FIRST EUROPEANS IN AUSTRALIA

Evening Star, Issue 23055, 6 September 1938, Page 12

FIRST EUROPEANS IN AUSTRALIA

MEMORIAL TO DIRCK HARTOG A memorial tablet to commemorate the first recorded landing of Europeans in Australia lias been erected by the Commonwealth Government on Cape Inscription lighthouse, Dirck Hartog Island, on the western coast of Western Australia. The inscription was prepared by the Western Australian Historical Society in consultation with Dr J. S. Battye, of the Perth Public Library, and the Director of Archives at Batavia <Dr F. It. J. Verhoeven). The tablet takes the place of posts erected many years ago by the Western Australian Government in place of the relics left by early French and Dutch navigators on the island. These posts, owing to the subsidence of the cliff, are now in danger of falling into the sea. The inscription reads as follows; “ Dirck Hartog (Dirck Hntichs) landed on this island in 1610, and 120 yards S.E. of this lighthouse left a record of his visit on a pewter dish which was nailed to a pole inserted in a cleft in a rock. “ Willem de Vlamingh in 1697 found ‘ the old dish ’ and erected on the same spot a new pole with a flattened pewter di>h nailed to it on which lie inscribed both the o'd record and a record of his. own visit. “ Vlamingh's disli was taken to France by de Freycinct and deposited in the Museum cf the French Institute in 1821.” Under this account appears a translation of Dirck Hartog’s original inscription as follows“ A.D, 1616, on the 26th of October there arrived here the ship D’Eendraght of Amsterdam; supercargo Gil’is Miehnis of Liege; Skipper Dirck Hatichs of Amsterdam;

she set sad again for Bantam on the 27th do Sul cargo Jan Stins, Upper Steersman Pieter Doekcs ran Bil.” Beneath this translation appears the words: —” This memorial plate was placed here by the Commonwealth Government of Australia in 196? to commemorate the first recorded landing of Europeans in Australia.”