's
Kunyu Wanguo Quantu world map, which pointedly added
Kinshima and
Ginshima to the original in the
North Pacific east of
Honshu. The islands continued to appear in Japanese world maps until after the
Meiji Restoration in the mid-19th century but could not be located by Quast's expedition... or anyone else after. at 37° 30′ N., the supposed location of the islands
Rica de Oro and
Plata according to the
Dejima trader
Willem Verstegen. The line crosses the
Shatsky Rise and
Emperor Seamounts but nothing at or near
sea level. Claims that southern or eastern seas held islands rich with
gold and
silver are at least as old as the
ancient Greeks, who called them
Chryse and Argyre. Spanish mariners had placed their and ("Island Rich with Gold" and "with Silver") at various locations around the
North Pacific for decades. Quast's expedition was occasioned by a 7 December 1635 report from
Willem Verstegen, a VOC trader at
Dejima off
Nagasaki, that seemed to verify the Spanish claims, placing
Kinshima "Island of Gold") and
Ginshima "Island of Silver") somewhere vaguely east of
Honshu. (For his part, Verstegen specifically located the islands to be discovered at
37° 30′ N. somewhere within 400
mijls of the Japanese coast.) The VOC officials at the eastern headquarters of
Batavia on
Java in the
Dutch East Indies (now
Jakarta,
Indonesia) were unimpressed and uninterested but were eventually overruled by the
heeren back in the
Netherlands, who ordered them to investigate. Quast was instructed to go to the area matching the Spanish and Japanese accounts by way of the
Philippines and then to continue northwest from there to explore
Korea and the possibilities for a
Northeast Passage around
Mongolia,
Manchuria, and
Siberia ("
Tartary"). The VOC reserving its good ships for trading voyages with certain profit upon completion, the expedition was given the two small and run-down ships (
Dutch for "Angel") and or ("
Urban Canal"). Quast and his commander
Lucas Albertsen used the
Engel as the flagship while his lieutenant
Abel Tasmannow famous for his later voyages to
Australiacaptained the
Gracht. The expedition left Batavia on 2 June 1639. It passed
Luzon into the open water of the Pacific on 10 July. Eager to find the two islands, Quast raised the bonus for the first person to sight land. Simultaneously, he more seriously penalized anyone found asleep on watch: fifty
lashes and a fine of a month's pay on the first offense, twice as much for the second, and
death for the third. Systematically crossing the sea in the areas indicated, reaching as far as
42° N. and
177° E., the two ships discovered or
rediscovered the entirely uninhabited
Bonin Islands but found nothing even vaguely resembling what they were looking for. The crew decimated by illness exacerbated by poor rations and the ships beginning to fail, Quast finally abandoned his fruitless search on 25 October. Bad as things were, he directed his men to sail for
Fort Zeelandia on
Taiwan (now within
Tainan's
Anping District) rather than attempting to continue northwest. By the time his men reached
Tayouan and its fort on 24 November, 41 of the 90 men who had sailed with Quast had died. ==Legacy==