Bengala (Bengal and the Bay of Bengal)

Key Properties

Edition: First edition, Dutch text, 1598

Map: 'Bengala', title in a strapwork cartouche at the foot

Position: part two, p. 69 (signature Ee3), headed 'Bengala'

Text: verso p. 70, the end of the Beschryvinghe van Bengala and the beginning of the Beschryvinghe van Zeilan ende d'Eylanden Maldiuar

Format: Copperplate engraving on a leaf of the oblong octavo atlas

Colouring: Uncoloured

Collation & Technical Description

One leaf from the Caert-Thresoor: the map on p. 69 (Ee3), headed 'Bengala', and on the verso, p. 70, the end of the Dutch description of Bengal and the beginning of that of Ceylon and the Maldives. North is at the top. The map shows the head of the Bay of Bengal with the mouths of the Ganges (Ganges flu.) and the Guenga, the coast of Orixa (Orissa) with Pipilipatam and Narsingapatam in the west, Satagam, Chatigam (Chittagong) and Bengala in the north, and Aracam with its islands and shoals in the east.

The Dutch text on p. 70 ends the account of Bengal with the fine cloths called Sarrijn, and with the rhinoceros, called Abada by the Portuguese, 'as heavy as an elephant', which whets its horn before fighting the elephant, its natural enemy, and is esteemed as a remedy against all poisons, 'as Jan Huyghen van Linschoten testifies in his Itinerario'. Under its own heading follows the description of Zeilan (Ceylon): its circumference of 240 leagues, its mild air, so that some held it to be the earthly paradise, its fruits, spices and elephants.

Condition

Margin lightly damaged; some discolouration on the recto.

References & Bibliography

Van der Krogt, Koeman's Atlantes Neerlandici, III, 341:01 (the atlas). Koeman, Atlantes Neerlandici, II, p. 254, Lan 1. Schilder, Monumenta Cartographica Neerlandica, VII, 16.1. Burger, Het Caert-Thresoor (1930). King, Miniature Antique Maps (1996).

Description

A small map of Bengal and the head of the Bay of Bengal from the first edition of Barent Langenes's Caert-Thresoor, the first Dutch pocket atlas, Middelburg 1598, with the Dutch texts on Bengal and on Ceylon and the Maldives on the verso.

The map follows the coast from Orissa past the mouths of the Ganges to Chittagong and Arakan, with its many islands and shoals. The text on the verso cites Jan Huyghen van Linschoten's Itinerario, published at Amsterdam in 1596, the book that gave the Dutch their first full account of the Portuguese East.

The Caert-Thresoor was the first Dutch pocket atlas: small copperplate maps by Pieter van den Keere (Petrus Kaerius) and Jodocus Hondius, each with a description of the country in Dutch, in an oblong octavo meant to be cheaper and handier than the great folio atlases of Ortelius and Mercator. It appeared in 1598, a year after the first Dutch voyage to the East Indies had returned, and it brought the geography of the whole known world within reach of a wider public. The plates proved durable: Petrus Bertius reused them for the Latin Tabularum geographicarum contractarum from 1600 and a French edition followed in 1602, so that the Dutch text of 1598 is the first and earliest form in which these maps were issued.

Historical Significance

The Caert-Thresoor appeared two years after Linschoten's Itinerario and draws on it openly, as the verso shows. Together the two books put the Portuguese knowledge of the Indian Ocean into Dutch hands at the very moment the Dutch began to sail there.

Provenance

Available on request.