Lands of Red and Gold #32: The First Seeds
“Satisfaction comes from doing the proper works of a man.”
- Plirite maxim
“A man’s worth is no greater than the sum of his ambitions and his balance.”
- Nangu saying
* * *
Werringi, or so his parents named him. One man among many born to the Wolalta bloodline, which itself was one bloodline among many which vied for wealth and pride in the endless struggle of the Nangu.
Werringi would make a name for himself, though, as a sailor and as a trading captain. And, in time, much more. Before he breathed his last on this mortal world, where according to his devoutly held Plirite beliefs he would in time be reborn according to the balance of his own actions and the ripples in the wider cosmos, he had earned another epithet.
Kumgatu, he would later be called, a name which meant “the Bold”. Awarded for the deeds he performed during his life – one in particular – it was the name by which he would be known in Aururia and, afterward, elsewhere.
* * *
April 1630
Inner Sea, Southeast of Quamba [Mackay, Queensland]
Stillness surrounded the Dawn Seeker; cloudless, almost windless sky above, and still, deep water below, so clear that it seemed as if the boat itself was floating in the sky.
“Perfect weather,” Ouraidai said, from his place beside the steering oar. The same thing he usually said whenever he took the Dawn Seeker out to dive for coral. Of course, if it had not been a perfect day, Ouraidai would not have brought the twin-hulled vessel out of Quamba.
Quailoi approved of that caution, naturally; Ouraidai had been his Elder Brother [1], and taught him so much of what it meant to be a man, including the need for prudence. Even now that Quailoi had married, the two men remained firm friends, and worked the Inner Sea together. Quailoi worked as the coral diver; Ouraidai now deemed himself too old for that kind of work, and steered the boat, watched the rope and helped from the surface.
Ouraidai had steered the Dawn Seeker to the right location; a place where the water was shallow enough to let them see down to the sea floor below, but still deep enough to yield a particularly prized kind of scarlet coral. Any fool could harvest coral from the reefs which marked the boundary of the Inner Sea; finding a valuable sort in the depths was another matter entirely.
Quailoi took his position on the poles which joined the Dawn Seeker’s two hulls together, and secured the rope to the poles in preparation to dive. Before he could enter the water, though, Ouraidai called out for him to wait.
Quailoi followed the other man’s outstretched finger. Boats had appeared to the south. Three boats with sails of a proper triangular shape but with sails dyed a most peculiar shade of teal that nearly blended into the sea and sky. Doubtless that was why they had not noticed the boats before.
“Have you ever seen boats with sails like that ?” Quailoi asked. It was a proper question to ask an Elder Brother; for a moment, it felt as if he was back in his youth, seeking guidance.
“No. What proper Kiyungu would waste good dyes on a sail?” Ouraidai said. “Especially such an inauspicious colour.”
Quailoi nodded. Sometimes Kiyungu from the southern cities were strange, but surely not so foolish as that. Still... “Yet who else sails the Inner Sea?”
“None that I know of,” Ouraidai said. “Head-taking Daluming raiding the League cities in the south, yes. But I’ve never heard of them coming this far, and they prefer to strike by land anyway.”
Quailoi could only agree. The Daluming could not be here, and no-one else could sail on the Inner Sea. To the north lay only barbarians who knew not how to farm; better to look for wombats to fly than for them to build boats with sails, let alone ones touched by dyes. But who did that leave? “Is there anyone else who might sail so far?”
Ouraidai did not answer immediately; doubtless considering the question.
While the other man thought, Quailoi looked at the boats again, and realised that they had sailed noticeably closer. Fast movement for ships in such a mild breeze; their sails must truly catch the wind.
Now that the ships were closer, he saw more about them. They were double-hulled, like all decent boats, and large enough to carry several men. The sails were not just dyed teal, either. Each of them had a large hollow circle in the centre, dyed a brilliant yellow.
“That pattern is to identify the ship,” Quailoi said. “It must be. The colours are to announce who the ships belong to. Like a banner, but without needing to attach it separately.”
“It could be,” Ouraidai said. “Doesn’t tell us who they are though. Maybe, just maybe, they’re Maori from Aotearoa. They’d be from a long way away, but the Maori are said to sail to south of Daluming. Maybe they’ve decided to come further north.”
Quailoi looked south again, to where the ships had come noticeably closer. They were truly moving quickly, even with the poor wind. “Well, we’ll soon find out.”
* * *
By 1629, Werringi had earned his path to the second-most senior trading captain of the Wolalta bloodline. His main voyages were to the eastern seaboard of Aururia, to what the Nangu called the Spice Coast, for the much-valued lemon and cinnamon verbena and other spices grown there. His main destination had been the caste-ridden, inward-looking Patjimunra city-states [Hunter Valley, New South Wales], but he had visited further north, too.
In 1629, he found a new inspiration: to discover the homeland of the Raw Men who had come to visit the Atjuntja in the west. These Raw Men had made one brief visit to the Island in 1626, but now seemed to have spurned any further contact.
Werringi decided that if the Raw Men would not come to the Island, then he would go to them. He had recognised that the Raw Men sailed north from Atjuntja lands, and knew that when they had visited the Island, they had continued east to visit the Cider Isle [Tasmania], and had then apparently turned north. So he reached the somewhat incorrect conclusion that the best way to reach the Raw Men’s homeland was to sail north along the Spice Coast and then on to unknown regions northward, turning west at some undiscovered point to sail west to the Raw Men’s homeland.
Organising the voyage took several months, as Werringi sought to persuade other captains to join him, to find out what tales he could from people who had sailed north (or who claimed they had sailed north), gather provisions, and choose the most suitable ships.
While as a senior captain he had a great-ship to command, Werringi chose to yield that ship and use a smaller vessel. Nangu great-ships could carry more cargo than any other ship, but they had a deeper draft and could not be pulled ashore on a beach at need, unlike the smaller Nangu trading ships. Given the risks and hazards of exploring such completely unknown waters, Werringi preferred to use a vessel which could land without needing a port.
In time, Werringi persuaded two other Wolalta captains to join his voyage, and prevailed upon the Wolalta elder to promote another would-be captain to command of his own vessel. So, on what another calendar would call 14 February 1630, he set out from the Island, leading an expedition of four ships.
The first part of the voyage was rapid, as Werringi guided his fleet through the familiar waters of the Narrow Sea [Bass Strait] and then north to the Spice Coast. The fleet resupplied at the Patjimunra city-state of Torimi [Port Stephens, NSW], a destination which Werringi had visited many times before, and which usually represented the northernmost limit of Nangu voyages.
After leaving the Patjimunra, the expeditions proceeded north more cautiously. Werringi intended not just to reach the Raw Men’s homeland, but also to obtain a very detailed knowledge of the journey. After passing the Patjimunra lands, he started to chart the coastline, recording the general shape and key features, and keeping written records of the important events and what he and his crew had seen, including the shifts in the stars.
The expedition visited Yuragir [Coffs Harbour], the capital of Daluming. Werringi had been to the kingdom before, but never as far north as the capital city. Here, he hoped to find out what the Bungudjimay knew about the geography and peoples further north.
Instead, he experienced his first major misfortune. Due to a misunderstanding over cultural expectations [2], the Nangu sailors were challenged by a group of Bungudjimay warriors, and fled for their lives. Werringi himself narrowly escaped capture, but several of the sailors died, and Bungudjimay warriors boarded the last Nangu ship as it left shore. With a fight raging, the Nangu sailors fired their ship and abandoned it for the waves, swimming to the other ships and leaving the armoured warriors the choice of burning to death or drowning.
After this escape, Werringi was careful not to land anywhere else in Daluming, although he maintained his careful charting of the coast. When he reached the Kiyungu lands of the Coral Coast [3], though, he found a much warmer welcome. Never any friends of Daluming, the southerly Kiyungu city-states had established a loose alliance to defend against raids from Daluming, and, in another form, proselytisation from the Yalatji people in the interior, who were increasingly strident advocates of the Tjarrling faith [4].
The southern Kiyungu gave Werringi’s expedition a friendly reception, particularly the Kiyungu women, and this delayed the voyage for several days while the two peoples interacted. Werringi tolerated the delay because it served several purposes. It boosted the morale of his sailors, it let them learn the basics of a language which some of the other peoples further north might also understand, and it let him and his fellow captains find out what the southern Kiyungu knew about the world further north.
After leaving the southern Kiyungu, the expedition passed west of Heaven of Sand [Fraser Island] and entered the Inner Sea. Here, they faced a new danger: coral reefs. They had been given sketchy descriptions of the region by the southern Kiyungu, and the reefs had been the feature which had most impressed Werringi. He ordered that their ships sail only during daylight and near low tide, so that they had the best chance to see any reefs, and if they did strike one, they could be carried off it by the rising tide.
With these instructions, progress was slow within the Inner Sea, but much safer than could have been otherwise. The expedition made contact with some of the northern Kiyungu towns, including their northernmost major city at Quamba. These contacts were equally friendly, and led Werringi to recognise the value of sweet potato and lesser yams as tropical crops; the Nangu knew what they were, but had never seen them growing in the warmer climates to which those plants were most suited. However, these contacts did not add much to the expedition’s knowledge of the world further north [5].
After leaving Quamba, the expedition reached truly unknown lands. The peoples who dwelt along the shore were mostly hunter-gatherers who were only slowly acquiring crops and domesticated animals from further south, while the waters were warmer and more filled with corals.
Werringi ordered his ships to take even more care. He also decided that for the rest of the expedition, his ships would need to make regular stops along the shore to identify potential resupply points and ports. If possible, they should also establish relationships with the locals, and learn whether they would be amenable to ongoing contact. For the distance his ships were sailing had started to give him some appreciation of how far it might be to the Raw Men’s homeland, and if this were to become a regular Nangu trade route, outposts would need to be established along the way.
The voyage amongst the reefs of the Inner Sea was arduous, but Werringi had never lacked for persistence, and kept his captains and crew motivated. In time, they found the reefs fading into the depths beneath them, and felt winds and currents coming out of the west. All of the seasoned Nangu sailors recognised this as a new sea, or at least a new strait, and Werringi ordered his ships to turn to the west, believing that at long last he was nearing the Raw Men’s homeland.
In fact, the distance he still had to travel was greater than that which his ships had covered. After negotiating their way through several islands, the expedition found that the land now turned to the south, more than the west. Disappointed, Werringi could only order that the ships continue to follow the coast, and make regular stops to ascertain the nature of the country and the people.
Discouragement followed disappointment as the great exploration continued. Werringi’s ships explored what their maps eventually let them realise was a great gulf in the mainland [Gulf of Carpentaria], and then kept going west. On one beach which he would name Blood Sands [on Melville Island, Northern Territory], his ships were attacked by the locals one night when they were beached, leading to a fight with several casualties on both sides, before the locals were driven off.
Enough Nangu sailors were killed in that battle that they did not have enough crew to operate all three ships properly. Werringi made the reluctant decision to burn the third ship, and the surviving sailors crowded into the two remaining vessels.
After Blood Sands, the expedition faced an even more difficult choice. The land started to turn southward again, and there was no indication whether it would ever continue northward. Werringi had to decide whether to strike out to sea and hope that he could find the Raw Men’s homeland out over the open ocean, or continue following the coast toward what would, most likely, eventually lead them to the Atjuntja lands.
Had Werringi but known it, if he had sailed a few days across the open sea, he would have reached Timor and probably come into contact with the Portuguese. After much discussion with his fellow captains, however, he decided to continue following the coastline. The expedition had already lost half its ships, and losing another would mean that their sailors could not all make their way home even if they survived the ship’s destruction. Even if the Raw Men’s homeland could not be discovered on the first voyage, what his expedition had discovered so far would be invaluable to allow further expeditions. And if all else failed, the Raw Men had outposts in the Atjuntja lands; perhaps they could be visited there.
So Werringi’s ships followed the coastline west and south with their usual slow, methodical progress. In time they reached peoples who had knowledge of the Raw Men; enough to recognise what ships were, even if not much more than that. That did not make Werringi change his mind; he still believed that the best course was to follow the coast, rather than strike out to wherever these ships sailed.
And so, on 18 September 1631, Werringi’s two remaining ships anchored off the shore of the Middle Country, at a Raw Men outpost which its inhabitants called Fort Zeelandia...
* * *
18 September 1631
Fort Zeelandia [Geraldton, Western Australia]
Sails on the western horizon, or so the warning had come. That had been enough for Governor De Vries to order every available man with a musket to the docks, in preparation for whatever raid might be coming. Word had come by runner – Atjuntja runner; for once their roads brought word faster than ships. The Spanish had raided Fort Nassau a few days before, bringing fire and blood with them. If they planned to do the same here, then De Vries would make sure that they did not find easy pickings.
When the two ships came closer, though, he saw that they could not be Spanish. Twin hulls, triangular sails dyed blue-green with a golden ring in the centre. Smaller than he had expected, too. Certainly not big enough to mount many cannon or carry a large group of sailors. Even if this were somehow a Spanish ruse, so few men would not pose a danger.
“What sort of ships are they?” De Vries asked. “The Atjuntja can’t build anything remotely like this.”
Pieter Willemszoon, next to him, said, “Can never be sure, but I think that they’re Islander ships.”
“Islanders? Here?” De Vries said. “The Atjuntja forbid them to come here.” A great pity, that, and a greater shame that Governor-General Coen had not pushed more vigorously for trade with the Island. From what De Vries had sampled of their kunduri, in particular, he thought that was a great loss.
Willemszoon shrugged. “The Atjuntja forbid us to sail east of Cape Hasewint [Cape Leeuwin], too, but that hasn’t stopped us.”
“I suppose. Still, I’d have expected them to go to Fort Nassau before coming here.” He paused. “Before the Spanish raided, at least.”
The two ships quickly neared the shore, even with the breeze blowing out to sea. They tacked effortlessly, it seemed, and sailed closer to the wind than any ships which De Vries had ever seen.
When the two ships were almost to shore, the crew on one pulled down the sail and threw a rock over the side, with a rope tied to it.
“Anchoring off shore?” Willemszoon murmured.
“Only one,” the governor said. The other ship kept on coming, straight to an open place on the dock. As if it had every right to do so.
This close, he could make out the men easily enough. Dark skins like the natives here, although all of them had dark hair, too. That settled it. Nothing the Spanish could have done would have let them send these men here in a ruse. It had to be Islanders, and clearly coming to parley. Prudent, too, to keep one ship out to sea so that it could run for home with word if the first ship were attacked or its crew imprisoned.
“When the Islanders land, send their leaders to my residence,” De Vries said. “With an armed escort, of course.”
“Sir?” Willemszoon was usually efficient, but he did not follow the governor’s train of thought this time.
“They want some sort of bargain, or they wouldn’t be coming. Better to discuss that in comfort in my residence than at the docks when surrounded by armed men, don’t you think?”
Willemszoon nodded.
Some time later, with De Vries sitting comfortably in his favourite chair, Willemszoon re-appeared. Along with three of these Islanders, dressed in a rather poor state, but then they had surely been sailing for a while. And five Dutchmen, all with muskets and swords. The Islanders did not carry anything more dangerous than knives, but better to take no chances.
One of the Islanders, obviously the leader from the way the others regarded him, spoke in heavily-accented Atjuntja. “May this meeting bring harmony to both our peoples, with the guidance of the Good Man.”
The words sounded stylised and formal, even through the heavy accent. It took De Vries a moment to realise that they were a blessing of sorts. Well, he had already known that the Islanders were no proper Christians. Hopefully their pagan gods weren’t as bloodthirsty as those of the Atjuntja.
“May God smile on us,” he said, also in the Atjuntja language. Except that he used the proper Dutch word for God. He would not deign to invoke the name of the heathen Atjuntja deity, even indirectly.
“My name is Werringi. I am of the...” He paused, and had a rapid exchange of words with one of his fellow captains. “Your pardon, but this Atjuntja language does not have the right word. I am a captain of the great family Wolalta.”
“I am De Vries, governor of Fort Zeelandia.” He also noted that while this Werringi used the Atjuntja language, he was not very fluent in it. In fact, De Vries thought that he spoke it better than the Islander captain. A puzzle, perhaps, but one to be considered at another time. “Be welcome here, although I am surprised that you have come.”
Werringi said, “Your people did not come back to our Island, so we decided to come to you.” He had a sly smile as he spoke.
“I understand that the Atjuntja forbid you to sail past... Sunset Point,” he said, remembering the Atjuntja name for Cape Hasewint.
“Our agreement with the King of Kings forbids us to sail west past Sunset Point,” the Islander said. “So I did not sail that way. My ships came here from the north.”
“That’s impossible!” De Vries snapped. In Dutch, he realised a moment later, but the other man clearly understood the tone if not the words.
“A bold feat, yes,” Werringi said. That sly smile returned at the word bold. “But we have mastered a feat of navigation to match that which you Raw Men have done.”
That smug overconfidence needed to be punctured. If not, De Vries would not have revealed something he had always been ordered to conceal. “Not by a tenth, I think. Sailing to the Netherlands, our homeland, takes up to a year, most of it across the open ocean far out of sight of land.”
That news weakened the Islander’s confidence, sure enough. “A year?” he asked, his smile falling into a frown. Then he and the other two Islanders broke into a heated argument.
De Vries let them argue volubly for a time, as he considered his own position. Orders against revealing anything to do with navigation existed for a reason, although he supposed that mentioning that the voyage took a year would not do any great harm.
Still, the Islanders would certainly have more questions. Unless he could distract them with something more important. He said, “You have truly sailed around all of this land?”
Werringi said, “I said it, and it is true.”
“What did you discover? What lands did you find on this voyage?” he said.
Werringi said, “Offer me a cloak for a spar, or a spar for a cloak.”
“What the... What do you mean?”
Werringi frowned. “You Raw Men are traders. You know that knowledge comes with a price. You do not ask for a gift of knowledge. Especially not something as valuable as our maps and tales.”
Charts? De Vries had not even realised that these Islanders made charts. He wondered, for a moment, what else they knew. “You want to bargain for maps?”
Werringi shook his head. Among that Atjuntja, that was a gesture of agreement. Apparently the same held true for the Islanders, for he said, “I offer a copy of my maps and records of my voyage around the world. In exchange for charts and tales of your own. You will tell me about the land you Raw Men come from, and how you sail here.”
This time, De Vries needed to consider for even longer. Charts were protected documents for very good reason; the Company hid its navigational knowledge to gain an advantage over rivals. Still, the bargain was extremely tempting. Learning about the geography of a whole new continent, and of the peoples who lived there, could be invaluable.
Worth trading for knowledge of our own charts and voyages? Yes, he decided, after a while. If he told these Islanders how to sail to the East Indies, that would be nothing which the English and the Spanish did not already know... and the Spanish knew how to sail to the South Land too, now.
In any case, he would not have to tell the Islander captain everything. And no matter what he told them, he doubted that these pagans would raverse the world’s oceans and sail to Amsterdam. To Batavia, perhaps, which might be a problem, but hardly any worse than the English who already sailed there.
“Let us discuss this further,” he said, and they settled down to bargain.
* * *
With his landing at Fort Zeelandia, Werringi became the first Nangu captain to seal a trade bargain with the Raw Men. Or the Nedlandj, as he now knew that they were called. He was fortunate, too, that the Atjuntja governor was far too concerned with manoeuvring his soldiers against a possible Pannidj threat to argue much over the presence of Islanders in forbidden country. The Atjuntja governor simply informed him that what he had done was not forbidden this time, so he could visit provided that he did not attempt to trade, and that word would be sent to the King of Kings. It might prove that the treaty with the Nangu would be revised to forbid any travel to the western shores of the Middle Country, regardless of the route.
Werringi quietly avoided mentioning the knowledge exchange, but simply resupplied his vessels with food, which was permitted under the treaty, then set out again. He kept his ships well out to sea this time, rounded Sunset Point, and visited the White City long enough to leave another copy of his charts and journals with the Wolalta who lived there, in case of misfortune on the final leg of the voyage. Then he took his remaining two ships into the seas of endless winds, and returned to the Island. There, his voyage quickly won him a new name...
* * *
Taken from: “A History of the Dutch-Speaking Peoples”
By Hildebrandt van Rijn
The Cape marked a great landmark to the intrepid navigators who first explored the world’s ocean, but as a land for settlement, it would take much longer to gain notice. The native Hottentots were not welcoming of outlanders, and the Portuguese who first explored the Cape had no interest in displacing them. The Portuguese established supply stations further east, and left the Cape largely neglected.
As Dutch and English trade with the Orient expanded, the Cape became a useful stopping point for ships whose crews suffered from scurvy or other malnutritions. It lay at a convenient midpoint between Europe and the Indies, and so by the turn of the seventeenth century, the Cape was regularly visited by European ships.
With the United [Dutch] East India Company’s trade with the Orient booming, by 1635 the Lords Seventeen approved the establishment of a permanent settlement at the Cape [6]. The original intent was not for large-scale colonisation, just for a suitable harbour for ships avoiding bad weather or needing repairs, and to allow sufficient provisions to resupply passing ships.
The first expedition reached Table Bay in 1637. The early efforts proved to be a failure. European crops and farming techniques were poorly suited to the lands around the Cape, and food had to be brought in to resupply the settlement [7]. The Lords Seventeen were not pleased to have a victualling station which in fact could not supply victuals to passing crews.
Plans were made to abandon the settlement, until a returning Councillor [of the Indies] who stopped at the Cape noted that the climate there was very similar to that in much of Aururia. He suggested that perhaps crops from the northern hemisphere did not grow as well in the southern, but that Aururian crops would provide a useful alternative.
Given that this particular Councillor [8] was about to join the Lords Seventeen, his idea was well-heeded. The only difficulty was that the Dutch-speaking peoples at this time had very little knowledge of how to farm Aururian crops. There had been previous sketchy attempts to introduce various crops to both Amsterdam and Batavia, which had until then been unsuccessful except for some small success in growing murnong in the Netherlands.
So the Company decided to procure both crops and workers from Aururia. Two hundred Mutjing men and women from Valk Land [Eyre Peninsula, South Australia] were persuaded [9] to settle in the Cape in 1640, and ample supplies of seed for their preferred crops were brought with them.
In line with the Councillor’s expectations, the new crops thrived in the Cape. The first red yams were supplied to ships in the first year, and bountiful harvests of cornnarts [wattle seeds] from 1642. Harvests of their variety of flax were also plentiful, which laid the foundations for a weaving industry to supply new ropes and sails to damaged ships.
The endeavour was successful enough, even after some conflicts with the Hottentots, that in 1643 another forty Mutjing families were invited to abandon their struggling homeland and move to the growing settlement at the Cape...
The first significant problems arose in 1645. An outbreak of measles killed nearly a quarter of the Mutjing farmers. The distraught people turned to a religious explanation; they blamed the epidemic on the lack of guidance in how to avoid bringing disharmony. They demanded that the Company bring in a Plirite priest and allow them to build a small temple for him.
The Company officials at the Cape knew that allowing the establishment of a heathen temple in a Dutch colony would not be viewed favourably in Europe. However, to a Company pragmatic enough to maintain trade with the Atjuntja, overlooking the presence of a Plirite priest or two in one of their distant outposts would be no difficult task. Keeping the Cape settlement functioning properly was deemed to be the greater priority, and a Plirite priest was duly invited from Valk Land. They expected, with some justification, that in time the Mutjing farmers would convert to Christianity.
So the first Plirite temple was founded at the Cape in 1647...
* * *
[1] Elder Brother (or, more rarely, Elder Sister) is a social institution amongst the Kiyungu which involves an older man (or woman) assuming a role as a mentor and lover of a younger person. The mentor is always of the same gender as the younger, and it is considered a valuable way of teaching about love, life, proper values, the social order, and often a craft skill, too. The formal relationship is ended when the younger gets married, although usually the elder party will still be available to provide advice to the younger for the rest of their lives.
[2] That is, the Nangu sailors thought that the best place for their heads would be attached to their bodies, while the priests of Daluming thought that those same heads would be of more use in niches in the Mound of Memory, ie the great pyramid where the heads of certain notables are kept behind glass.
[3] Coral Coast is the name which the Kiyungu give to the historical Gold Coast, Moreton Bay and Sunshine Coast in south-eastern Queensland. This area does not actually produce coral; from here, the Kiyungu would sail north to the Inner Sea (ie the waters bounded by the Great Barrier Reef) to collect it.
[4] The Yalatji people live in the Neeburra [Darling Downs], among the headwaters of the Anedeli [Darling River]. They have gradually converted to the Tjarrling faith, a related belief to the more orthodox Pliri faith, which treats the Good Man as a semi-divine figure.
[5] At this time, the northern Kiyungu are slowly expanding their areas of settlement along the coast, thanks to the new crops of sweet potato, taro and lesser yams which let them farm the tropics. The process is relatively slow, though, since the Kiyungu don’t have much cultural drive for exploration or expansion.
[6] This decision has been taken about fifteen years ahead of when the VOC would historically decide to approve a settlement on the Cape. The earlier settlement is because the VOC’s trade is both more profitable and higher volume than it was at the same point in OTL. Even with the casualties from the plagues, the Aururian gold, silver, sandalwood, sweet peppers, and first shipments of kunduri have significantly boosted revenues.
[7] The historical settlement of Cape Town experienced similar early problems, although they were eventually resolved by better strains of European crops.
[8] Van Rijn is being coy about naming the Councillor because the person in question happens to be one of his ancestors, and he considers it immodest to name him.
[9] Persuaded in a manner of speaking, that is.
* * *
Thoughts?
