Map of Gough Island

Title Leupe: Kaartje van een nieuw gevonden Eyland op de lengte van 10 graden 24 minuten en de Zuyderbreete van 40 graden 2 minuten.

During the voyage of the outward-bound fleet of November 1656 led by Admiral Rijklof van Goens on the Orangien, at the beginning of 1657 after passing the Cart Track it proved necessary to hold a south-westerly course down to almost 41 degrees south, before at last a favourable westerly wind was found that could take the ships eastwards to the Cape. The result was that they got ‘lost in the icebergs’ (see the mention of an ijsberch, iceberg, on the map), and the crews had to endure severe cold. At this latitude, almost 3000 kilometres to the south-west of the Cape, a small island appeared that was not drawn on the maps but could have been Diego Alvarez. According to the sea-charts then in use, however, this lay at 38 degrees south, hence a good 300 kilometres further north. Van Goens, who reported on this to the Gentlemen Seventeen from the Cape in March 1657, therefore believed that this was an unknown island and sent along this sketch map in bird’s-eye perspective. After the hooker Grundel had set out from the Cape and searched in vain for Diego Alvarez at 38 degrees south in 1669, the conclusion was finally drawn that this island had indeed been sighted in 1657, and that the maps needed to be revised on this point. On Van Goens’s map the indication of ‘south’ on the left is an error, as this should be north.