Prologue 9
The VOC at home and in Asia 13
A mysterious accident 18
The Dutch East Indiaman Amstelveen 21
In the Bay of Sawqirah 34
Two old letters 44
At Cape Mataraca (Ras Madrakah) 49
Forsaken in the desert 55
Along the Gulf of Masirah 59
Hunger, thirst, rocks and robbers 61
Trapped by the Bedouin 65
At a forked river (near Duqm) 66
Saved by some water 69
The fate of the little Javanese boy 72
A warmer welcome 75
Through the high sand dunes 79
Encounters on the Sharqiyah coast 83
A cunning merchant captain in Hadd 89
Arrival in Muscat 92
Unrest in the Arabian merchant fleet 97
With the Resident on Kharg 101
Salt from Bandar Abbasi 104
A surprising reunion in Muscat 106
To Batavia by way of Cochin 110
To Muscat once again 114
Back in Middelburg at last 117
Cornelis Eyks, a life at sea 122
Causes and location of the disaster 129
Those on board and their fate 133
Remaining mysteries 138
‘The salvaged people’ 141
Acknowledgments 143
Bibliography 145
