Caert van't Landt van d'Eendracht ("Chart of the Land of Eendracht") is a 1627 map by
Hessel GerritszHessel 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
AustraliaAustralia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the continental mainland , the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans...
, it shows what little was then known of the west coast, based on a number of voyages beginning with the 1616 voyage of
Dirk HartogDirk Hartog was a 17th century Dutch sailor and explorer. Dirk Hartog's expedition was the second European group to land on Australian soil. He left behind an artefact to record his visit, the Hartog plate. His name is sometimes alternately spelled Dirk Hartog, Dirck Hartog or Dirch Hartichs...
.
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 RiverAshburton River may refer to:*Ashburton River, New Zealand*Ashburton River...
.
In the bottom left corner is a feature labelled
Hier ist Engels schip de Trial vergaen in Iunias, A° 1622 ("Here the English ship
TrialThe 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 RocksTryal 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 HartogDirk Hartog was a 17th century Dutch sailor and explorer. Dirk Hartog's expedition was the second European group to land on Australian soil. He left behind an artefact to record his visit, the Hartog plate. His name is sometimes alternately spelled Dirk Hartog, Dirck Hartog or Dirch Hartichs...
of the Eendrachtthumb|right|Satellite image of the Scheldt delta, showing the Eendracht and the Krabbenkreek estuary .The Eendracht is a former tidal branch of river Scheldt that has been channelised to form the northern stretch of the Scheldt-Rhine Canal...
in October 1616").
The middle third of the map has two main features. One, labelled Fr. Houtman's abrolhos
, shows the archipelagoAn archipelago is a chain or cluster of islands that are formed tectonically. The word archipelago is directly derived from the Greek arkhon and pelagos...
discovered by Frederick de HoutmanFrederick de Houtman , or Frederik de Houtman, was a Dutch explorer who sailed along the Western coast of Australia en route to Batavia.-Biography:Frederick de Houtman was born in 1571 in Gouda, Holland, Seventeen Provinces....
in 1619, and now known as the Houtman AbrolhosThe 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 ShoalTurtle 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 BataviaBatavia is the Latin name for the land of the Batavians during Roman times. This was roughly the area around the city of Nijmegen within the Roman Empire. The remainder of this land is nowadays known as Betuwe. During the Renaissance, Dutch historians tried to promote these Batavians to the status...
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 LeeuwinLeeuwin 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 BayHamelin is used in a number of place names:*Hamelin Bay, Western Australia, in the south west of Western Australia, adjacent to Karridale.*Hamelin Pool, in Shark Bay, Western Australia.*Hamelin Station, on the shores of Shark Bay....
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 bookA log book can be:* A truck driver's log book* An inventor's notebook* A ship's log* A race car log book* A car/truck ownership document in the UK, Ireland and Australia* Log Book , an episode of Code Lyoko* A book of log tables...
is lost, and very little is known of this ship's voyage, other than what is revealed by this map.