Included in the current Rare Books Fair, Melbourne , is the circa 1663, illustrated account of the wreck of the Dutch vessel Batavia , and the terrible events that transpired.
The book , by the ship's skipper, Captain Francois Pelsaert , at $55,000, is just one of the many fabulous items , including artworks, photographs and manuscripts, being offered by Douglas Stewart Fine Books, Melbourne.
During its 1629 maiden voyage from the Netherlands to Batavia , Java, with more than 300 passengers , mainly settlers , merchants and their families, the vessel came to grief on Morning Reef , in the Abrolhos Islands , off the West Australian coast.
Forty drowned trying to reach shore. Survivors were grouped on two small desolate islands.
Pelsaert and a small group then set out in a sailboat along the WA coastline north across the Indian Ocean, to the settlement of Batavia. There he was given a vessel by the governor to sail back and rescue survivors two months later.
However, upon arrival he was confronted by the horrific discovery that a brutal and sustained massacre had taken place under the authority of Jeronimus Comelisz, the apothecary he had left in charge.
With a band of "mutineers", he had imposed a reign of terror in which more than 110 men women and children were massacred. Women had been subjected to sexual slavery .
Comelisz was seized by soldiers . Before being hanged , his arms were amputated by hammer and chisel , depicted in one of the book copperplates . Others in his group were quickly tried, tortured and hanged.
Two offenders, Wouter Loos , and a cabin boy ,Jan Pelgrom de By, were left as castaways on the Australian coast and were never heard of again .
The book once belonged to journalist Jan Francois Balbian Vester (l961-l990) an historian of the Dutch East Indies. There is a bookplate of his on the front free endpaper.
Less bloodthirsty is the London 1829 rendition of an Australian Gang-gang Cockatoo , by Thomas Lewin (1774-l840), member of a prominent family of ornithologists who wrote about birds in New Holland and Britain.
It is for sale at $65,000 . Information supplied by Douglas Stewart Books states the first Gang-gang sighting by Euopeans was made in 1801 and it was probably shot.
(Books. Shipwreck. Birds.)
