DISCOVERY 



263 



" rose up against the Captain Major, the captains 

 saying that they intended to take him to Castile in 

 arrest, as he was taking them all to destruction." ' 



If they thought to terrify a veteran who had braved 

 governors and faced perils in those very Indies which 

 he was determined to reach, the}- sadly misjudged 

 their man. With the help of some faithful Portuguese 

 and other " foreigners," and the men of his own ship, 

 Magellan had one of the leaders killed out of hand ; 

 five days later another was beheaded and quartered, 

 and the remainder found it prudent to acquire new- 

 enthusiasm for exploration. That trouble over, 

 Magellan prepared to continue his voyage, but had to 

 face another mishap, as the Santiago, sent to explore 

 the coast, went on the rocks, and her crew escaped 

 only with great difficult\-. Thus reduced in number, 

 they at length got clear of St. Julian on August 24, 

 1520, after having " set up at the top of the highest 

 mountain which was there a very large cross, as a sign 

 that the country belonged to the King of .Spain and 

 given to the mountain the name of Mount of Christ," 

 and after all had " confessed and received the body 

 of our Lord like good Christians." - 



Thus prepared for the worst, the little fleet crept 

 slowly down towards the Horn. On October 21 they 

 arrived off a cape, which for the sake of the day they 

 named the Cape of the Eleven Thousand Virgins. 

 After sailing two or three leagues onwards, they found 

 themselves at the mouth of a strait, and here amid 

 much excitement they anchored. 



An exploring party sent out reported that there 

 were three channels. The fleet moved up to where 

 the channels separated and again cast anchor. The 

 San Antonio and Conception were sent on to search 

 the channels, but in the darkness the crew of the 

 San Antonio mutinied, flung their commander, Alvar 

 de Meschite, Magellan's cousin, into chains, and, slipping 

 past the others, made incontinently for Spain. The 

 Conception, missing her consort, fluttered aimlessly 

 about until Magellan, receiving no word from either 

 scout, came on himself, and, picking her up, pushed on 

 through the channel till night fell, when he anchored 

 again. He sent the boats out and followed with the 

 ships, and the boats reported that there was an outlet, 

 for they could see the gi'eat sea on the other side. 

 Magellan immediately ordered all his artillery to be 

 fired, and, amid rejoicings and congratulations, the 

 three tiny vessels sailed proudly into the unsailed 

 waters of the South Pacific. 



The object of the journey had been attained. It 

 had been proved that the American continent was not 

 an insuperable barrier to ships sailing west ; it remained 

 to prove that there lay on its western shore no obstacle 



' Stanley (vide note on references at end of article), p. 3. 

 ' Ibid., p. 57. 



to prevent ships reaching the Indies. On the other 

 side of the Straits of Magellan the fleet was in even 

 more unfamiliar waters than when it was descending 

 towards the Land of Fire. But success tells. The 

 discovery of the south-west passage had vindicated 

 the expedition's leader and justified all the risks he 

 had taken. There was no more talk of mutiny as the 

 three ships steered light-heartedly westward to widen 

 the empire of the King of Spain, although their crews 

 were to suffer hardships far greater than any they had 

 suffered in the Atlantic. 



November 28 saw them in the open sea, where they 

 " remained three months and twenty days without 

 taking in provisions or other refreshments, and we 

 only ate old biscuit reduced to powder and full of 

 grubs and stinking from the dirt the rats had made 

 on it when eating the good biscuit, and we drank 

 water that was yellow and stinking. We also ate the 

 oxhides which were under the mainyard so that the 

 \-ard should not break the rigging : they were very 

 hard, and we left them for four or five days in the 

 sea and then we put a little on the embers and so ate 

 them : also the sawdust of wood and rats which cost 

 half a crown each ; moreo\'er enough of them were not 

 to be got." ^ 



Nineteen of the crews died from scurvy, and o\'er 

 thirty were seriously ill during that run of 4,000 leagues 

 before thev touched land, for with singular iU-luck 

 the route that Magellan believed led most quickly to 

 the Indies took them out of sight of island after island 

 of the Pacific archipelago. There might have been 

 tempests and storms, but the ocean was rightly named, 

 for they had good w^eather continuously until they 

 struck land on January 24 in the Paumatu group. 

 On March 6 they reached a group of islands whose 

 people were " poor, ingenious, and great thieves," and 

 they therefore named the group the Ladrones. Thence 

 it was a straight run to the Philippines — the domain of 

 the Portuguese monopolists. In the Philippines they 

 made friends with the natives, for, after all, it was 

 here that the commercial business of the voyage began, 

 and on Cebu, where Magellan was so popular that 

 " he did what he pleased with the consent of the 

 country, in one day 800 people became Christian, on 

 which account Magellan desired that other kings 

 neighbours to Cebu's should become subject to him 

 who had become Christian." * 



The heathen, however, proved hard of heart, so 

 Magellan proceeded to burn down their villages and 

 then to demand war indemnities. Hardness of heart 

 persisted, and when, on April 23, Magellan arrived 

 with some fifty men to enforce his demand he found 

 himself opposed by a force of about 4,000 savages. 

 Nothing daimted, Magellan disembarked at daylight, 

 ' Ibid., p. 64. * Ibid., p. 12. 



