In 1611 he brought in a cargo of of ivory to Amsterdam from a captured Portuguese ship. In 1614 he visited the port of Aden in Yemen. He was the first Dutch merchant to make a journey to the Arabian Peninsula. He went on to the port of al-Shihr in Hadramawt and left several Dutch merchants at the port to engage in trade and learn the Arabic language. He returned to the Arabian Peninsula in 1616 and visited the port of Mocha, where he attempted, unsuccessfully to establish a permanent Dutch trading establishment. It was there that he drank something hot and black, a coffee. He was made the VOC's manager in Dutch Suratte in 1620. He described the Ethiopian slave soldier Malik Ambar. From 1616 the establishment there blossomed, with new minor establishments being set up in the hinterland, though in 1617 the , under his command, was wrecked on the Surat coast.