Caert van't Landt van d'Eendracht
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Hessel Gerritsz
Hessel Gerritsz was a Dutch engraver, cartographer and publisher. Despite strong competition, he is considered by some “unquestionably the chief Dutch cartographer of the 17th century”...
. One of the earliest maps of Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, it shows what little was then known of the west coast, based on a number of voyages beginning with the 1616 voyage of Dirk Hartog
Dirk Hartog
Dirk Hartog was a 17th century Dutch sailor and explorer. Dirk Hartog's expedition was the third European group to land on Australian soil. He was the first to leave behind an artifact to record his visit, the Hartog plate. His name is sometimes alternatively spelled Dirck Hartog or Dierick...
. The region was then named Eendrachtsland, but subsequently re-named Dirk Hartog Island
Dirk Hartog Island
Dirk Hartog Island is an island off the Gascoyne coast of Western Australia, within the Shark Bay World Heritage Area. It is about 80 kilometres long and between 3 and 15 kilometres wide and is Western Australia's largest and most western island. It covers an area of 620 square kilometres and is...
, and lies in the state of Western Australia
Western Australia
Western Australia is a state of Australia, occupying the entire western third of the Australian continent. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Great Australian Bight and Indian Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east and South Australia to the south-east...
.
The map is oriented with north roughly to the left. The top left of the map shows a river labelled Willems revier, besocht by 't volck van 't Schip Mauritius in Iulius A° 1618 ("Willem's River, visited by the crew of the ship Mauritius in July 1618"). The identity of this river, now referred to as Willem River, is unknown; it is possibly the Ashburton River
Ashburton River (Western Australia)
The Ashburton River is located within the Pilbara region of Western Australia. The river rises approximately 100 km south of Newman and flows in a west north westerly direction until discharging into the Indian Ocean approximately 20 km south west of Onslow. The river crosses the North...
.
In the bottom left corner is a feature labelled Hier ist Engels schip de Trial vergaen in Iunias, A° 1622 ("Here the English ship Trial
Tryall
The Tryall was a British East India Company owned East Indiaman of approximately 500 tons. She was under the command of John Brooke when she was wrecked on the Tryal Rocks off the north-west coast of Western Australia in 1622...
was wrecked in June 1622"). This is possibly the first appearance on a map of the Tryal Rocks
Tryal Rocks
Tryal Rocks, sometimes spelled Trial Rocks or Tryall Rocks, formerly known as Ritchie's Reef or the Greyhound's Shoal, is a reef of rock located in the Indian Ocean off the northwest coast of Australia, about 16 kilometres northwest of the outer edge of the Montebello Islands group...
, the identity of which was not determined until the 1960s.
Other than these two features, the leftmost third of the map shows only a fairly straight, featureless coastline, labelled T Landt van de Eendracht, opghedaen by Dirck Hartogs met 't Schip d'Eendracht in October A° 1616 ("The Land of Eendracht", discovered by Dirk Hartog
Dirk Hartog
Dirk Hartog was a 17th century Dutch sailor and explorer. Dirk Hartog's expedition was the third European group to land on Australian soil. He was the first to leave behind an artifact to record his visit, the Hartog plate. His name is sometimes alternatively spelled Dirck Hartog or Dierick...
of the Eendracht
Eendracht
The Eendracht is a former tidal branch of river Scheldt that has been channelised to form the northern stretch of the Scheldt-Rhine Canal. It flows from the Markiezaatsmeer lake near Bergen op Zoom past the town and eponymous island of Tholen towards the former island of Sint-Philipsland, where it...
in October 1616").
The middle third of the map has two main features. One, labelled Fr. Houtman's abrolhos, shows the archipelago
Archipelago
An archipelago , sometimes called an island group, is a chain or cluster of islands. The word archipelago is derived from the Greek ἄρχι- – arkhi- and πέλαγος – pélagos through the Italian arcipelago...
discovered by Frederick de Houtman
Frederick de Houtman
Frederick de Houtman , or Frederik de Houtman, was a Dutch explorer who sailed along the Western coast of Australia en route to Batavia.-Biography:...
in 1619, and now known as the Houtman Abrolhos
Houtman Abrolhos
The Houtman Abrolhos is a chain of 122 islands, and associated coral reefs, in the Indian Ocean off the west coast of Australia. Nominally located at , it lies about eighty kilometres west of Geraldton, Western Australia...
. Although this map was not the first to show the Houtman Abrolhos, it represents the earliest known publication of the name.
The other feature, labelled Tortelduyff ("Turtledove"), lies slightly to the south (that is, to the right) of the Houtman Abrolhos. Now known as Turtle Dove Shoal
Turtle Dove Shoal
Turtle Dove Shoal is a dangerous shoal about three kilometres wide, located at , in the Indian Ocean about fifty kilometres south of the Houtman Abrolhos, off the coast of Western Australia....
, the name is thought to signify that the shoal was first discovered by the ship Tortelduif, which is recorded as having arrived at Batavia, Dutch East Indies on 21 June 1623. Gerritsz's 1627 Caert is the earliest known map to show this feature.
The rightmost third of the map shows a section of coastline labelled 't Landt van de Leeuwin beseylt A° 1622 in Maert. ("Land made by the ship Leeuwin
Leeuwin (galleon)
Leeuwin was a Dutch galleon that discovered and mapped some of the southwest corner of Australia in March 1622. In this way it became only the seventh European ship to sight the continent....
in March 1622.") This is thought to represent the coast between present-day Hamelin Bay
Hamelin Bay, Western Australia
Hamelin Bay is a bay and a locality on the south west coast of Western Australia between Cape Leeuwin and Cape Naturaliste. It is named after French explorer Jacques Félix Emmanuel Hamelin who sailed through the area in about 1801...
and Point D’Entrecasteaux. Portions of this coastline are labelled Duynich landt boven met boomen ende boseage ("Dunes with trees and underwood at top"), Laegh ghelijck verdroncken landt ("Low land seemingly submerged") and Laegh duynich landt ("Low land with dunes"). This section of coastline is significant because the Leeuwin's log book is lost, and very little is known of this ship's voyage, other than what is revealed by this map.