FERDINAND OF MAGELLAN. 467 



It was from the small mountain-chain of Quarequa, on the 25th 

 of September, 1513, that the Spaniards first saw the sea-horizon, 

 but they had still several days to march before they reached the 

 Gulf of San Miguel. Here Alonzo Martin de Don Benito was 

 the first white man that ever floated in a canoe on the Eastern 

 Pacific, even before Balboa, armed with sword and shield, de- 

 scended into the water to take possession of the newly discovered 

 ocean in the name of the king his master. 



Although the subsequent fortunes of this great man are 

 foreign to my subject, yet it may not be uninteresting to the 

 reader to be informed how his important services were requited. 

 Unfortunately the ingratitixde of the Spanish court, which so 

 scandalously embittered the declining years of Columbus and 

 Cortez, reached its lowest depth in the case of Balboa. Those 

 great men had at least in the beginning enjoyed some show of 

 favour, but the discoverer of the Pacific was treated throughout 

 with the basest indignity. The governorship of Darien, to which 

 his splendid achievements had given him so undeniable a claim, 

 was conferred upon a certain Pedrarias Davila, a wretch who, 

 after having persecuted and thwarted the hero in every possible 

 way, caused him at length to be beheaded, under a false accusa- 

 tion of high treason. 



Six years after Balboa had~first seen the Pacific, two years 

 after his execution, Ferdinand of Magellan made his appearance 

 in that great ocean. A Portuguese of noble birth, this eminent 

 navigator had served with distinction under Albuquerque, the 

 conqueror of Malacca. His plan of seeking a new road to India 

 across the Atlantic being but coldly received in his native 

 country, he transferred his services to Spain, where his dis- 

 tinguished merit found better judges in Cardinal Ximenes, and 

 his youthful master, Charles V. With five ships, the largest 

 of which did not carry more than 120 tons, and with a crew of 

 236 men, partly the sweepings of the jails, he sailed on the 20th 

 of September, 1519, from the port of San Lucar, and spent 

 the following summer (the winter of the southern hemisphere) 

 on the dreary coast of Patagonia. In this uncomfortable station 

 he lost one of his squadron ; and the Spaniards suffered so much 

 from the excessive rigour of the climate, that the crews of three 

 of his ships, headed by their officers, rose in open mutiny, and 

 insisted on relinquishing the visionary project of a desperate 



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