Background:
On 25 October 1705, Cornelis de Bruijn, having regained his health, boarded a vessel named Mydregt, which brought him from Gamron to the Dutch trading station Cochin in the southwest of India, where he stayed with officials of the VOC,note the Dutch East-Indian Company. De Bruijn was surprised by the dolphins and flying fish. From Cochin, he reached the island of Ceylon or Sri Lanka, where the Dutch had several trading posts, like Galle on the isles south cape. De Bruijn stayed here long enough to observe a crocodile hunt, and includes a long description of the natural wealth of the island in his Travels into Moscovy, Persia, and the East Indies. After the celebration of Christmas and New Year he left Ceylon on 6 January 1706.
Seven weeks later, the Mydregt had reached the port of Batavia, the Dutch capital in the East Indies (modern Jakarta). The trip had not been entirely without danger. In Europe, France was still fighting against the other countries in the War of Spanish Succession,note and privateers were a risk.
Nor was Java, the main island in the Indonesian archipelago, peaceful. The VOC occupied Batavia and surroundings in the west, but the larger part of Java belonged to the kingdom of Mataram. Its king Amangkurat II had died, and his his brother Pangeran Puger and his son Amangkurat III contested the throne. Shortly before De Bruijns arrival, Dutch troops had installed Puger, but his rival fled to eastern Java and launched a war against his uncle.
The new king still needed Dutch support and was forced to do many concessions; in fact, he had to give up all of western Java and allow the Dutch the right to go wherever they wanted in Mataram. The VOC was reorganizing its gains during De Bruijns stay, and the war was still going on, so a visit to Mataram was impossible. In fact, De Bruijns visit to Java was a bit of a disappointment.
The artist could stay on Struiswijk, the country estate of Joan van Hoorn, who was between 1704 and 1709 the Dutch governor-general. (Struiswijk was to become notorious as a prison and a Japanese POW-camp during the Second World War.) In return for the hospitality, De Bruijn painted his hosts portrait, which has survived but is rather damaged.
Van Hoorn was responsible for a major decision in the VOCs economic policy. Until then, Batavia had been a production center of pepper, sugar, and rice, and a trade center for silk, porcelain, muscat, and tea. Van Hoorn ordered that in addition, coffee was to be produced on western Java, which would break the monopoly of the Arab traders of Mocca. A description of the way coffee is produced is included in the Travels into Moscovy, Persia, and the East Indies.
One of the nicest aspects of De Bruijns stay was a visit to the little zoo that a VOC-official named Cornelis Kastelein owned at a country estate in a village called Weltevreden. De Bruijn liked a little animal that had already been baptized philander (friend of man), a small, kangaroo-like marsupial that is now called Dusky pademelon or -if you prefer its official name- Thylogale Brunii, which means De Bruijns pademelon. His account is not without importance, because this little animal is now a threatened species; the only relict population is probably on New Guinea, east of Port Moresby.
Another aspect of De Bruijns account of the East Indies is a description of the castles of coral and tropical fish near the island Edam, which was close to Batavia. He also describes the Chinese who had been settled in Batavia by the VOC and produced sugar cane, which was used for the production of sugar and arak (brandy). In July 1706, after the rain season, De Bruijn spent some time with the Sultan of Bantam, a still independent state in the far west of Java. He greatly admired the dancers.

Yet, De Bruijns book offered little that was not already known to the officials of the VOC, and they must have been disappointed with these parts of Travels into Moscovy, Persia, and the East Indies. Only for a general audience, it offered much entertaining information.
It seems that De Bruijn was not happy either, because he had plans to visit Coromandel in southeast India, but he was by now suffering from a skin affliction, painful legs, and troubles with his eyes, and decided that it was better to return home. Because the War of Spanish Succession was not yet over, the easiest route - circumnavigating Africa and continuing over the Atlantic - was impossible, so De Bruijn had to visit Persia and Russia again. He boarded the recently built Prins Eugenius (named after one of the commanders in the War of Spanish Succession), and on 25 August 1706, after a stay of a half year, De Bruijn started the return voyage. His luggage was sent by another ship.

De Bruyn, Cornelius 1652 – 1727
De Bruyn, was a Dutch artist and traveler. He made two large tours and published illustrated books with his observations of people, buildings, plants and animals.
De Bruijn was born in The Hague.
During his first tour, he visited Rome, where he became a member of the Bentvueghels with the nickname Adonis, which is how he signed the bentbrief of Abraham Genoels II. He travelled in Egypt and climbed to the top of a pyramid where he left his signature. De Bruijn made secret drawings of Jerusalem, then part of the Ottoman Empire. His drawings of Palmyra are copies. De Bruijn reached Cyprus and stayed among the Dutch merchants in Smyrna and Constantinople. From 1684 he worked in Venice with the painter Johann Carl Loth, returning in 1693 to The Hague, where he sold his souvenirs. In 1698 he published his book with drawings, which was a success and was translated in several languages. Two examples have colored illustrations, the first color prints in history. Among his drawings were the first pictures of the interior of the Great Pyramid and Jerusalem that became known in Europe.
In 1701 he headed for Archangelsk. During his second tour he visited the Samoyeds in northern Russia. In Moscow he became acquainted with emperor Peter the Great: de Bruijn painted his nieces, and the paintings were sent to possible candidates for marriage.
In late April 1703, De Brujin left Moscow along with the party of an Armenian merchants from Isfahan whose name he recorded as Jacob Daviedof. De Bruijin and the Armenians sailed down the Moscow River, the Oka and the Volga, eventually reaching Astrakhan. Thanks to de Bruijns short stopover in Nizhny Novgorod during the Easter holidays, we now have his description of that major center of the Russian Volga trade as it existed in 1703, with its Kremlin, stone churches, and a lively bar (kabak) scene.
Leaving the borders of the Russian state, de Brujin arrived to Persia, where he made drawings of towns like Isfahan and Persepolis (1704–1705). He continued to Java and returned to Persia, Russia, and ultimately the Netherlands.
His drawings of Persepolis, a city destroyed by Alexander the Great, caused a sensation. The mayor of Amsterdam Nicolaes Witsen and a member of the Royal Society probably asked him to draw the city famous for its 40 columns. For a century, they were the best prints available to western scholars. De Bruijn was accused of plagiarism and his second book, Reizen over Moskovie was not such a success. From Amsterdam he fled to Vianen.
De Bruijn died in Utrecht. It is not known when and where he was buried.
De Bruijn, who had read every Greek and Latin source he had been able to obtain, displays a convincing knowledge of subjects, at times going into the humorous. In Persia, he obtained a copy of Firdausi\\\'s Shahnamê, which he summarized and made accessible to the west.
Publications:
1. Reizen van Cornelis de Bruyn door de
vermaardste Deelen van Klein Asia
(1698)
a. Corneille le Brun, Voyage au
Levant (French translation, 1700)
b. Corneille le Brun, A Voyage to the
Levant: or Travels in the Principal
Parts of Asia Minor (English
translation, 1702)
2. Reizen over Moskovie, door Persie en
Indie (1711)
a. Voyages de Corneille le Brun par
la Moscovie, en Perse, et aux
Indes Occidentales (French
translation, 1718)
b. Corneille le Brun, Voyage to the
Levant and Travels into Moscovy,
Persia, and the East Indies
(English translation, 1720)
c. C. le Brun, An Abstract of M.C. Le
Bruns Travels through Russia
(1722)
d. Puteshestvie cerez Moskouviju
Kornelija de Brujna (Russian
excerpt 1873)
3. Aenmerkingen Over de
Printverbeeldingen van de Overblijfzelen
van het Oude Persepolis (1714)
Other English translations appeared in 1737, 1759, and 1873.