22 Nicolaus de Graaff
(See also items 28, 36, 39, 49, 62.) If de Graaff had written up his voyages fully, his ‘Reisen na de vier Gedeeltens des Werelds’ would have been six or seven times its length, and of quite incalculable value. Unfortunately he did not do so: in compensation he included with it a second part, the ‘Oost-Indische Spiegel’, which is invaluable for details of the organisation of the Dutch East-India Company's ships: much of it was translated with my notes in the QB for March and June 1964. Both parts were published at Hoorn in 1701, and reprinted with changes and additions in 1703, 1704; and in 1930 by the LV, with a few notes. The translations here are from the first edition: the accounts included are practically unaltered in the later editions.
Like many of the early Dutch writers, he was a ship's surgeon, taking service with the Hoorn Chamber* in 1639, and sailing in 1640, touching at the Cape and reaching Batavia in September that year. Voyages followed to Goa, Surat, Persia, the Red Sea, Japan, and with other employers to Brazil, Barbados, Cadiz, the Mediterranean, Copenhagen etc.; and as a Navy surgeon he was in the 1666 raid on the Thames.
His sixteenth voyage was again with the V.O.C., sailing from Texel in Jonge Prins on December 14, 1668.
Continuing our journey, on April the 2nd [1669] we sighted the high hills of the Cape of Good Hope, and on the 3rd [dr] anchored in the Table Bay. Here we found the yacht* Vlaardinge [arrived 2/4, dr], which had left the Fatherland three weeks before us, and three days [dr 11/4, 13/4] after our arrival there came in the ships Tarnaten, Amerongen and Kattenberg. At this time there also arrived from Ceylon the ships Brederode [dr 2/4], Nuisenburg [dr 24/3 as Nuytsen], de Koog [ditto as Cogge], and Sparendam [dr 2/4] under the command of Heer Ryklof van Goens the Younger [in Cogge]; and from Batavia the flute* Hasenburg [dr 15/4]. Having refreshed ourselves at the Cape, and provided ourselves with water and other necessities, we sailed on the 16th [dr 17/4] with the yacht Vlaarding and a hooker [dr with two hookers, Wijting, Barm] from the Maas. [Thence to Batavia and Ceylon, taking six elephants from Jaffna to Bengal. Here he made a land-excursion to Patna, and took part in a tiger-hunt before returning to Ceylon].
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