| Summary: | Manuscript nautical chart on vellum in very good condition, hand coloured and produced by the VOC. This map covering the Indian Ocean outlines the basic topography a VOC ship needed to know to transverse from the South African Cape to safely reach the Sunda Strait, a narrow passage way between Sumatra and Java. It is important to realise that the VOC cartographers issued this standardised map (along a collection of other carefully updated maps) to their sea captains prior to sailing across the Indian Ocean. The navigator would use this map as a base map and write out the course, date and bearings on its surface. Using de Graaf's 1735 map of the Indian Ocean as a base map, this map has been annotated in pencil showing a time-dated sea-track starting on February 24 [1745] from a position south of the Cape of Good Hope travelling easterly across the Indian Ocean at a constant latitude of approx. 37°S until it reached its hoped-for turning point at Amsterdam Island on May 26. The ship then changed to a northerly course and, despite much delay and buffering by strong northerly winds pushing the ship in the opposite direction south, she reached a landing in the north on what appears to be the Malabar Coast (approx. 10° latitude) on June 10.; The dates of this sea-track indicate from public records of VOC voyages at this time and place that the ship is the East Indiaman Diemermeer, its captain was Christiaan Boord, that the ship carrying 203 persons set sail from the island of Texel on July 19, 1744 and was bound for Ceylon. Further, the Dermermeer anchored at S. Tiago, Portugal from October 4-15, 1744 before arriving at the Cape of Good Hope on January 11, 1745 for relief and maintenance, having lost 5 persons on the first leg of its voyage and departed the Cape on February 9 with one person not continuing with the ship. And though the ship is shown on the map to have reached the Malabar Coast on June 10, public records show it did not reach its destination of Ceylon until August 14, 2 months later. The map also shows that it was almost one year later that this ship begins the second leg of its journey southeast, leaving Ceylon on May 6 [1746] to sail down the coast of Sumatra until it reaches the mouth of the Sunda Strait on 30 May [1746]. What happened subsequently is unclear though public records indicate that the ship left Ceylon on January 15, 1747 on its return voyage to the Netherlands after recrossing the Indian Ocean, it did not pull into Cape Hope but continued up the west coast of Africa until it sunk off the coast of Guinea.; Title proper devised by the Map Curator.; Original seller's catalogue issued as: A list of separately published maps and charts, including a journey to the East Indies : an important set of five manuscript charts of the Dutch East India Company with an introduction by Gunter Schilder. Amsterdam : Nico Israel, 1989.; Loan From the collection of Mr Kerry Stokes, AC.; Exhibited: "Mapping our World", Temporary Exhibition Gallery, National Library of Australia – 31 October 2013 – 16 February 2014. AuCNL; Exhibited: "Mapping our World : Terra incognita to Australia", National Library of Australia, Canberra, 7 November 2013 to 10 March 2014. ANL. VOC chart Title from original seller's catalogue: Map "C"
|
|---|