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Cape Horn and the Hoorn Islands: the voyage of Schouten and Le Maire, 1615–1617

Willem Schouten, who was born in Hoorn, sailed with Jacob Le Maire from Texel in 1615, passed the southern tip of South America and crossed the Pacific. This page follows the route in nine steps, each with its date and the source of that date, and says what we do not know.

The route

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Map: Natural Earth (public domain)

The line is schematic; only the numbered dots are steps with a source. The way home (lighter line) is drawn by the usual route round the Cape of Good Hope.

Who and what

  • The voyage was prepared by the Australian Company of Isaac Le Maire. Jacob Le Maire sailed as chief merchant (opper-coopman), and Willem Cornelisz. Schouten as skipper (schipper). [2], [3], [4]
  • Schouten was born in Hoorn. He had sailed to the East Indies before, in 1601–1604, under Wolfert Harmensz. [4], [5]

1. Texel, June 14, 1615

  • Two ships left Texel on June 14, 1615: the Eendracht (360 tons, captain Willem Schouten) and the yacht Hoorn (110 tons, captain Jan Cornelisz. Schouten, his brother). [1]

2. Port Desire, December 19, 1615

  • In December 1615 the ships lay at Port Desire (Puerto Deseado) in Patagonia. The plate in the printed journal (the edition of 1648 that we read) shows the ships being cleaned there and the legend says “our yacht burned”. [2]
  • The yacht Hoorn burned at Port Desire on December 19, 1615. [1]

3. Cape Horn, 29–January 31, 1616

  • According to the journal of Le Maire, as the 1945 editors report it, the southernmost cape of South America was rounded successfully on January 29, 1616. It was named “Kaap Hoorn”, and the Pacific was reached. [3]
  • The journal for January 1616 speaks of “a sharp corner which we named the Cape of Hoorn”, at 57°48′ south. On January 31 it says they had passed the Cape of Hoorn. [2]
  • The map in the printed journal is headed “by Willem Schouten of Hoorn” and names the cape “Caep Hoorn”. [2]

4. Le Maire Strait, January 24 and February 12, 1616

  • On January 24, 1616, sailing south-east along Tierra del Fuego, the president (Le Maire) feared that the coast ran on far to the east; later that day the sea strait was found. The translator of the 1906 edition of the Spiegel also gives January 24 as the day the expedition entered the new channel. [3], [8]
  • On February 12, 1616 the crew was given a double ration of wine, because the Strait of Magellan lay behind them. The council gave the new passage the name Strate le Maire at the request of the chief merchant, “although it might with more right have been called the Strait of Willem Schouten”. [2]

5. Cocos, Traitors and Good Hope islands, 11–May 14, 1616

  • On May 11, 1616 they reached Cocos Island. The Traitors’ Island (Verraders Eylandt) was named after the men who attacked them there, and on May 14 they reached the island of Good Hope. [2]

6. The Hoorn Islands, from about May 19, 1616

  • From about May 19 until the beginning of June 1616 they were at and near two islands. About twenty canoes came out on May 21, they landed on May 22, and the title page of the print names the islands “Hoornse Eylanden”. [2]
  • On May 18, 1616 the decision was taken to steer more to the north, towards the east end of New Guinea. On the way the island of Good Hope and the Hoorn Islands were found, and Le Maire gave both names. At the Hoorn Islands the journal of Le Maire says that the skipper declared he had now found Terra Australis; the printed journal has no such remark. [3]
  • In the Australian Navigations (Spiegel der Australische Navigatie) the writer says: “On leaving we gave these islands the name of the Hoorn Islands, after our native town of Hoorn, and the bay in which we had lain that of Eendrachts Bay, after our ship.” [8]

7. Ternate, September 1616

  • The Eendracht reached Ternate in the Moluccas on September 17, 1616. The governor-general there, Reael, did not allow Le Maire to trade in the East Indies; fifteen men of the Eendracht entered the Company’s service, and on September 26 the ship sailed on. [1], [3]

8. Jacatra, October 29 and November 2, 1616

  • The Eendracht reached Jacatra (later Batavia) on October 29, 1616; the next day Jan Pietersz. Coen arrived. [3], [6], [7]
  • On November 2, 1616 Coen put the matter to his council. Le Maire and some of his officers were summoned and told that the Eendracht, with everything on board and all the ship’s papers, was seized. The crew could choose between entering the Company’s service and being taken home on the Company’s ships. Le Maire protested and was told that he would find justice in Holland. [3]
  • In a letter of November 7, 1616 Coen wrote that the directors had their reasons for the order, “but there are many reasons against it”; since they had taken it upon themselves, the dispute was theirs. [3]
  • The Eendracht was taken into the Company’s service as the Zuyder Eendracht. It capsized off Bantam in May 1620 and was burned. [3]

9. The way home, to Zeeland, July 1, 1617

  • About mid-December 1616 the crew left Bantam in two ships of the fleet of Joris van Spilbergen, by the usual route round the Cape of Good Hope: Jacob and Daniël Le Maire and Schouten, with ten others, on the Amsterdam, and the rest on the Zeeland. [3]
  • Jacob Le Maire died at sea on the way, aged 31. The Spieghel der Australische Navigatie gives December 31, 1616; the journal of Van Spilbergen’s voyage dates it December 22. [3]
  • The two ships reached a Zeeland harbor on July 1, 1617. The Spieghel says July 2, which the editors correct to July 1. The 1927 dictionary says Schouten arrived safely in July 1617. [3], [4]
  • Schouten later sailed to the East Indies again and died in 1625 in Antongil Bay, on Madagascar. [4], [5]

A reworked journal

  • According to the 1927 dictionary, Le Maire’s ship’s journal fell into the hands of the Company at Jacatra and was sent to Holland. A printer published it so changed that Le Maire was pushed to the background, and Schouten admitted that the writing had not come from him. That is why the voyage is so often called the voyage “of Schouten and Le Maire”. [4]
  • The 1945 edition of the Linschoten-Vereeniging compares Le Maire’s journal with the journal attributed to Willem Cornelisz. Schouten that Blaeu published, in its second chapter. [3]

What we do not know

  • Why the cape is called Hoorn: the journal gives no reason on the pages we read. It may be the town (Schouten’s birthplace) or the yacht that burned in December 1615.
  • Which islands they were: the identification of Cocos, Traitors’ and Good Hope islands as Tafahi, Niuatoputapu and Niuafo’ou, and of the Hoorn Islands as Futuna and Alofi, comes from secondary sources and is our inference; the map uses it.
  • The days in the Pacific: the printed journal (edition of 1648: Cocos May 11, Good Hope May 14, the Hoorn Islands from about May 19), the 1906 translation of the Spiegel (Cocos in April, events at the Hoorn Islands dated up to May 12) and the 1945 editors (a change of course on May 18, the Hoorn Islands “recently found” on June 2) do not agree. We show the dates of the printed journal and the 1945 editors’ frame, and say so. The day they left the Hoorn Islands is not given.
  • The days at Jacatra: the journal of Spilbergen’s voyage, in the 1906 translation, says the Eendracht arrived on October 20 and that Coen summoned the crew on November 1, and calls the ship “of Hoorn”; the 1945 editors give October 29 and November 2, citing the Company’s records. We follow the 1945 edition and MaSS. We found no other source for the ship being “of Hoorn”.
  • The number of men at departure (87 in one list) we did not find in a source.
  • The lawsuit of Isaac Le Maire against the Company: the translator of the 1906 edition writes that the Hoge Raad, after two years of litigation, recognized the rights of Jacob Le Maire and his companions and ordered the Company to return the ship and cargo and to pay costs; he gives no year, and secondary sources say 1619 or 1622. The 1945 edition treats it in its third chapter, from about page 70 on; we did not read it.
  • What the ships sailed between the steps: the line on the map is schematic.

Noah’s Ark in the southern sky

  • In 1627 Julius Schiller published in Augsburg the Coelum stellatum christianum, an atlas in which he replaced the pagan constellations with Christian counterparts; for the Ship of the Argonauts (Argo Navis) he used the Ark of Noah. [9]
  • Andreas Cellarius included Schiller’s Christian sky in the Harmonia Macrocosmica, in two hemispheres (plates 22 and 23). The Ark stands on plate 22, Coeli Stellati Christiani Haemisphaerium Prius, at lower left, with the label “Arca Noë, Al. Argo Navis” (“Noah’s Ark, otherwise Argo Navis”). [10]

Our own calculation, not from a source: at 55.98° south, the latitude of Cape Horn, every star with a declination south of −34.0° never sets. That includes Canopus, the brightest star of Argo Navis, at about −52.7°. From the cape, the stars of the ship that Schiller turned into the Ark circle the south pole without setting.

Argo Navis is no longer a constellation: in 1756 Lacaille divided it into Carina, Puppis and Vela in his catalogue of the southern stars (his complete catalogue, Coelum Australe Stelliferum, followed in 1763). The source is our page on Argo Navis, linked below.

Schouten in Bontekoe’s journal

Willem Cornelisz. Schouten, the man of Cape Horn, also appears in the journal of his fellow townsman Willem Bontekoe: Bontekoe recognized Java from Schouten’s story of two high blue mountains, and the journal ends with Schouten’s death on Madagascar in 1625.

Sources

  1. Huygens ING, Dutch Asiatic Shipping (DAS): entries 0196.1 (Eendracht) and 0197.1 (Hoorn) We read the entries: the Eendracht, 360 tons, Willem Schouten, from Texel on June 14, 1615 and at Ternate on September 17, 1616; the yacht Hoorn, 110 tons, Jan Cornelisz. Schouten, burned at Port Desire on December 19, 1615. The terms of use of the database were not established.
  2. Iournael ofte beschrijvinghe van de wonderlijcke reyse (edition of Isaac Willemsz., 1648; the first edition is of 1618), scan of the John Carter Brown Library at the Internet Archive We read the scan of the 1648 edition, whose side notes give dates from June 1615 to July 1617, as images, not the text layer, and only one reader did so; there was no second reader. We did not see the first edition of 1618. The leaves (fol. 13, 17, 18, 26 to 36) are recorded in our documentation, so another reader can check them. The text is a printer’s reworking, see the box.
  3. De ontdekkingsreis van Jacob le Maire en Willem Cornelisz. Schouten in de jaren 1615–1617, Linschoten-Vereeniging, vol. XLIX, second part (The Hague 1945), pp. 66–69 We read these pages and the table of contents as page images in the collection of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek. The terms of use are with the Koninklijke Bibliotheek and the Linschoten-Vereeniging; we did not copy the images.
  4. Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek, vol. 7 (1927): the entry “Schouten, Willem Cornelisz.” (DBNL) Its references include Bakhuizen van den Brink on Isaac Le Maire and De Boer’s Van oude voyagiën. We did not read those.
  5. A.J. van der Aa, Biographisch woordenboek der Nederlanden, vol. 17 (1874): the entry on Willem Cornelisz. Schouten (DBNL) It lists the editions of the journal and names Schouten’s death in Antongil Bay in 1625.
  6. Atlas of Mutual Heritage: “The expedition around of the world of Willem Schouten and Jacob le Maire” The page says they reached Jacatra in October 1616 and that Coen declared they had violated the Company’s monopoly and seized the Eendracht despite Le Maire’s protests. It gives no licence note and no sources for its own text.
  7. Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed, MaSS: Eendracht The page gives October 29, 1616 for the arrival and says the ship, cargo and charts were seized; it refers to the same 1945 edition and to Colenbrander’s Coen edition (1919).
  8. The East and West Indian Mirror, Hakluyt Society (London 1906), translated by J.A.J. de Villiers: Spilbergen’s Journal and the Australian Navigations of Jacob Le Maire. Scan of the University of Toronto, Internet Archive We read the introduction (pp. xliv–xlvii), Spilbergen’s Journal (pp. 151, 163–164) and the Australian Navigations (pp. 205–214) in the full text. The scan carries no licence or usage statement; the Internet Archive marks the book as not in copyright. Google’s scan of the same book asks for non-commercial use and its watermark, so we used the Toronto scan.
  9. Linda Hall Library, Out of This World: Schiller, Coelum stellatum christianum (Augsburg 1627), exhibition page The page names Schiller and the engraver Lucas Kilian, says that Schiller replaced all the pagan constellations with Christian counterparts, and that he used the Ark of Noah for the Ship of the Argonauts (plate caption “Noah’s Ark [Argo]”). It does not mention Cellarius. The images are the library’s; we did not use them.
  10. Andreas Cellarius, Harmonia Macrocosmica, plate 22: Coeli Stellati Christiani Haemisphaerium Prius, file on Wikimedia Commons We read the label “Arca Noë, Al. Argo Navis” on the plate itself, in the scan the site already shows on the Harmonia Macrocosmica page (public domain).

Every statement above carries the number of its source. Read on October 25, 2026. What we could not confirm in a source is left out.

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