Van Neck East Indies Voyage

Van NECK, Jacob Cornelisz.
Le second livre, Iournal ou comptoir. contenant le vray discours et Narration Historique [WITH] Appendice: vocabulaire des mots lavans et malayts.
Amsterdam: Coneille Nicolas, 1601.
13" x 19 1/4".
2 parts in one volume, Folio. 2 vignette title-pages illustrated with the same large engraving including an elephant, that for the Appendice with the "No. 19" additionally engraved in the image, large vignettes in the text, including maps of Mauritius, the harbour at Arosbaya, the islands of Ambon, Banda, Ternate, Gamalama, a scene including the first image of a Dodo, 16 further large vignettes, and 2 wood-cuts of nutmeg and cloves in the text; part of the top margin of the title-page excised removing 'Le second livre', one or two pale marginal stains. Modern half vellum, marbled paper boards. RARE, FIRST FRENCH EDITION of the account of the second Dutch Voyage to the East Indies, first published in Amsterdam in 1600, with an additional five plates and two woodcuts. Published only two years before the establishment of the Dutch East India Company, it is a curious mixture of "travel narrative and trade investment brochure" (NMMG). When Cornelis de Houtman returned home to the Netherlands in mid-January of 1597 after a successful voyage around the Cape of Good Hope into the Indian Ocean and back, the effect was dramatic and world changing, resulting in the opening of the spice rich East Indies to the Dutch spirit of enterprise, not to mention the filling of Dutch coffers. New fleets destined for the East Indies were immediately equipped. "The most important of these was the squadron consisting of eight ships under the command of Admiral Jacob Cornelisz van Neck and Vice-Admiral Wijbrant van Warwijck". After being caught in a heavy storm, Van Neck was separated from the fleet and they were not reunited until December of 1598 in Bantam, Java. During this time Van Warwijck continued the trip to Bantam independently. He undertook a further exploration of the island of Do Cirne, an uninhabited island that had already been discovered by the Portuguese and which was named Mauritius by the Dutch [in honour of Maurice van Nassau, Prince of Orange]. Commercially, Van Neck had more success than his predecessor. After he succeeded in purchasing enough spices to fill four ships, he returned to Holland yielding profits 3 times that of the voyage s costs. REFERENCES: National Maritime Museum at Greenwich; European Americana.