, about 9 miles from the main</p> <p>Southland, the Commander Francisco</p><p>Pelsart, and the ship's council of the jacht</p> <p>SARDAM, resolved as follows –</p> <p>We have exchanged our thoughts thoroughly and maturely and have considered, because we found one gruesome sin in the above mentioned Jeronimus, besmirched in every way not only with abominable misdeeds but also with damnable heresy, declaring that there is neither devil nor hell, and has tried to imprint the same into the people here on the island. Moreover that he is still working daily to bring with his tongue credulous people to a wrong opinion and lead them from the straight path. Have therefore unanimously resolved and found good, in the best service of the Company and our Hon. Lord Masters, in order that their ship and the valuable goods that have been fished up here, praise be to God, may be safe against further disaster, to sentence the said Jeronimus Cornelisz, together with the worst and most willing murderers, who have made a profession of it, accordingly we sentence and condemn with this, that firstly:</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A91]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C91]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B91]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_billabong_with_red_sand_and_dead_grass_2cbdfe26-bb62-42bd-9e37-233074444a54.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E91]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A91]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F91]] </center></u>==> 91% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>JERONIMUS CORNELISZ, of Haarlem, apothecary, and late under merchant of the ship Batavia, on Monday, being the first of October, shall be taken to Seal’s Island, to a place made ready for it in order to exercise Justice, and there firstly to cut off both his hands, and after this shall be punished on the gallows with the cord till death shall follow, with confiscation of all his money, gold, silver, monthly wages, and all claims which here in India he may have against the profits of the General East India Company of our Lord Masters.</p> <p>JAN HENDRICXSZ of Bremen, soldier, aged about 24 years, who according to his confession and examination in full, has murdered 17 to 18 people and helped murder them, as well as having the intention to seize the jacht that came to rescue them, shall also be taken to the above mentioned Seals Island, at which place Justice shall be exercised, in order that there firstly his right hand shall be cut off, and after that he shall be punished on the gallows with the cord till death shall follow, with confiscation of all his kit, monthly wages and all that he may have to claim against the Hon. Lord Masters. Also</p> <p>LENART MICHIELSZ VAN OS, cadet, aged about 21 years, who according to his free will confession has murdered 12 people or has helped to murder them, and who has slept with married women and has used as his concubine Anneken Bosschieters, wife of Jan Carstensz of Tonningen. Therefore he shall be taken to Seals Island in order that there, firstly, his right hand shall be cut off, and after that he shall be punished on the gallows with the cord till death follows, with confiscation of all his kit, monthly moneys, and all that he may have to claim against the Hon. Lord Masters. Also</p> <p>MATTIJS BEIJR of Munsterbergh, soldier, aged about 21 years old, who according to his freewill confession int largo, has murdered 9 people or has helped to murder them, also has Zussie Fredricx, married woman used as his concubine. Therefore he shall also be taken to Seals Island in order, firstly, to cut off his right hand, and after that to punish him on the gallows with the cord till death follows, with confiscation of all his kit, monthly moneys, and all that he may have to claim against the Hon. Lord Masters. Also</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A92]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C92]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B92]] </center></u>==> 93% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>Also, because we notice from various testimonies that Wiebbe Hayes of Winschooten, soldier, all the time that he has been with 47 people on the High Island, has faithfully protected and defended them when they were three times attacked by the party of murderers who had intended to kill them all. Have decided, as there are no officers over the soldiers, to appoint the above mentioned Wiebbe Hayes Sergeant of the same; we do so forthwith, with the salary of 18 guilders per month, beginning from today.</p> <p>We undersigned persons of the council, declare upon our Manly Truth in place of the duly attested Oath, that all the above mentioned examinations have taken place in our presence, and that Jeronimus has confessed, mostly free and unbound, without torture, whereupon the Commander for further confirmation of his criminal offences, which were unpardonable before God or our High Authorities, has read this examination today before all the people being on the island, in the presence of Jeronimus Cornelisz, and has asked him if this was not indeed the truth; confesses at last, (Yea), and because we have heard this same with sober ears and seen with own eyes, are ready, to attest this at all times, before all high and subaltern judges of the Hon. Lord General Jan Pietersen Coen at Batavia, and if requested there, to testify and to confirm on oath. In token of this being true, have undersigned this with our own hands on the island named Batavia's Graveyard, this 28 Sept. anno 1629 –</p> <p>Francisco Pelseart &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Jacop Jansz</p> <p>Jacob Jacobsz //Houtenman// &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Claas Gerritsz</p> <p>Salomon Deschamps &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Sijmon Yopzoon</p> <p>X&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;This is the mark of</p><p>Jan Willemsz Visch</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A94]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C94]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B94]] </center></u>==> 93% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="C"> Morning comes, God be damned, and with it comes the predikant. He smiles further when he sees me hunched against the bars, and the work the poison has done on me. I command him to bring me water and bread that my belly might work upon something else, but I would not beg him as he tossed my orders back at me mockingly and asked again if I would be absolved by the one true God. I can hardly speak for the gnawing animal inside my bowels, but ask only for a dose of theriac, if no food nor water would be granted. The predikant only replies that they are just about to hold morning sermon on the main isle, and if I and my men would only come to service, we would receive the balm of God’s love. I have no bile left to spend, but curse at him, and asked for my wife again who I said to be in Batavia awaiting me, but the pious fool only shakes his head. Would that any of us could talk to those we love again, he said. There is no pain. No end. No Devil nor Hell on Earth. Nothing good nor bad which God ordains. There is no sin of mine, I tell the predikant. How can God forgive Himself? I ask if God forgives me then, broken as I am, and the preacher looks down at me as if from a great height. His face is blank and pitiless. I forgive you, he says, before turning for his boat. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B94]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D94]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C94]] </center></u>==> 92% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>ALLERT JANSSEN of Assendelf, gunner, aged about 24 years, who according to his freewill confession in full, has confessed to being persuaded by Jeronimus Cornelisz to help to seize the ship BATAVIA, to which he had consented. As well, he has cut the throat of Andries de Bruijn of Haarlem boy, also has helped to murder Jan Pinten, Englishman. Therefore he shall also be taken to Seals Island in order that there first his right hand shall be cut off, and after that he shall be punished on the gallows with the cord till death follows, with confiscation of all his kit, monthly wages, and all that he may have to claim against the Lords. Also</p> <p>CORNELIS JANSEN, alias ‘Bean’, of Haarlem, aged about 15 years, late cabin servant on the ship BATAVIA, who according to his own freewill confession has behaved in a godless manner in words and deeds, more fitting to a beast than a man, and has also helped Andries Jonas to kill, about which he wept. He also has had carnal knowledge of Zussien and Trijntgien Fredricxsz, both sisters, and Anneken Bosschieters, all married women. Therefore, he also shall be taken to Seals Island in order there to punish him on the gallows with the cord till death shall follow, with confiscation of all his kit, monthly wages and all that he may have to claim against Lord Masters.</p> <p> Having resolved as well, as there are still some miscreants here in captivity, because we are not as yet fully informed or certain of all their misdeeds, and secondly, insofar as we till now are conscious of them, are in doubt whether they should be considered to death or whether their lives may be spared without falling into disgrace with the Hon. Lord General – Therefore, the under mentioned persons shall be kept in captivity, thus to bring them to Batavia to the Hon. Lord General, or to punish them on the way, according to time and occasion – Namely – WOUTER LOOS of Maastricht, solder, but who has been made captain of the rebel troop after the capture of Jeronimus Cornelis; JACOP PIETERSZ of Amsterdam, lance-corporal, councillor of Jeronimus as well as Sevanck and Coenraat van Huyssen; HANS JACOP of Basel, cadet; DANIEL CORNELISZ of Dort, cadet; Andries Liebent of Oldens cadet; HANS FREDRICK of Bremen, soldier; Cornelis Jansz of Haarlem, sailor; JAN WILLEMSZ SELIJNS of Amsterdam, cooper – And the rest of the captives can go free till further resolution, or without coming other objections.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A93]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C93]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B93]] </center></u>==> 94% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>The 28 do. towards evening, after his examination and own confessions have been read to Jeronimus publicly, before all the people who were on the island, and because he knew that the council was gathered to reach his sentence, requested by means of the predicant, a delay of a few days, because he desired to be baptised and so that he could meanwhile have time to bewail his sins and think them over so that at last he might die in peace and in repentance, because of such an understanding for the saving of his soul, we have postponed the day of execution until the first of October, so that he may have himself baptised the day after tomorrow, being Sunday, which the predicant has announced to him, namely that a few days were granted to him, but he did not know how many. Jeronimus desired to know how many days, so that he might adjust himself, but the predicant put him at ease for that day, and he behaved himself as if he had some solace and was more courageous.</p> <p>On the 29 do. Jeronimus desired again to know how many days respite had been given to him, protested that if he were not told, he could not come to peace. At last I let him be told, whereupon he said, tut nothing more, how can one show repentance of life in so few days, I thought I should be allowed 8 or 14 days. So that he began to rage, saying, I see well, they want my blood and my life, but God will not suffer that I shall die a shameful death. I know for certain, and you will all see it, that God will perform unto me this night a miracle, so that I shall not be hanged, which was his tune all that day. Therefore I ordered the guard that no one should hand him a knife or anything else with which he could hurt himself. But at night he secretly ate something with which he thought to poison himself, for it started to work about one hour in the morning, so that he was full of pain and seemed like to die. In this great anxiety he asked for some Venetian theriac. At last he began to get some relief, because apparently it had not been strong enough, but he had to be got out of his prison certainly 20 times during the night, because his so-called miracle was working from below as well as from above.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A95]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C95]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B95]] </center></u>==> 96% ==> October, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C97]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E97]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D97]] </center></u>==> 96% ==> October, 1629. <== <span class="E"> an’ the commadore he ask the lot o’ us loud-like who’s we have go first on the rope an’ hendricks an’ ‘em others what’s getting’ the rope all callin’ out theys see the merchant hanged first with they own eyes an’ in’t ol’ cornelius say a word ‘fore the preacher askin’ him if he want his soul saved nor show nothing to none but all ‘em men takin’ up the chant revenge revenge an’ ‘em noble men an’ women all takin’ it up ‘til it carry right up over the wind revenge revenge revenge an’ all ‘til the merchant shout an’ curse ‘em an’ take up the gallows revenge sayin’ in’t he get no justice below heaven an’ all ‘em lot shoutin’ revenge an’ cursin’ him revenge revenge as the jailer take up his blade but in’t ‘em bright ol’ eyes move nor ‘em lips nor nothing but he hold out ‘em hands an’ Bean think right then like our merchant got the face o’ a saint you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; an' all ‘em cheered as they strung him up an’ took his hands but in’t Bean callin’ on nothing but god an’ they take one o’ ‘em gunners an’ another each callin’ out to the commadore one by one or fessin’ more deeds to preacher ‘fore they go up with the merchant an’ some o’ ‘em like the merchant in’t say a word but to curse the company an’ the commadore ‘fore the jailer take their hands an’ they put they teeth ‘gainst the screams ‘til the tug an’ swing an’ twitchin’ an’ all an’ in’t a word been said by half ‘em folks watchin’ but revenge ‘til they come down line to ol’ Bean at last an’ takin’ him forward an’ tuggin’ down the rope what’s meant for his neck an’ can’t poor Bean think but see the long deep dark an’ the ocean’s bottom gapin’ up an’ in’t there nothing down there no light nor bread nor love he in’t fight for to live you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D97]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F97]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E97]] </center></u>==> 95% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C96]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E96]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D96]] </center></u>==> 95% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="E"> ‘til the morning we hear ‘em boats comin’ up first the preacher an’ ‘em soldiers an’ another an’ another an’ hear what people in’t comin’ near us but up where ‘em soldiers been workin’ an’ in’t no mistakin’ but don’t none say it ‘til ol’ hendricks pipe up what we all been thinkin’ this is it boys this is it this is the end an’ praise god an’ damn him an’ all the rest an’ ‘em men speakin’ again but not the one to another like but only to ‘emselfs an’ the lord an’ by an’ by cursin’ the name o’ the merchant but in’t ol’ cornelius speak a word nor hear none ‘til ‘em soldiers come in a long big line all slow like an’ Bean thinkin’ this in’tit god damn it god love you it in’t the end not for Bean he in’t had half a chance fess all he mean to fess nor do nothing wrong in all his earthly puff an’ ‘em soldiers all up an’ ‘round the cage an’ in’t it fair din’t Bean do nothing for hisself but it were all the company say-so an’ the crew what done had a mind for it they in’t gone take Bean neck for an x he put on a paper o’ the merchant’s hand god help me an’ they mountin’ the bars an’ pullin’ ope the hatch up top an’ ‘em men callin’ on god an’ what gold an’ promises they offer as theys pulled out an’ binded one by one the merchant first an’ loos and hendricks an the lot o’ ‘em’til weren’t none but Bean left on the sand where he pushed hisself up ‘gainst ‘em bars an’ damn near break his fingers from the outside with a musket-butt where he keep his hold an’ pullin’ him out an’ in’t one o’ ‘em got a ear for Bean nor a eye nor no mind but weren’t his god damn fault god love me weren’t none of it Bean fault god forgive me weren’t none of it Bean fault you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; an’ they put the blade in us back an’ say march but in’t Bean move but they have to put the blade right in ‘til it bleed an’ put the beatin’ on him ‘til he walk ‘til we all of us get over the far rise where the sun touch an’ soon as loos head drop Bean see what jibs ‘em soldiers been makin’ all these days standin’ tall in the sun ‘em ropes slappin’ in the breeze an’ all stood ‘bout by ‘em folks Bean known an’ helped an’ fed an’ took they pots an’ cleaned they pans standin’ ‘round with the preacher an’ commadore ‘bove an’ weren’t none of it due to me god hear me you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; not Bean you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; but any before him or him first so he in’t got to live with the rustyguts no more you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; an’ Bean see her lady-ship by the arm o’ ol’ haze the cap’n an’ she lookin’ right at the merchant like she looked at Bean all cold clear an’ in’t she afeard or sad or nothing but she look right back like in’t none else matter then an’ in’t her face change but she sayin’ something quiet-like when the merchant by her in’t none hear but the merchant replyin’ something like it weren’t her fault an’ in’t we there but a minite but the commadore pipe up holdin’ his parchment callin’ god on us an’ what we all done an’ company law an’ in’t Bean hardly hear him but he lookin’ ‘round an’ up an’ through all ‘em folks starin’ down to him anywhere but up at ‘em ropes an’ the commadore eyes an’ Bean saved him god damn it an' changed his pultices an’ given the merchant his soul an’ in’t none o’ the lot o’ ‘em put the beatin’s on Bean what he in’t half deserved for all he done you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D96]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F96]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E96]] </center></u>==> 96% ==> October, 1629. <== <span class="C"> There is no justice on this Earth. Only vengeance. There is no Hell. Only pain. And pain there is none. My only moment. The martyrdom of Saint Jeronimus, at last. Every instant precious. Every moment perfect. I would never have had it else. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B97]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D97]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C97]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_west_australian_coastal_landscape_d3433b5d-dc24-4ebc-8445-50795edaf782.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E100]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A100]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F100]] </center></u>==> 100% ==> December, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>On 14 November the wind s.-s.-west, have fetched the rest of the folk from the islands, in order to go under sail tomorrow, and this day nothing particular has happened.</p> <p>On 15 do. the wind s.-s.-west, with apparently beautiful weather. Therefore, have weighed our anchor in the name of God, and have gone under sail, away from these disastrous //Abrolhos//, to the mainland, course e.-n.-east.</p> <p>On 22 do. in the morning our course north, and have taken north to east in order to get in view of the //Cocus Islands//. The wind s.-east with a topsail gale. This 24 hours have sailed, by guessing, 36 miles. At noon had no latitude through dark sky.</p> <p>On 3 December, in the morning with daylight, have God be thanked and praised, seen the //Princen Islands// and to the east, the cape of //Java//, and had the island //Krakatoa// e.-n.-east of us, the wind s.-e. so that we could sail no higher than e.-n.-e., with the day, it became calm, and towards noon the wind ran south and we near enough went over, in the night got close to the coast of //Java//., till</p> <p>on 4 do. in the morning, when we found ourselves next to //Angier//, but it became very calm until the afternoon, when the wind ran s.-w. with a beautiful breeze, but the current ran so hard round to the west, that we gained only 3 miles the whole day, until at night when the flood came, with which we have drifted past //Bantham//, and found ourselves</p> <p>on 5 do. in the morning near //Man Eaters’ Island//, with a beautiful land wind, and have at last arrived in the roads of //Batavia// this late afternoon. God the Almighty be thanked for the good outcome and the rescue of us all. </p><p>//Amen//.</p></span> <center> [[Continue->B FIN]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src="https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_billabong_with_red_sand_and_dead_grass_e2f788aa-9064-4960-820f-9e5f262b39af.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E99]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A99]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F99]] </center></u>==> 99% ==> November, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>With a //sampan// or yawl which they will retain with all its appurtenances, in order to make shift with such, and shall see that with this southerly wind which here blows now along the coast they can reach up to 25 to 24 degrees, by guessing, the which is about 50 miles from this place. In order to consider, observing good weather and opportunity, to put ashore there or here, to make themselves known to the folk of this land by tokens of friendship, whereto are being given by the Commander some //Nurembergen// toys, as well as knives, beads, bells and small mirrors, of which shall give to the blacks only a few until they have grown familiar with them. </p> <p>Having become known to them, if they will then take them into their villages to their chief men, they must have courage to go with them willingly. Man's luck is found in strange places, if God guards they will not suffer any damage from them, but on the contrary, because they have never seen any white men, they will offer all friendship. Meanwhile, shall observe with all diligence what material, be it gold, or silver, happens there to be found, and what they esteem as valuable. So that, having come to perfect friendship with them, they may be able to ask, by signs and by learning their language, that a lookout should be kept for ships, or for people coming from the side of the sea, in order to obtain from them more of such goods as iron, copper, of which they have with them several samples which without doubt will please the Natives greatly. The time that the ships reach the Southland there, is in April, May, June, July, wherefore they must look out keenly at that time, and seeing any, give suchlike signs as shall appear to be done with purpose, be it with smoke or otherwise. Above all, to keep God in mind, never forget Him, and without doubt He will keep them close in His shadow and will yet vouchsafe, at the last a good outcome.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A100]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C100]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B100]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_west_australian_coastal_landscape_with_wallaby_3d270ae4-7a03-40d7-8d47-181071c94f97.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E98]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A98]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F98]] </center></u>==> 98% ==> November, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>Therefore the Commander has proposed, because such criminal offences have been committed by him that may not or cannot be left unpunished before God and our High Authority at Batavia, whether one shall punish with death the said Wouter Loos here, as an example to others, or whether one shall put him on the main Southland in order to live with the inhabitants of that land, and to get to know and find out what there be of material in those lands, be it gold, silver, or anything of value, and if at any time some whips come to that coast, or yawls come ashore, that they may then be rescued by those and report the opportunities of those lands.</p> <p>Therefore the Commander Francisco Pelseart and we undersigned persons of the council of the ship SARDAM, having given every thought to this matter, after long examination and searchings, and having debated and weighed the same, have preferred grace in place of rigour of the Justice to foresaid Wouter Loos, and have sentenced him as we sentence hereby, that he shall be put here on the same Southland as a death-deserving delinquent, together with Cornelis Jansen of Haarlem, who was sentenced on 28 September to the gallows on account of his misdeeds, but has been begged from death, in order to make himself familiar with the inhabitants of this land and to search out what is happening here, and to be rescued some time by ships that may happen to fall hereabout, and to be of some service to the Company, with confiscation of his monthly wages, or anything that he may have to claim in India against the General East India Company, our Lord Masters.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A99]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C99]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B99]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_west_australian_coastal_landscape_f32693fe-432c-4528-93f1-47497eb406c6.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E97]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A97]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F97]] </center></u>==> 97% ==> November, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>Because we by God’s truth have spent here near the wreck of the perished ship BATAVIA a little less than 2 months, and that against our will or intention, on account of the hard wind and weather, and although we have not passed by any opportunity of calmness and little surf, and have taken the opportunity to search with the divers for cash and other wares in the wreck, so that with several efforts we have found 10 money chests, and because there have been 12 in the ship therefore, according with the explicit order of the Hon. Lord General, did not want to give up lightly. But are wholly convinced that nothing more is to be found because we think we are fully aware that all further searching is only time wasting and to remain here is only to the detriment of our Lord Masters, to sail as soon as possible to Batavia.</p> <p>Further, also Wouter Loos of Maastricht, soldier, after the capture of Jeronimus Cornelisz, under merchant, has been made captain of a troop of murderers before our arrival and has let himself be authorised for that, and has made people swear with signatures of oaths, to be true to him in everything, in manner as Jeronimus had done before his capture. Furthermore, he has with great willingness let himself be used to several murders, as appears out of his examination and own confession in full, as well as done his will with several women. Towards which complete knowledge we have come very slowly, but we are fully certain of this.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A98]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C98]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B98]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src="https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_billabong_with_red_sand_and_dead_grass_cfd9da64-9112-460d-8732-a81c9c61f15f.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E96]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A96]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F96]] </center></u>==> 96% ==> October, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>On 2 do. the wind south, but a bit quieter, and we have taken the condemned to Seals Island in order to be punished according to their sentences on the gallows with the cord. Coming there, they begged that Jeronimus should be hanged first, so that their eyes could see that the seducer of men died. But Jeronimus could not reconcile himself to dying or to penitence, neither to pray to God nor to show any face of repentance over his sins. Wiebbe Hayes and Claes Jansz Hooft, trumpeter, attest and testify on their manly truthfulness, that they have seen with our eyes and heard with their sober ears, today the 2nd October 1629, that Lucretia Jans, the widow of Boudewijn van der Mjilen, one hour before Jeronimus Cornelisz was to be executed for his great misdeed, bitterly lamented to the said Jeronimus over the sins he had committed with her against her will, and forcing her thereto. To which Jeronimus replied: ‘It is true, you are not to blame for it, for you were in my tent for twelve days before I could succeed.’ But they all shouted at each other: ‘Revenge’, some evil-doers shouted ‘Revenge’ at Jeronimus, and he shouted at them. At last he challenged them, as well as the council before God's judgment seat, that he wanted to seek justice there with them, because he had not been able to get it here on earth. And so he died stubborn.</p> <p>Mattijs Beijr confessed to the predicant, near the gallows, that he had also murdered another four men, and a boy, in the presence of Jeronimus one night, but he could not name them. He had not told the same all this time, and he requested therefore that one should pray for him on account of his many sins. Allert Jansz of Assendelft, and more others, died also very Godless and unrepentant, but he warned me, as he did also others, that we should have to watch very well on the ship because quite many traitors remained alive who would seize an opportunity to execute that which they had intended, without naming anyone, saying he did not wish to be called an informer after his death. Cornelis Jansen could not compose himself to die, weeping and wailing and begging for grace, and that one should put him on an island and let him live a little longer. Therefore on account of his youth, one has begged for his life, which at last we have granted to him, to put him on an island or on the mainland, according to occasion occurring.</p> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A97]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C97]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B97]] </center></u>==> 94% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="E"> an’ in’t it a minite but the preacher stand an’ he in’t go but he keep with us to take what those o’ us is goin’ confess ‘fore god than ‘fore the commadore an’ preacher come day after day an’ talk to cornelius an’ day by day ‘em men ask him when we’s getting’ punished an’ day by day don’t the preacher say nothing but ask us to repent an’ fess our sins ‘fore the lord an’ findin’ out corn where he sittin’ an’ have him curse him an’ curse the name o’ god an’ day after day don’t none other come ‘cross the waves the wind blowin’ an’ sea crashin’ out over the bluff an’ over that the sound o’ ‘em soldiers hammerin’ an sawin’ out where they’s taken that lumber they got stacked up to the side an’ in’t none o’ ‘em sailers what’s trapped up an’ thirstin’ an’ callin’ on the word got a kind word nor a hand for bean nor even ol’ loos what in’t get the rope or the blade or nothing but a smooth ride back to java an’ what’s cussin’ out ‘em men he lay blame on for all what done to the lot o’ ‘em puttin’ what ideas in ‘em heads weren’t nothing the word o’ god you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; an’ hendricks what’s getting’ the rope right ‘nough beatin’ his own head on the bars hours on end bang bang bang bang tryin’ cave his own skull in an’ don’t even fight what beatin’s the men put on him but just lay an’ let it fall on him an’ ol’ cornelish just sittin’ up still an’ silent all ‘em hours preacher in’t there an’ in’t neither o’ ‘em ask forgiveness nor fessin’ from the rest o’ us but pay us no mind but each other an’ the merchant by an’ by work hisself up in such a state o’ cursin’ the preacher an’ the commadore an’ the captain an’ god the father an’ son an' holy ghost an’ many more an any else besides ‘til ‘em sailers start turnin’ on him what in’t got no say-so where in’t none but bars an’ sand an’ em stout fists to give say-so what turn on the merchant right quick once the sun dip out of sight an’ night fall ‘cross ‘em dunes an’ can’t none o’ us sleep for what we know comin’ in the morn or the morn after an’ what’s waitin’ for us an’ what we waitin’ for ever after you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; an’ can’t sleep neither after a while for all we hears the merchant groanin’ an’ weepin’ callin’ on hisself an’ what tung don’t none of us speak but ‘em men an’ by an’ by ‘em gards callin’ on merchant tellin’ him shut it an’ layin’ beatin’s on him but won’t he stop moanin’ an’ groanin’ fit to wake the dead an’ ‘em soldiers puttin’ em long stick in tellin’ him keep down an’ ope up the lid more’n once to pull him out what can’t carry hisself an’ have him groan an’ moan off a ways an’ bring him back where ‘em sailers waitin’ beat the sound out him for all they in’t got nothing to do nor think on but what a doom the merchant done brung on the lot of us what should be sittin’ up on the S-A-R-D-A-M. with the commadore eatin’ salt-pork right then an’ what we waitin’ for an’ what’s waitin’ for us over the hill ‘cos can’t a man there hardly keep from weepin’ like the merchant but we’s be men ‘fore the end ‘cos right ‘nough don’t we all of us want cry but don’t none of us wan’t cry so we’s beat the boy who’s cryin’ so he don’t cry no more you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D95]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F95]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E95]] </center></u>==> 95% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="C"> As the predikant asks once again if I would confess God’s honest truth as to my wicked deeds, I avert my gaze heavenward. The sky is cold. There is no God, above. When I lower my gaze it meets that of Ms. Jans. She is standing just behind Pelseart, white and thin as a willow stick. She is not beautiful any more. Her eyes are as cold as Pelseart’s jewels that coat the seafloor. At my silence, Creesje starts in a fit. She shouts such accusations, piling lies of her own on Pelseart’s sentences until all the hundreds about are worked up into a fit. Though many had thought me blameless, before I can explain my kind keeping of Ms. Jans they shout me down. Their voices join around a word some in the crowd have been repeating again and again, again and again. The prisoners behind me are calling it too, shoving at me and calling for my sentence for their own satisfaction. They do not call on God. Not justice. Revenge. I call it back at them. Reject them, utterly. How they will regret their vanity. As the Romans that mocked Christ. Pelseart’s voice speaks, intoning the charges and sentence again. The executioner steps forward with his great gnarled sawblade. A hangman’s hands. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B96]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D96]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C96]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_dry_red_sand_desert_landscape_eaecaa3a-5493-44b6-b60b-51ffe4b9c946.png?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E95]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A95]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F95]] </center></u>==> 95% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>On Sunday 30 do., when the sermon was about to begin, I ordered Jeronimus to be fetched, so that he, together with the other convicts would be able to hear the Word of God, but he answered, he would not come and would not have anything to do with the talks of the dominie. See how miraculously God the Lord reveals his godlessness before all people and again makes it public how before this he has forbidden all preaching and praying to the predicant. When he saw that all his subterfuges and sinister practices to remain alive were of no avail, firstly, that he desired to be brought to //Batavia// to speak once again with his wife, after that, under the pretext of desiring to be baptised to get some prolongment of his life, at last, when he saw that all his attempts were without avail, his //Epicurean// or //Torrentian// outlook, which he had kept hidden during that time as much as possible, namely, that there was neither Devil nor Hell, also that he still tried to maintain, here in his prison, that all he did, whether it was good or bad (as judged by others), God gave the same into his heart, for God, said he, was perfect in virtue and goodness, so was not able to send into the heart of men anything bad, because there was no evil or badness in Himself. Saying so, that all he had done was sent into his heart by God, for he had not been able to do anything out of himself, and still more such gruesome opinions which he had tried to imprint into the minds of the people here on the island.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A96]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C96]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B96]] </center></u>==> 93% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="E"> An' we’sput back in the cage on seal’s island right quick but in’t none o’ us talkin’ to none no more ‘cos we’s all listenin’ to where they buildin’ the gallows over the bluff an’ diggin’ ‘em holes an’ throwin’ up they beams an’ nockin’ ‘em cross-bars an’ puttin’ up the planks but in’t they hang up how many nooses ‘til the day an’ in’t we hear nothing from the ship nor ‘em other islands but all the lil’ land an’ sea an’ sky get shut up in that box with ‘em sick an’ sinnin’ men what in’t waitin’ for nothin’ but nooses ‘round they neck an’ not passin’ word from man to man but to curse another an’ god an’ the merchant an’ the commadore an’ the company an’ every damned thing an’ can’t Bean make his mind go up where it used to be when he thirstin’ or achin’ or takin’ a beatin’ but thinkin’ o’ the long deep dark an’ the sound o’ the sea where it come up an’ takin’ up the rollin’ o’ the tides an’ wave on wave on wave one by one passin’ the time whisper on whisper swell on swell an’ don’t ‘em voices do nothing but fade out in the dark an’ the wind an’ the calls o’ the gulls ‘til the break o’ ‘em short small darks an’ the light come again but don’t the cage change for the sight an’ smell an’ sound o’ the waves on an’ on an’ we see again an’ weren’t it midday but we see the preacher comin’ up the beach an’ he in’t thirty paces off but ‘em blokes set up they jeerin’ out an’ callin’ an’ some ‘em askin’ what news there be an’ askin’ the preacher give ‘em blessin’s and tell the commadore how they penitent an’ all that but in’t the preacher anserin’ no man but he walk ‘bout the cage ‘til he see the merchant what’s huddled up in on o’ ‘em far corners an’ kneelin’ down where he sittin’ ‘bout a arm-length clear o’ ‘em bars an’ sayin’ what can’t Bean barely hear over ‘em blokes shoutin’ out the preacher cristian name an’ all but the merchant cussin’ out an’ spittin’ through ‘em bars an’ abusin’ the name o’ god what puts all us sailers quiet an’ all ‘cos in’t we hear the merchant talkin’ none o’ this when he the cap’n-general an’ got us in his say-so an’ right ‘nough bean thinkin’ what they all do then that we in’t know what man is curled up in cage with us or we in’t know what man we was followin’ but he praise god’s name an’ make him all o’ what was necessary an’ all an’ put it on ‘em followers to keep his word an’ weren’t it none o’ us what said nor did nothing but for god you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D94]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F94]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E94]] </center></u>==> 94% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C95]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E95]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D95]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/progress_image_100_0201fb8c-a2e5-4e1b-a588-225f75ed1ed2.webp?"/> </center> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Bean->E94]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Jormundgandr > ->A94]]</div> <center> [[Continue->F94]] </center></u>==> 94% ==> September, 1629. <== <span class="C"> The flame inside me wanes. The First comes, and passes in wind and storms. The empty boat comes the next day. Two great Indians work the oars while the guards pry open our cage, binding us for transition to the main island. The men do not speak, though some among them mumble pointless prayers. The only sound as we walk is the thrash of waves on the shore, and the sobbing of the cabin boy. When we gain the island’s high dune, we see that Seals Island is thronged by every person still on the archipelago. Their white faces watch, as we approach and disembark in our clanking chains. They do not jeer us as we are led before Pelseart, standing along with the preacher and a great brutish sailor whose role is clear. The ragged chopping block of the packing crate and a great primitive gibbet that rears behind him, six perfect nooses bending in the breeze. There is no fear. No Hell. No fear. </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B95]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D95]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C95]] </center></u>==> 97% ==> November, 1629. <== <span class="C"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B98]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D98]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C98]] </center></u>==> 97% ==> November, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C98]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E98]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D98]] </center></u>==> 99% ==> November, 1629. <== <span class="E"> ‘em nights an’ days pass together like they done in L-E-Y-D-E-N hell on an’ on in the dark an’ torch-flicker an’ changin’ of ‘em gards ‘til weren’t no time but we’s fetched up from our brig can’t Bean see for the light blindin’ from bein’ below decks but he hear ‘em indians jabberin’ an’ what mens come from Batavia makin’ ready an’ fetchin’ this an’ that an’ all what’s upstairs shoutin’ an’ by an’ by Bean’s sight come an’ he see clear ‘cross to where they pointin’ ‘em long glasses t’wards what land they seein’ far off an’ lil’ thin grey cloud whats comin’ up from her like snake o’ fire-smoke an’ theys sayin’ loos an’ Bean to put ashore here an’ make our livin’ ‘mongst ‘em indians is livin’ ashore an’ commadore hisself come down an’ say for us chains come off an’ put ‘em writs what Bean don’t know in loos hand for the land an’ puttin’ aboard ‘em boxes of toys an’ lil’ jewels an’ that what we’s to trade for water an’ all an’ puttin’ us in long-boat an’ weren’t nothing said to Bean but he ‘spected to keep quiet ‘til ‘em gunnals come up an’ the hull-bottom slap down on the sea an’ ol’ loos fair sweatin’ with the flux like Bean think they tryin’ to put him ashore ‘fore he put it on the rest of ‘em aboard like in’t it touch Bean since white man’s grave or nothing </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D100]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F100]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E100]] </center></u>==> 100% ==> December, 1629. <== <span class="C"> </span> <center> [[Continue->C FIN]] </center></u>==> 98% ==> November, 1629. <== <span class="E"> an’ they brung the lot o’ us aboard the S-A-R-D-A-M boat-load by boat with wind an’ waves nockin’ deck by deck an’ we what’s to be brung back in chains in the brig an’ bit by bit the stores an’ water-casks an’ the jewels an’ cloth an’ chests o’ silver pay what ‘em indians fetched up from the sea-bed an’ rope an’ all but ‘em traitors swingin’ on seals island an’ by an’ by they sayin’ weren’t nothing left to find nor fetch o’ what was in the ol’ B-A-T-A-V-I-A an’ we’s to set sail for the new batavia short an’ sharp ‘cos weren’t no good sittin’ round waitin’ bein’ wrecked an’ that suit Bean fine by him an’ in’t we see none but in the brig but we feel we under way an’ the buff of the prow cuttin’ yaw an’ sway of the ship down her belly an’ all day-on-day ‘em men what in’t talk no more but sit aside an’ keep to ‘emselfs what’s broke they shoulders or had the skin off they backs cryin’ out here an’ near or those what’s still waitin’ on judgment stay quiet an’ still like they keepin’ they cries for the hangman you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D99]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F99]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E99]] </center></u>==> 99% ==> November, 1629. <== <span class="C"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B100]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D100]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C100]] </center></u>==> 97% ==> November, 1629. <== <span class="E"> screamin’ an’ weepin’ ‘til ‘em hands come down on him for the beatin’ or cut him an’ in’t he earnt it or none but it be the commadore hisself what’s liftin’ him up lookin’ real sad-like an’ askin my age o’ the preacher by side an’ can’t they get the noose round me but put me with ‘em other prisoners what in’t have the noose comin’ but lookin’ at Bean like they in’t pitied nothing ‘fore in they life an’ they string up the rest but commadore lookin’ pause an’ when the saw-bones by him bring up his knife still drippin’ he tell him halt an’ lookin’ down at Bean like he seein’ him for the first time an’ it a full minite Bean stomach rusted up an’ the wind playin’ at ‘em hair an’ the sea coming down boom an’ hiss an’ spread over an’ over an’ in’t the commadore face move but he say that last rope to be cut down an’ I’s to be kept ‘til batavia for now an’ in’t Bean die that day nor put up there swingin’ by the merchant with his hands ‘bout his neck but in’t it left him none you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; an’ in’t the commadore say no more word but for puttin’ ‘em idlers put back on they boats an’ ‘em soldiers too an’ not puttin’ us lot back in cage or nothing but keep to the island an’ in’t the ship move afar off nor we see the commadore again weeks an’ weeks after that but we seen ‘em soldiers come back with water an’ waitin’ all the while with ‘em traitors been spared the rope an’ blades what’s still talkin’ o’ ‘em money-chests they seen ‘em indians bringin’ up from the reef an’ hows they got the whole wide sea ‘tween us an’ java what to take the ship an’ make for malacka an’ all but in’t none listenin’ to ‘em no more but they lookin’ to ol’ cornelius where he hangin’ with his hands ‘round his neck what’s left o’ weeks o’ ‘em mutton birds tearin’ at him an’ screamin’ like red revenge eatin’ up what’s been eaten ‘em an’ they turn an’ lookin’ where the gunner lyin’ since his rope done snapped face down where none in’t come to claim him ‘cept ‘em crabs what’s piled on thicker to see an’ strippin’ him skin from skin an’ in’t none gone get up close an’ bury ‘em or nothing what with flux ragin’ through what men is left ol’ loos been lookin’ sick as a pig since they done let him off the hook like if the rope don’t get him the flux get its hooks in an’ tear him up inside with out no surgeon no more so Bean leave him be like keep his own water an’ give wide berth to ‘em blokes what’s still bound hand an’ foot an’ take his own side o’ the island an’ look out over ‘em sea an’ tide changes an’ all like the sea don’t stop but a wave roll up an’ roar out an’ come down carvin’ way way up an’ slow an’ spread down but in’t it never stop but tuther come up an’ break tearin’ in an’ come up an’ break ‘gainst it an’ the sea turn an’ turn wave on wave an’ rear up an’ gaspin’ come down an’ slow an’ spread always slowin’ an’ buildin’ up comin’ down an’ pullin’ out again movin’ slow comin’ up fast fast an’ breaks rushin’ an’ comes up an’ in an’ break come out roarin’ over an’ again an’ over an’ over again an’ again an’ again again again you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Creesje->D98]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Kalbarri > ->F98]]</div> <center> [[Continue->E98]] </center></u>==> 98% ==> November, 1629. <== <span class="C"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Pelseart->B99]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Creesje > ->D99]]</div> <center> [[Continue->C99]] </center></u>==> 98% ==> November, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C99]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E99]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D99]] </center></u>==> 99% ==> November, 1629. <== <span class="D"> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Corneliesz->C100]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Bean > ->E100]]</div> <center> [[Continue->D100]] </center></u>==> 100% ==> December, 1629. <== <span class="D"> // I REMEMBER –The windows were white; the crack in the jam spilled the steam out and the cold in and the pane darkened and dark they glowed candlelit stars so endless endless – up and up into the night – Do you – remember – ?– the long slow heat of the summer when it first became clear I was with child –my mother stitching by my side while you rode about through the night – ––I knew not where – could not know how I found the bundle of letters one morning while rummaging through your office effects for the address of a forgotten apothecary, and finding –– lieveling STEFANI, and – wept and wept ––– sealed each up again and –– returning the bundle to its hidden nook – could not know how hurt my heart hurt when you announced our daughter’s name – but I may tell you now; how I woke one alone early one morning, with the mist lapping at the upper windows in our bedchamber and felt the sick and certain tightening in my womb and in terror reaching out – finding your bedsheets cold and empty.– – and now I have come to –– to see I cannot hope to describe – loneliness in my solitude – cannot make words to wield the pain – & nor your wide drunken smile to snatch her up and hold her aloft awhile a’fore calling for ale and –– then you are gone –– –alone – I remember ––the unplaceable shade of lily-white tulips –– slowly deepen yellow withered snarled brown by rot –– before you returned to our bed; the cries in the night – and the unspeakable worries of death and deformity; the abyss opening up within me deeper and more bottomless than the Bay of Portugal –– – I was e’er alone –– BUT you are passed on, my dear BOUDIWIJN, so I hear – GOD keep your everlasting SOUL –– so are you all now – Hr. JANSZ my friend – J–MUS gone at last –– and Hr. PELSEART looking hardly long for this world ei’er, the poor tired man – m– they all be kept and judged by the ALMIGHTY – – and I am alive thank GOD or curse Him – – what can one small little love do – against such hate?– or amongst– the vast indifference of the world, vaster than any ocean – and what is the point –now?– all that hate is sunk under ground and under sea – like ¬¬–– you will never see – – how can one little love –– go on – all over –– again Ah!– let nothing ¬ be remembered!– Memory will be the death of me– Speak into the hole – and cover it up it – deeper down – – I’ll drown these parchments, I’ll break my quill –– I’ll be my book. LORD ALMIGHTY read here this my last will –GOD help me – I’ll ne’er keep a slave – // </span> <center> [[Continue->D FIN]] </center></u>==> 100% ==> November, 1629. <== <span class="E"> but both us puttin’ to ‘em oars as we puttin’ off from the S-A-R-D-A-M further an’ further that low white coast comin’ up higher an’ higher in ‘til we’s in the breakers up beach what’s flat an’ sandy with one ‘em low rocky shelfs runnin’ right ‘long it an’ over that risin’ the green o’ the land an’ comin’ over some dry hot wind what’s whippin’ out me hair an’ clothin’ while we’s makin’ her fast an’ pitch down on to the sand ‘em casks an’ flint an’ gift-box an’ ship’s-bisket what the commadore sent us for supplies an’ by now ship already afar off pullin’ off further an’ further ‘til ‘em men aboard is jus’ twitchin’ like lil’ ants at ‘em riggin’s an’ one ‘em can’t be told up the quarters raises his hand an’ move it real slow like a circle an’ let it fall an’ by an’ by they makin’ ready ‘em sails droppin’ an’ turnin’ turnin’ an’ without no sound fadin’ out o’ sight ‘til can’t no ship be picked out no more from the rise an’ kick o’ the waves an’ loos turn an’ tell Bean he’s best start lookin’ for water now they’s a whole good big island all to our lonesomes an’ in’t Bean happy he in’t got none but loos an’ ol’ god lookin’ down on him no more see now he’s vice-chief o’ this big new island an’ thinkin’ all of the possibles I’s survivin’ past ‘em fluxes an’ no mistake an’ calling it Beanland an’ claimin’ it for Bean for ever as king an’ cap’n-general an’ all an’ ever an’ ever like I’s be buried ‘neath these sands an’ no mistake an’ soon as we clear the beach-head I’s looking back at the sea an’ the sea sort of staring right back tellin’ Bean leave it be an’ loos shoutin’ an’ he snatch me arm an’ I looks an’ there a bloke all standin’ over us at the beach head an’ he’s tall dark an’ naked as the ol’ slaves in the sook an’ he lookin’ down with ‘em feet plant right down in the sand an’ Bean an’ loos is looking strait back an’ in’t he blink nor turn an’ in’t we neither an’ he nod an’ he point an’ says something in’t Bean understand but I’s used to all that now an’ all an’ in’t none us move a mussle from where we’s stood an’ keeps all stood there still ‘til I’s ‘splain to him as many words I got how all it came be an’ how in’t none o’ it Bean’s fault you understand&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; </span> <center> [[Continue->E FIN]] </center></u><span class="F"> <center> Beemara, kuugaruu? </center> <center> [[Continue->F FIN]] </center></u><center> <img src="https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/screen-shot-2022-12-06-at-11.32.00-am.png"/> <u>FIN.</u> <u>[[Return to Portraits->Portrait Page]]</u> </center><center> <img src="https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_seventeenth_century_old_dutch_merchant_rich_jewelr_aad8eb93-a71b-40d1-8cd3-896c4b3360c0.png"/> <u>FIN.</u> <u>[[Return to Portraits->Portrait Page]]</u> </center><center> <img src="https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/jeronimus_triptych.png"/> <u>FIN.</u> <u>[[Return to Portraits->Portrait Page]]</u> </center><center> <img src="https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/creesje3.png"/> <u>FIN.</u> <u>[[Return to Portraits->Portrait Page]]</u> </center><center> <img src="https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_cabin_boy_seventeenth_century_charcoal_portrait_sa_9957eebb-6b2f-41d7-b5b6-53dd38d3d2b0.png"/> <u>FIN.</u> <u>[[Return to Portraits->Portrait Page]]</u> </center><center> <img src="https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/progress_image_100_0201fb8c-a2e5-4e1b-a588-225f75ed1ed2.webp"/> <u>FIN.</u> <u>[[Return to Portraits->Portrait Page]]</u> </center> Francisco Pelseart was born in 1595, and by the year 1628 had risen through the ranks of the VOC to become one of its most trusted agents, in the post of upper-merchant. In that year, following a successful trip to the Indian subcontinent in order to survey the indigo market and ingratiate ‘the Company’ with the Indian aristocracy and merchants, Pelseart assumed control of three newly-built //retourships// ahead of their collective voyage to Java – the //Dodrecht//, //Gravenhage// and, of course, the flagship //Batavia//. The strand of the story in Pelseart’s voice is an abridged version of the Journal he kept at the time, and which survivies to this day. I am indebted to Henrietta Drake-Brockman for publishing the translated portions in her //Voyage to Disaster//, along with such resources as a reconstructed manifest of the Batavia’s crew and passengers, contemporaneous artworks and a diary of events as they transpired both on the Abrolhos and in Pelseart’s four-month voyage from them to Java, and back. The Journal is an officious business, and reads as rather bloodless, so to speak, even as Pelseart’s dry and matter-of-fact tone conveys events of tremendous cruelty and injustice. It is as great an example as any of the way historical accounts, even where they exist, often fail to express the human impact of the events they describe. The contents of Pelseart’s Journal prior to the Batavia’s crash on June 4th 1629 remain untranslated, which presented something of a problem for the corresponding contents of the Batavia’s actual voyage. Instead, the early section of Pelseart’s account is occupied by the account of his findings in the Indian subcontinent during an earlier voyage in 1626. Though this '//Remonstratie//' was likely already published, it is not a tremendous leap to imagine Pelseart composing this account retrospectively on board the Batavia – not as contrived as his ownership of a First Folio, which was more of an indulgence on my part, I must admit – and it is bitterly ironic, and fitting, to imagine the commander so involved in recapitulating the glory days while his current command devolved around him unnoticed. The //Remonstratie// then switches into the Journal as abruptly as the crash itself, beginning on that fateful date of June 4th and continuing to nearly the end of the year 1629. Also incorporated at points of exposition are a number of Company writs I have also sourced from Drake-Brockman. Since Pelseart’s account raises many more questions than it answers, it is here supplemented by the five other strands that recreate the human perspectives of those around him. I hope I have made a fair appraisal of his character from their point of view – it is certainly true that his position would have held many opportunities for avarice and exploitation, and the mutiny that grew under his watch could hardly have come to pass if he had been held in much regard or with either fear or respect by his crew. Like Bean’s strand, there is a heavier emphasis on tedium and, in this case, the actuarial imagination than tends to occupy what we might consider ‘literary writing’. However, in a structure such as this, the boredom is both optional and highly charged – though one may be surprised how Pelseart’s strand, while absent for much of the more famous moments of the Batavia incident, lends a significant colour of its own – further shades of grey, to a dark and darkening picture. [[Return ->B0 - 'The Journal of Francisco Pelseart']] In Norse Mythology, Jormundgandr or the Midgard Serpent was the child of Loki, God of Mischief, and Angrabod the giant. After his birth, it is told he grew rapidly to an enormous size and kept growing at such a pace that it was foretold by the fates that, at Ragnarok, Jormundgandr would fight and destroy Thor, son of Odin. And so the gods struck first, as gods often do. The as-yet innocent serpent had his tail thrust in his mouth and was thrown into the sea, where it is said his thrashing and convulsions far beneath the surface still stir the sea’s currents and tides. A sea-faring people like the Vikings must have been familiar with the regularity of these convulsions, and timed their lives to the writhing of an unseen monster that girded the realm of men, lying unseen on the benthic floor like some living fiber-optic cable. The connection between Norse mythology and the early Dutch Empire is not obvious. While many cultues have their own versions of the serpent god or demon – Quetzalcoatl for the Maya, the Naga of South Asia, Beemara in the dreamwalks of the Australian Aborigines – Jormundgandr’s voice here is emblematic of something far greater and less specific: Jormundgandr is Time. He is the ouroboros – a pan-cultural deity who is meant to contrast with the mortal perspectives who experience or recall time as a sequence of moments with definite past, presence and future. I was interested to embody the voice of something so vast and necessarily inhuman, but struggled for a long while how to approach it. MF DOOM’s vocal embodiment of King Geedorah in ‘Take Me to Your Leader’ was some inspiration, but in the end it was decided that Jormundgandr’s section, like the adjacent strand of Pelseart’s journal, should be retrieved historical texts – including the Icelandic Eddas that have preserved the Norse myths and cosmology these past millennia. The monster of time speaks through echoes, shattered fragments and the dusty, particulated relics of literature. Each section contains only a fragment of poetry, one or two lines – to contrast with the denser prose of the other sections. This was intentional in order to create a kind of divine, reptilian pace – as well as a separate economy of reading time as an alternative to the speed of events as humans might experience them. As well as extracts from the Snorri Sturluson’s //Prose Eddas// (translated by Carolyne Larrington), this section contains interpolations of James Joyce’s //Ulysses//; ‘Relic’ by Ted Hughes; ‘Heaven’ by Rupert Brooke; ‘The Kraken’ and ‘Crossing the Bar’ by Alfred Lord Tennyson; John Milton’s //Paradise Lost//; William Shakespeare’s //The Tempest//, //Romeo and Juliet//, //Henry V//, //Henry VI Part 2//, //King Lear//, and //Macbeth//; TS Eliot’s ‘The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock’ and //Four Quartets//; ‘Oceanic South’ and ‘Unity’ by Pablo Neruda (translated by Nathaniel Tarn); ST Coleridge’s ‘Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner’; ‘This be the Verse’ by Philip Larkin, and Derek Walcott’s //Omeros//. [[Return ->A0 – 'The Tale of Jormundgandr']] Jeronimus Corneliesz is one of the great enigmas of history. But far from the only one. We have but few sure facts about his life. He was born in the Low Countries around 1598, and died in the Houtman Abrolhos on October 2nd, 1629. He was an apothecary in Haarlem, until he was driven to sea by family tragedies and the collapse of his business in 1628 to work as an under-merchant for the Dutch East India Company, the richest and most powerful company of its or any following era. His flight from Holland in that year has also been speculated as the result of his involvement with a group of notorious dissidents under the painter Torrentius, who were known to practice occult ceremonies and had distributed heretical pamphlets so widely as to attract an inquisition; it was a fractious religious time in continental Europe, after all. Corneliesz’ actions on and off the Batavia have been related many times, first and foremost by the account of his direct superior Francisco Pelseart, though each and every account takes pains to sketch this pantomime villain, this Iago of the sea, in excoriating terms. The facts that stand leave no doubt that his actions and judgments directly caused the deaths of hundreds, and suffering for hundreds more, which translation into fiction can be both extremely challenging and rather insensitive, even at the distance of four hundred years. Everyone wants to know why bad things happen, why they have happened before and will again. But in trying to explain tragedies, there is always the risk of explaining them away. To say now that a particular wrongdoer was a product of their times, was reacting to past traumas of their own, acting on uncertain expediencies, or really had no choice one way or another, is to excuse them – is to suggest it could have been any one of us manning the guard towers or coercing impressionable young actresses up to our hotel suites under a certain set of circumstances. This is false. Equally false, however, would be to demonise even the worst of us retroactively, and to mentally lock them away in a special fine-wire cage outside of the true and decent humanity to which we like to think we belong. Since no record now exists of him speaking in his own voice, Corneliesz’ strand of the story is related in a first-person interior monologue, entirely within the present tense save for very occasional flashbacks. The ornate, abstract and esoteric language I have employed I hope demonstrates the kind of mind capable of inhabiting such a contradiction – what I would describe as a kind of sophisticated sophistry, if you will – a casual casuistry that is indifferent to hypocrisy or self-denial. Many historians have been quick to ascribe Corneliesz’ murderous actions on the Abrolhos as the product of religious zealotism, congenital sociopathy, psychosexual repression and a number of other quasi-rationales – but these can only ever be speculations, since his exact motivations must remain an enigma to this day. However, Corneliesz is as much as a ghost to history as any middle- or working-class European of the age, and that is not to say he had no feelings or personal affections. In my opinion, his actions in the Abrolhos were not even particularly irrational, but rational to the point of immense cruelty, even as he must have taken pains to rationalize them even to himself. It is certainly true that he was an eloquent and persuasive speaker, as attested to by almost everyone who met him, and such skills do not suggest either a lack of imagination or an inability to comprehend others’ minds and desires. As I hope to show, a fixation on language can often do as much to confuse reality and fiction, faith and knowledge, memory and fantasy, as to reveal them. Yet it is the absolute purpose of all fiction, and historical fiction in particular, to fill in the gaps that conventional retelling necessarily cannot. What was Napoleon thinking at Leipzig in the winter of 1814? How did a million Parisians feel when they watched Charles Lindbergh touch down at Le Borges?This is the why behind the what of history – the inner narrative that each and every self tells itself of its own heroism and blameless persecution. No one is a villain to their own mind, as they say, and the road to hell is paved with good, or more likely selfish, intentions. This is the purpose in framing history as his story – of turning theodicy into //The Odyssey//. The unstoppable tides and currents of nations can only ever be made up of so many persons, so many individuated minds blind to each other and other’s pain, and it is literature’s sole and solitary task to open those other minds to each other. I suppose for the sake of my own sanity I have always refused to believe in radical evil, that is, that some people really desire to cause others pain at no benefit to themselves at all. So-called ‘evil’ usually appears as banal thing in real life, expressed via neglect rather than intent, a symptom of the vast indifference, indolence, ignorance and ineptitude of man- and woman-kind. The story of the //Batavia// seems on the surface to be a direct refute of that very idea, and Corneliesz, understandably, has since been damned by his actions as an incarnation of true evil. But that can only ever be up to the individual’s judgment and perspective. If Jeronimus Corneliesz can be saved, then so perhaps might our species. [[Return ->C0 - 'The Theodicy of Jeronimus Corneliesz']] Lucretia Jansdochter was around 28 in the year of the Batavia’s voyage. She had been married for many years to a gem-polisher named Boudiwijn van der Mijn and had two children, Lisbet and Stefani, though both had died by the year 1628. It is true that her husband had recently quiet Holland for a post in Java, though the reasons for this are unknown, and this accounts for her presence on the ship as a passenger as she made the long and perilous voyage to join him on a new continent and what she must have hoped to be a new and better life. She was accompanied by her maid, Zwaantie Hendricxs, who as I have written had only recently been hired and whose character, which we have attested to us by many contemporary sources, would have been just as unknown to her. Like many of the passengers, she is unlikely to have undertaken any sea voyage before, and certainly not one of such a scale. Little though she might have known what she was letting herself in for, and obviously ignorant of just how disastrous the voyage would prove, her trepidation on setting aboard must have been immense. Wealthy and respectable as she was, the privations of naval life and the oppressive nature of company must have been distinctly uncomfortable. How that voyage must have affected her, changed her? To have endured such horrors, and to have said nothing, as far as can be told. It is hardly a revelation that the voices of women of all countries, of all ages, and of all ranks below the highest aristocracy – and even considerably within them – have been systematically suppressed, oppressed and expunged from the record. What writing survives from common women is filtered through the niceties of correspondence, and that is how I have chosen to present Creesje’s side of the story. The epistolary form, with the intimacy and absurdity of a novel presented in letters from one person to another, has been adopted and adapted from those vast rambling novels of the 18th Century when it was most in vogue. I have often disliked the contrivances of this form, but it represents, as Pelseart’s Journalistic strand does, the constraints of a real historical document – while, I hope, simultaneously undermining a media form that often obscures as much as it illuminates. The ridiculousness of someone writing letters while on a long sea voyage was apparent to me, and I hope I may have remedied this, and the lack of documentation of any such account, with Creesje’s supposed habit of compulsive writing and the final intent of her letters. This strand is the one over which I agonized most, and fretted over capturing a voice that was necessarily artificial, and quite unknown to me, let alone the rest of the world. Once again, you must be the judge. [[Return ->D0 - 'The Letters of Lucretia Jansdochter']] ‘Bean’ was a real person – several real people in fact, for here he is a character aggregate of four cabin boys who served aboard the Batavia in 1628, and whose story is of course amalgamated with great deal of supposition. Their names were Cornelis ‘Boon’ or ‘Bean’ Jansen, Jan van Bemmel of Bremen and Roger Decker of Haarlem, and Abraham Gerritsz, all between 15 and 18 years of age – and none of whose voice speaks through the historical record, though each must have endured tremendous hardship over the course of the voyage, and indeed in their lives generally, for the lot of a cabin boy was poor in every sense of the word. Gerritsz it was who was thrown off the VOC ship Leyden when they put in at Sierra Leone, known at the time as ‘the White Man’s Grave’, and where he was spotted and recruited by the Batavia’s boatswain Evertsz when they put in several months later, which for the sake of pacing is syncopated with the ship’s arrival at Table Bay at the Cape of Good Hope. Bean’s name of course is taken from Cornelis ‘Boon’ Jansen, and while the crimes of which Bean is later accused were distributed between Jansen, Decker and van Bemmel, by all accounts none of them on the surface make for a likeable or sympathetic characters. It was Aris Jansz, the under-barber from Hoorn, who defected to Hayes’ Island by boat – although the character of the upper-barber or surgeon, who also shares his surname with Aris and one of the text’s narrators, means he isn’t mentioned much herein in order to avoid confusion. It is easy to imagine such a young and vulnerable person being forced by self-preservation and peer pressure to do unspeakable things, but it was still a challenge to understand the motivations of someone so young in such a situation, and a challenge, as in the case of Mr. Corneliesz, to try and find some motive and internal justification behind actions that seem irredeemably cruel. It is true, as best as can be told, that Jansen with Walter Loos were indeed the first white settlers of the Australian continent, under exactly the circumstances described, as attested by Pelseart’s Journal. To be the first souls from one hemisphere to have landed on the unknown soil of this Terra Australis Incognita must have been a moment of both unimaginable awe and unthinkable significance in global history and the profound tragedies that would be visited upon native peoples over the following centuries. Nothing was ever seen or heard of the two afterwards, but, of course, more were to come. Bean’s voice is by far the most challenging, for the reader and would have no place in any book that I would expect someone to read cover-to-cover, as it has zero punctuation (save for apostrophes), phonic orthography and very little semantic coherence. It is a kind of breathless exculpation of what happened from his confused perspective, related retroactively and in a dense, stream-of-consciousness style that would be utterly insufferable if the reader had not the option to switch to another account at any point. It provides a great deal of fleshing out of the story from the ground level of someone who would have carried out the dirty work of the ship and its masters, but one which, just like the life of its narrator, ultimately revolves around the intents of others. I have long respected the so-called ’modernist’ school of British writers and their attempts over the past century to break down the conventions of language and narrative to get to what DH Lawrence called the ‘quick’ of the mind – the vital spark of consciousness that exists prior to grammar or verbal translation. Bean’s narrative is therefore a continuance of the instinct of the whole project, that is, to peel back the intercessions of time and media forms that stand between us and the lived experience of people of the past. It is, of course, just as much of a construct as any other narrative, but one whish I hope evokes the desperation, confusion and futility that precedes the sense that history seeks to make of things. [[Return ->E0 - 'The Life of Bean']] The name Kalbarri refers to the indigenous lands to the east of the Houtman Abrolhos, on the western coast of Australia, a land even to this day preconceived as largely barren and featureless even by many of those who live there. Kalbarri’s strand is not a text, occluded as both the language and voices of the indigenous peoples of Oceania have been, even more completely than those of our other unknowable narrators, and far more violently. What could the Europeans of this age know of those who lived in so remote and alien a place, besides their own racist and imperialist preconseptions? And what have many of us done since to educate ourselves? To attempt to voice the Kalbarri aborigines would be far too dishonest on my part – but their presence is necessary even as a void, as is Jormundgandr’s, in order to introduce alterity, contrast, parallax, to the constrained and self-serving narratives of the other strands. This section is entirely pictorial, apart from the occasional interjection. Once again, these pictures are courtesy of MidJourney AI, via prompts inspired, however artificially, by the artwork of Sidney Nolan, and to a lesser extent the landscapes of John Olsen and Arthur Boyd. It provides a spatial perspective – one freed from time, but, alas, not the interval of brutality and oppression through which aboriginal history must filter to us to this day. [[Return ->F0 - 'The Land of Kalbarri']] ==> 41% ==> June, 1629. <== <span class="A"> <p>At the moment, I did not know any better than that it was an unknown shallow in the sea as the skipper said. So we started to throw all our cannons overboard in order to make the ship lighter, and the yawl with the boat was put out, and I ordered them to sound round about, and found at an arrow-shot at the back of the ship 7 vadem of water. But forwards very dry, we made aworp anchor ready, to put out at the stern. Meanwhile it began to blow harder with showers, and the boat was smitten overboard by a gush, so that it floated quickly away and we had to send the yawl to help it row up. Before it could be put aboard it had become day and we found ourselves then surrounded by rocks and shallows on every side, and very suddenly by the fall of the waters (for we had sailed there by high tide) it began to surf and foam around the ship, so that through the bumping of the ship, one could not stand or walk. </p> <p>Therefore we decided to put overboard the main mast, in order that it would not immediately push into the ground. But when it was cut down we found that it caused much damage, for we could not get it from aboard, so that we could not get the boat aboard due to the big surf. I saw no land that I thought would remain above at high water except an island that by guessing lay at least 3 miles from the ship, therefore I sent the skipper to 2 small islands or reefs not so far from the ship in order to see if there the people and some of the goods could be saved.</p></span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Jormundgandr->A42]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Corneliesz >->C42]]</div> <center> [[Continue->B42]] </center></u>==> 68% ==> August, 1629. <== <span class="B"> <center> //<p>Tomorrow. Tomorrow. And tomorrow.</p>// </center> </span> <u><div style="float: left">[[< Kalbarri->F69]]</div><div style="float: right"> [[Pelseart > ->B69]]</div> <center> [[Continue->A69]] </center></u><center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/ugly-men-in-ramshackle-cage-on-gray-beach.png? "/> </center> <center> [[Continue->C83]] </center></u><center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/sunset-boy-on-grey-cliff-tossing-a-jewel-into-the-ocean-with-a-splash-.png? "/> </center> <center> [[Continue->E86]] </center></u><center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_the_bottom_of_a_pit_full_of_puddles_and_small_bone_3bcbcc08-a1ff-47bd-a231-5e68b3431295.png? "/> </center> <center> [[Continue->C71]] </center></u><center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_sultan_with_odalisques_19d614d0-41e5-4c5e-a356-45055313ca81.png?"/> </center> <center> [[Continue->B31]] </center></u><center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_ships_surgeon_cleaning_his_instruments_in_his_smal_a27b6bac-6d0d-40a5-a0a6-40f29bd1b24f.png? "/> </center> <center> [[Continue->E29]] </center></u><center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_on_the_deck_of_a_shipwreck_doing_baptisms_9122fd54-ec19-4210-9a46-6b2974da62bf.png?"/> </center> <center> [[Continue->C47]] </center></u><center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_old_bearded_man_on_a_dim_dark_sick_bed_in_a_small__59406bdf-bd6e-43ac-8745-7e8bd1968921.png?"/> </center> <center> [[Continue->E32]] </center></u><center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_odalisque_self-immolates_herself_on_funeral_pyre_a4df604c-f416-4203-a82d-312fb866f827.png?"/> </center> <center> [[Continue->B38]] </center></u><center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_noblewoman_in_a_tattered_dress_on_a_grey_cliff_bea_4cdb0e93-b0ee-4215-b5bc-ccbeff5c9bd1.png? "/> </center> <center> [[Continue->D60]] </center></u><center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_man_in_robes_falling_out_of_a_longboat_with_large__0283ef48-aa16-49c8-890e-1cb86d0cbfe3.png?"/> </center> <center> [[Continue->E69]] </center></u><center> <img src=" https://hpcoburn.files.wordpress.com/2022/12/snickersnack_makeshift_tent_canvas_twine_with_several_candlelig_3d2be95f-e54e-4301-8bfd-b0e6d9f63ab6.png? 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