The Voyage of Magellan. 



11 



having been shipwrecked, and found a channel which proved to 

 be the long-sought passage to India. Three months were spent 

 in exploring the straits of Magellan before they entered the 

 Pacific ocean. One of the vessels sent to explore a channel in 

 the straits deserted and returned to Spain. 



They sailed along the coast of Patagonia 400 or 500 miles, and 

 then northeastward toward Cathay and the Spice islands. The 

 wind was light, the ocean was as calm and smooth as an inland 

 sea, and they called it the Pacific ocean. For months their prog- 

 ress was slow ; their food failed ; scurvy and sickness broke out. 



* Figure 1. — Magellan's Circumnavigation. 



Finally they reached the Ladrone islands and found the food 

 and rest they so much needed. They then sailed for the Philip- 

 pine islands, where in a foolish affra}^ with the natives Magellan 

 was killed ; but he had finished his work — he had circumnavi- 

 gated the globe ; he had reached the east by sailing west. 



One of the three vessels which had crossed the Pacific was 

 abandoned and burnt in the Phillippine islands, another was 

 lost in the Malaccas ; the last, loaded with spice, returned to 

 Spain and finished the most remarkable voyage on record. Of 

 the 280 men who sailed with Magellan in September, 1519, 

 only 18 returned in September, 1522. The cost of this fleet, with 



* Reproduced, with minor alterations taken from the text, from a 

 tracing of a chromolith sliowing the " Voyage of the Victoria " in " The 

 Life of Ferdinand Magellan," by F. H. H. Guillemard, 1891 (?), pi. ii, p. 142. 



