Important eye-witness acount of Java. First Latin edition of this important account of Cornelius Houtman's voyage, the first Dutch voyage to the East Indies, extensively illustrated with more than forty-eight illustrations of the geography, native life and natural history of primarily Java and Bali. According to Lach, this work 'provided European readers with the most detailed descriptions of Java to date and with the first continuous description of Bali in any language' (III.1.439).

In 1598, the year after Houtman's return, Lodewyckszoon's account of the voyage instigated 'a flurry of activity among Dutch entrepreneurs' and no fewer than twenty-five ships set out from two provinces of Holland to the East Indies. Within a period of eighteen months, the Dutch had established three factories in the Indies which became the foundation of their future control of the Moluccan spice trade and provided a foothold from which to launch further voyages eastward.

This first Dutch venture to the East Indies was instigated by Linschoten's Itineraria. Following Linschoten's advice, de Houtman's route took them across the Indian Ocean from Madagascar to the Sunda Straits. On the way, he stopped at Sumatra, engaged in trading operations in Bantam, and made a number of further stops on the northern coast of Java. Of the contemporary accounts of the voyage, Lach singles out that by Lodewyckszoon for containing the most descriptive detail, and emphasizes the importance of the 'first eyewitness account of growing pepper and of coconut palms, along with descriptions of the people and other sights on the west coast of Sumatra' (p438). The material on Java is very important, with an ethnographical description a modern anthropologist would be proud of: there is an account of the institution of polygamy, a detailed description of a Javan wedding, music, dance, the writing system, language etc.

Lodewyckszoon's coastline sketches are accurate and were employed by later Dutch travellers, and if the plates contain an element of fancifulness, it should nevertheless be emphasized that these were among the earliest visual impressions formed by Europeans of this part of the world (Lach reproduces no less than a dozen). Some of the more interesting depict the merchants in Bantam (Peguan, Persian, Arab and Chinese), a Chinese shrine in Bantam, the King of Bali in his ox-drawn chariot, a Javanese gong orchestra and a troupe of Javanese dancers. Little is known about the author, a Dutch commercial traveller who sailed in the expedition on board the Mauritius. The work appeared the same year in Dutch and French from the same publisher and went through a number of later editions, but the universality of this Latin edition gave Lodewayckszoon's account its widest possible readership.

First Latin edition, folio (31.5 x 24 cms approx.), 51ff., including engraved title, 48 ½- or ¾-page engraved plates (of which 5 are maps), including the folding plate of the Bazaar, several woodcuts (some full-page), old stamps to title, modern calf-backed old marbled boards, vellum tips, a very good, well-margined copy.