Journal
Bontekoe might have been forgotten had he not written his journal (see above). This book is about his voyage with the Nieuw Hoorn, the shipwreck, the adventurous voyage to Java in lifeboats, and his subsequent years of service in East Asia. It is illustrated with etchings, and was a bestseller in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Bontekoe set out from Texel on December 28, 1618 as skipper of the Nieuw Hoorn ("New Hoorn"), an East Indiaman (i.e. an armed merchant ship). His destination was the town of Bantam on Java. The merchant Hein Rol had formally the upper command.
After passing the coast of Brazil, at the end of May 1619 the ship passed Cape Hope, where it did not stop due to the weather. Instead it stayed for 21 days in Réunion and 9 days at Île Sainte-Marie near the coast of Madagascar. It departed from there on 8 September. The ship sailed alone through the Indian Ocean. Until then, of the 216 crew members 17 had died, so there were 199.
A fire, caused by a shipmate accidentally setting fire to a cask of brandy, caused the gunpowder magazine to explode and sink the ship. Of the 119 still on the ship only two survived, including Bontekoe, but he was wounded. There were 70 in two lifeboats, so 72 survived. They continued in the two boats; later they went on together in one. Sails were made from the shirts of the crew. They were hungry and thirsty; some drank seawater or urine. Bontekoe did the latter too, until it became too concentrated. Sometimes there was relief by being able to catch birds and flying fish, and by rain supplying drinking water. The hunger became so severe again that the crew decided to soon kill the ship boys. Bontekoe writes that he was against that, and that they agreed that they would wait three more days. Just in time, 13 days after the ship wreck, they reached land where they could eat coconuts. It was an island in the Sunda Strait, 15 miles off Sumatra.
They went on to Sumatra, where they encountered locals from whom they could first buy food, but who later attacked them. Eleven crew members were killed, and four had to be abandoned; they had probably also been killed.
The 57 survivors encountered a Dutch fleet of 23 ships near Java under the command of Frederik de Houtman, which saved them from going to the now hostile Bantam. Divided over the ships they reached Batavia on Java, where Bontekoe and Rol were received by Jan Pieterszoon Coen, who gave Bontekoe a new command and an order to harass the Chinese coast.
Read more about this topic: Willem Ysbrandtsz. Bontekoe
Famous quotes containing the word journal:
“The Journal is not essentially a confession, a story about oneself. It is a Memorial. What does the writer have to remember? Himself, who he is when he is not writing, when he is living his daily life, when he alive and real, and not dying and without truth.”
—Maurice Blanchot (b. 1907)
“After the writer’s death, reading his journal is like receiving a long letter.”
—Jean Cocteau (1889–1963)
“What the Journal posits is not the tragic question, the Madman’s question: “Who am I?”, but the comic question, the Bewildered Man’s question: “Am I?” A comic—a comedian, that’s what the Journal keeper is.”
—Roland Barthes (1915–1980)