DISCOVERY 



295 



the league-long glories of the shimmering Pacific. 

 Descending from the eyrie, he had kneeled upon the 

 ground, and praj'ed God to give him life and strength 

 to drive a furrow through those mighty waters. All 

 with him had been carried away by his enthusiasm ; 

 and his second officer, John Oxenham, had clasped 

 him bv the hand, and vowed to follow him. 



This John O.xenham, so well known to lovers of 

 Kingsley's famous book, is a picturesque and pathetic 

 figure. It was Drake who had put him in mind to 

 sail on the Pacific ; and he would have acted more 

 wisely if he had waited a while, until Drake gave the 

 signal to start. O.xenham did not do so. In 1575, 

 three years after the great raid, he set out again for 

 the Isthmus independently. He hid his ship, crossed 

 the mountains unobserved, and set to work in the 

 recesses of the forest to fashion the sort of craft he 

 now required. When she was finished, he floated her 

 successfully down a river, and launched her on the 

 wide Pacific. Good fortune rewarded his toil. Near 

 the Isle of Pearls he captured two barques from the 

 Peruvian port of Quito. The prisoners were many ; 

 the spoil was great. Nothing remained but to elude 

 the Spaniards, and carry the treasure home. But 

 O.xenham, with all his courage, lacked the gift of leader- 

 ship. He allowed his enemies to see which course he 

 was taking ; he failed to keep his own men under 

 control. Even his allies, the Cimaroons (who had 

 followed Drake with the fidelity of dogs), turned against 

 him and betrayed him. The few genuine details 

 which survive in the pages of Purchas and Richard 

 Hawkins have been worked up by Kingsley into a 

 highly coloured, but not improbable, narrative. The 

 whole expedition ended tragically ; and the Spaniards 

 no doubt felt that they were avenged for the losses 

 which Drake had inflicted three years before. They 

 inquired carefully (this fact should be borne in mind) 

 whether Oxenham had any licence or letters patent 

 from the Queen ; and when he failed to produce any, 

 they took summary vengeance. Five boys were 

 spared on account of their youth, and probably sold 

 into captivity. The remainder were executed in batches 

 at Panama ; all except O.xenham himself, his master 

 and pilot. The Dictionary of National Biography tells 

 us that these three unhappy men were conveyed to 

 Lima, and hanged there the same year. But this 

 information (as will presently be shown), though de- 

 rived from, the best Elizabethan sources, is none the 

 less incorrect. 



Towards the close of 1577 Drake set out on his 

 third adventure — the voyage of circumnavigation- 

 Not that his plans at starting involved a circuit of 

 the globe. What he proposed was to penetrate into 

 the Pacific (as he had promised himself in Darien), 

 and return again, if Providence permitted, by whatever 



route seemed to offer the best chance. There is no 

 need to linger over the details of his programme 

 once the Pacific was reached. It was the spirit of 

 adventure that actuated him ; and to this he doubtless 

 added the expectation of further reprisals, and per- 

 haps a faint hope that he would be able to find an 

 entirely new route to the Indies. 



Oxenham had reached the Pacific by way of Darien ; 

 but Drake proposed to utilise the Strait of Magellan. 

 This sounds a simple enough project to-day, but in 

 1577 the attempt was one which none' but the boldest 

 would consider. Sebastian Cabot had attempted to 

 force the Strait, and failed. Amerigo Vespucci could 

 not even find it. Del Cano, who brought home the 

 remnants of Magellan's expedition, found the passage 

 again with Loaysa in 1525 ; but neither Loaysa nor 

 Del Cano returned alive. Henceforth the mysterious 

 water-gate could not have been more religiously avoided 

 if it had been the portals of Dante's Inferno. The 

 tortuous passage beyond the gate was known to be 

 450 miles long, with inhospitable precipices on either 

 hand, and baffling airs that held a ship captive. In 

 the language of the time it was said to be the link 

 between the " North Sea," the ocean of the Old World, 

 and the " South Sea," the ocean of the New. In its 

 swirling eddies, it was thought, the waters of the 

 Atlantic and the waters of the Pacific found their 

 only point of contact. Above the Strait was the great 

 land-mass improperly christened after Amerigo; and 

 below it, stretching away to the " Pole Antartick," 

 lay the corresponding mass of an imaginary continent, 

 Terra Aitslralis Nondum Cognita. 



All this Drake knew and faced without quailing. 

 Like Ulysses of old, he was cheerfully prepared to go 

 down to the mouth of Hades. But it was another 

 matter to induce ignorant and superstitious mariners 

 to follow him : and he did not consider his preparations 

 complete until he had persuaded some of the best 

 gentlemen in the land to join his company and leaven 

 the lump. Of noble volunteers by far the most im- 

 portant was Thomas Doughty, whose bravery, learning, 

 and charm of manner endeared him to Drake above 

 all who volunteered. 



It was vitally important to keep the Spaniards in 

 ignorance of what was afoot ; for a hint of Drake's 

 scheme would enable them to post a fleet at one end of 

 Magellan's Strait, and deny him all ingress into the 

 Pacific. Drake himself was a past-master of the art 

 of camouflage ; and, when at last he set sail from 

 Plymouth, it was nominally for the harbour of Alex- 

 andria to pick up a cargo of currants. The Spaniards 

 grew suspicious, and, interpreting the move as a mission 

 to rescue or avenge John Oxenham, took every pre- 

 caution that suggested itself in the Isthmus of Panama. 



Drake's voyage to the South Pacific was without 



