While this was going on, a considerable body of Indians invested Lima, intercepted all communications, and annihilated the various small bodies of troops which Pizarro sent at intervals to the aid of the Spaniards at Cuzco. At this time he sent away all his vessels to Panama to compel his companions to make a desperate resistance; he recalled from Truxillo the forces under the command of Alonzo d'Alvarado, and entrusted to the latter a column of 500 men, which advanced to within several miles of the capital without having the slightest suspicion that the town was now in the hands of fellow-countrymen, who were fully determined to bar their passage. But Almagro desired much rather to attract these new adversaries to himself than to destroy them; he arranged therefore, to surprise them and make them prisoners. He had now a fine opportunity in his hands of ending the war, and making himself master of the two governments by a single blow. Several of his officers had observed this to him, and especially Orgonos, who proposed that the two brothers of the "conquistador" should be put to death, and that Almagro should advance by forced marches with his victorious troops against Lima, where Pizarro, taken by surprise, would not be able to resist him. But as a Latin poet says, "Jupiter makes dotards of those whom he means to ruin." Almagro, who in so many other instances had thrown aside all scruples, did not wish to put himself in the wrong by invading Pizarro's dominions as a rebel, and he quietly took the road back to Cuzco.

Looking at it only from the side of Almagro's own interests, he evidently committed in this a gross blunder, of which he was soon to repent; but if we consider, what we should never lose sight of, the interest of the country, he had already committed a capital crime in the acts of aggression of which he had been guilty, and in kindling civil war in face of an enemy quite ready to take advantage of it. His adversaries did not delay to remind him of it. Whereas prompt decision would have been necessary for Almagro to make him master of the situation, Pizarro had everything to expect from time and opportunity. While waiting for the promised reinforcements from Darien, he commenced negotiations with his adversary, lasting for several months, during which time one of his brothers, as well as Alvarado, found means to escape with more than seventy men. Although Almagro had been so often duped, he consented again to receive the licentiate Espinosa, who was ordered to represent to him, that if the emperor knew what was taking place between the two competitors, and learnt the condition to which their contests had reduced affairs, no doubt he would recall them both, and put some one else in their place. At last, after the death of Espinosa, it was decided by the friar Francisco de Bovadilla, to whom Pizarro and Almagro had referred their differences, that Ferdinand Pizarro should be immediately set free, that Cuzco should be given back to the marquis, and that they should send several officers on both sides to Spain, charged with representing the respective rights of the two parties and submitting them to the emperor's decision.

Scarcely had the last of his brothers been set at liberty than Pizarro, rejecting all idea of peace and amicable arrangement, declared that arms alone should decide whether he or Almagro was to be lord of Peru. In a short time he had assembled a body of 700 men, of which he entrusted the command to his two brothers. Finding it impossible to cross the mountains which would have been the most direct road to Cuzco, they followed the line of the sea-coast as far as Nasca, and then penetrated into a branch of the Andes, by which they could reach the capital in a short time. Possibly Almagro ought to have defended the mountain defiles, but he had only 500 men, and he reckoned much on his splendid cavalry, whom he could not deploy in a confined space; he therefore waited for the enemy in the plain of Cuzco. The two parties encountered each other on the 26th of April, 1538, with equal animosity; but the victory was decided by two companies of musketeers which the emperor had sent to Pizarro when he heard of the revolt of the Indians. One hundred and forty soldiers perished in this engagement, which received the name of las salinas. Orgonos and several officers of distinction were killed in cold blood after the battle, and Almagro himself, aged and ill, could not escape from Pizarro.

The Indians who, assembled in arms on the surrounding mountains, had reckoned upon falling on the conqueror, had need instead to fly in all haste. "Nothing," says Robertson, "more entirely proves the ascendancy gained by the Spaniards over the Americans, than seeing that the latter, witnesses of the defeat and dispersion of one of the parties, had not the courage to attack the other, even weakened and fatigued as they were by their victory, and dared not fall upon their oppressors when fortune offered them so favourable an opportunity for attacking them with advantage."

At this period a victory not followed by pillage was incomplete, so the town of Cuzco was sacked, and all the riches that Pizarro's companions found there did not suffice to content them. They had such exalted ideas of their merits and of the services which they had rendered, that each would have desired an appointment as governor. Ferdinand Pizarro therefore dispersed them, and sent them to conquer fresh territories with some of the partisans of Almagro who had rallied, and whom it was important to send to a distance.

As for Almagro himself, Ferdinand Pizarro, feeling convinced that his name constituted a focus of permanent agitation, resolved to get rid of him. He caused him therefore to be put upon his trial, which ended, as it was easy to foresee, in a sentence of death. When Almagro received this news, after giving way for a few moments to a very natural grief, pleading his great age and the different way in which he had behaved with regard to Ferdinand and Gonzalo Pizarro when they were his prisoners, he recovered his calmness and awaited his death with a soldier's courage. He was strangled in his prison, and afterwards publicly beheaded (1538).

After several successful expeditions, Ferdinand Pizarro set out for Spain, to give the Emperor an account of what had taken place. He found most minds there strangely prejudiced against him and his brothers. Their cruelty, their violence, and their disregard of the most sacred engagements had been laid bare without reserve, by some friends of Almagro's. Ferdinand Pizarro needed the utmost cleverness to win the Emperor round. Charles V. had no means of judging fairly on which side the justice of the case lay, for he had only heard of it from the interested parties; he could only discern the deplorable consequences to his own government of the civil war. He decided, therefore, to send a commissioner to the country, to whom he gave most extensive powers, and who, after having inquired into all that had taken place, should establish whatever form of government he thought most advisable. This delicate mission was confided to Christoval de Vaca, a judge of audience at Valladolid, who proved not unequal to his task. One fact is worthy of notice; he was recommended to show the greatest respect towards Francisco Pizarro, at the very time when his brother Ferdinand was arrested and thrown into a prison, where he was destined to remain forgotten for twenty years.

While these events were taking place in Spain, the Marquis portioned out the conquered country, keeping for himself and his trustworthy friends the most fertile and best situated districts, and giving to Almagro's companions, the men of Chili as they were called, only the more sterile and distant territories. Next he confided to Pedro de Valdivia, one of his aides-de-camp the execution of the project which Almagro had only been able to sketch out, the conquest of Chili. Valdivia set out on the 28th of January, 1540, with 150 Spaniards, amongst whom Pedro Gomez, Pedro de Miranda, and Alonzo de Monroy were destined especially to distinguish themselves; he crossed first the desert of Atacama, which even at the present day is considered a most troublesome enterprise, and reached Copiapo, standing in the midst of a beautiful valley. Received at first with great cordiality, he had to sustain, as soon as harvest was over, several combats with the Araucanians, a race of brave, indefatigable warriors, very different from the Indians of Peru. In spite of this, he laid the foundations of the town of Santiago on the 12th of February, 1541. Valdivia spent eight years in Chili, presiding over the conquest and organization of the country. Less greedy than the other "conquistadores" his contemporaries, he only sought for the mineral riches of the country that he might ensure the development of the prosperity of his colony, in which he had taken care first of all to encourage agriculture. "The best mine that I know of, is one of corn and wine with nourishment for livestock. Who has this, has money. As for mines, we do not depend upon them for subsistence. And often that which looks well outwardly is not really worth much." These wise words of Lescarbot, in his Histoire de la Nouvelle France, might have been used by Valdivia, so exactly do they correspond with and express his sentiments. His valour, prudence, and humanity, more especially the latter quality, which shines forth strangely in contrast with the cruelty of Pizarro, ensures for him a distinction all his own among the "conquistadores" of the sixteenth century.



At the time that Valdivia set out for Chili, Gonzalo Pizarro crossed the Andes at the head of 340 Spaniards, half of whom were mounted, and 4000 Indians, of whom the greater part of the Indians perished from cold; then he penetrated eastwards into the interior, seeking for a country where spices and cinnamon were said to abound. In these vast Savannahs, intersected by marshes and virgin forests, the Spaniards encountered torrents of rain, which lasted quite two months; they found only a scattered population, who were not industrious and also hostile; in consequence, the invaders often suffered from hunger in a country where there were then neither horses nor oxen, where the largest quadrupeds were tapirs and llamas, and even the latter were seldom met with on this slope of the Andes. In spite of these difficulties, which would have discouraged any less energetic explorers than the descubridores of the sixteenth century, they persevered in their attempt and descended the Rio Napo or Coca, an affluent on the left of the Maranon, as far as its confluence. There, with great difficulty they built a brigantine, which was manned by fifty soldiers under the command of Francisco Orellana. But either the strength of the current carried him away, or else being no longer under the eyes of his chief, he wished in his turn to be the leader of an expedition of discovery; he did not wait for Gonzalo Pizarro at the appointed rendezvous, but continued to descend the river until he reached the ocean. Such a voyage is simply marvellous, through nearly 6000 miles of an unknown region, without guide, without compass, without provisions, with a crew who murmured more than once against the foolish attempt of their leader, and in the midst of populations almost invariably hostile. From the mouth of the river, which he had just descended in his badly built and dilapidated vessel, Orellana succeeded in reaching the Island of Cubagua, whence he set sail for Spain. If the proverb "He who comes from a distance tells many lies" were not of much earlier date, one might have thought it had been coined for Orellana. He invented the most preposterous fables as to the wealth of the countries he had traversed; the inhabitants were so rich that the roofs of the temples were formed of plates of gold; an assertion which gave rise to the legend of El Dorado. Orellana had heard of the existence of a Republic of female warriors who had founded a vast empire, which caused the river Maranon to be called the River of the Amazons. If, however, we strip this narrative of all that is ridiculous and grotesque, and calculated to please the imaginations of his contemporaries, it remains certain that Orellana's expedition is one of the most remarkable of this epoch, so fertile in gigantic enterprises; and it furnishes the first information upon the immense zone of country lying between the Andes and the Atlantic.

But we must return to Gonzalo Pizarro. His embarrassment and consternation had been great, when on arriving at the confluence of the Napo and Maranon, he had not found Orellana, who was to have been awaiting him. Fearing that some accident might have befallen his lieutenant, he had descended the course of the river for 150 miles, until he met with an unfortunate officer, who had been left behind for having addressed some remonstrances to his chief upon his perfidy. The bravest among Pizarro's men were discouraged at the news of the cowardly way in which they had been abandoned, and at the destitute condition in which they were left. Pizarro was obliged to yield to their entreaties and to return to Quito, from which they were more than 1200 miles away. To give an idea of their sufferings on this return journey, it suffices to say that, after having eaten horses, dogs, and reptiles, roots, and wild beasts, and after having devoured every article made of leather in their accoutrements, the unfortunate survivors who reached Quito, lacerated by brambles, emaciated and utterly impoverished, numbered only twenty-four. Four thousand Indians and two hundred and ten Spaniards had perished in this expedition, which had lasted less than two years.

While Gonzalo Pizarro was conducting the unfortunate expedition just related, the old partisans of Almagro, who had never frankly joined Pizarro, gathered round the son of their old leader, and formed a plot for murdering the Marquis. In vain was Francisco Pizarro several times warned of what was threatening him, he would pay no heed to the report. He said "Keep quiet, I shall be safe as long as there is no one in Peru who does not know that I can in a moment take the life of any one who should dare to form the project of attempting mine."

On Sunday, the 26th of June, 1541, at the hour of siesta, Juan de Herrada and eighteen conspirators left the house of Almagro's son with drawn swords in their hands and armed from top to toe. They ran towards the house of Pizarro, crying out, "Death to the tyrant! death to the infamous wretch!" They entered the palace, killed Francisco de Chaves, who had appeared in haste on hearing the noise, and gained the hall, where was Francisco Pizarro, with his brother Francisco-Martin, the doctor Juan Velasquez, and a dozen servants. These jumped out of the windows, with the exception of Martin Pizarro, two other gentlemen, and two tall pages, who were killed while defending the door of the governor's apartment. He himself had not had time to put on his cuirass, but he seized his sword and buckler and defended himself valiantly, killing four of his adversaries and wounding several others. One of his assailants, in a spirit of self-devotion, attracted to himself the blows of Pizarro. Meanwhile the other conspirators made their way in and attacked him with such fury that he could not parry all the blows, being so exhausted that he could scarcely wield his sword. "Thus," says Zarate, "they made an end, and succeeded in killing him by a thrust in the throat. Falling to the ground, he asked in a loud voice that he might be allowed to confess, and then not being able any longer to speak, he made the sign of the cross on the ground, which he kissed, and then yielded up his soul to God." Some negroes carried his body to the church, where Juan Barbazan, his old servant, alone ventured to come and claim it. This faithful servant secretly rendered to it funeral honours, for the conspirators had pillaged the house of Pizarro, not leaving enough even to pay for wax tapers.



Thus did Francisco Pizarro come to his end, assassinated even in the capital of the vast empire which Spain owed to his valour and indefatigable perseverance, but which he bestowed upon his country, it must be admitted, ravaged, decimated, and drowned in a deluge of blood. Pizarro is often compared with Cortes; the one had as much ambition, courage, and military capacity as the other; but the cruelty and avarice of the Marquis della Valle were carried to an extreme in Pizarro, and united in him to perfidy and duplicity. If we are inclined to excuse certain parts of Cortes' character which are not estimable, by the times in which he lived, we are at least charmed by that grace and nobility of manners, and by that way of a gentleman above prejudices, which made him so much beloved by the soldier. In Pizarro, on the contrary, we find roughness, and a harsh, unsympathizing way of feeling, while his chivalrous qualities disappear entirely behind the rapacity and perfidy which are the salient features of his character.

If Cortes found brave and resolute adversaries among the Mexicans, who opposed almost insurmountable difficulties to his progress, Pizarro had no trouble in vanquishing the Peruvians, who were timid and enervated, and who never made any serious resistance to his arms. Of the conquests of Peru and Mexico, the less difficult produced the greater metallurgic advantage to Spain, and thus it was the more appreciated.

The civil war was on the point of breaking out again after Pizarro's death when the governor arrived, who was delegated by the metropolitan government. As soon as he had collected the needful troops, he marched towards Cuzco. He seized young Almagro without trouble, had him beheaded with forty of his confederates and governed the country with firmness, until the viceroy Blasco Nunez Vela, arrived. It is not our intention to enter into the detail of the disputes which took place between the latter and Gonzalo Pizarro, who, profiting by the general discontent, caused by the new regulations as to the "repartimientos," revolted against the Emperor's representative. After many changes of fortune, for which we have not space, the struggle ended by the defeat and execution of Gonzalo Pizarro, which took place in 1548. His body was taken to Cuzco and buried fully dressed; "No one," says Garcilasso de la Vega, "being willing to give even a winding-sheet for it." Thus ended the judicial assassin of Almagro. Is not the text appropriate in this case: "They that take the sword shall perish with the sword"?



CHAPTER II. THE FIRST VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD.

Magellan—His early history—His disappointment—His change of nationality—Preparations for the expedition—Rio de Janeiro—St. Julian's Bay—Revolt of a part of the squadron—Terrible punishment of the guilty—Magellan's Strait—Patagonia—The Pacific—The Ladrone Islands—Zebu and the Philippine Islands—Death of Magellan—Borneo—The Moluccas and their Productions—Separation of the Trinidad and Victoria—Return to Europe by the Cape of Good Hope—Last misadventures.

No one as yet was aware of the immense size of the continent discovered by Christopher Columbus. Still was sought perseveringly on the coast of America—which was thought to be a collection of several islands—the famous strait which should lead at once to the Pacific Ocean and to those Spice Islands the possession of which would have made the fortune of Spain. While Cortereal and Cabot were seeking for it in the Atlantic Ocean, and Cortes in the furthest part of the Gulf of California, while Pizarro was coasting along Peru, and Valdivia was conquering Chili, the solution of this problem was found by a Portuguese in the service of Spain, Ferdinand de Magellan.

The son of a gentleman of Cota e Armas, Ferdinand de Magellan was born either at Oporto, at Lisbon, at Villa de Sabrossa, or at Villa de Figueiro, it is not actually known which; the date of his birth is unknown, but it took place towards the end of the fifteenth century. He had been brought up in the house of King John II., where he received as complete an education as could then be given him. After having made mathematics and navigation his special study—for at this time in Portugal there was an irresistible current which drew the whole country towards maritime expeditions and discoveries—Magellan early embraced a maritime career, and embarked in 1505 with Almeida, who was on his way to the Indies. He took part in the sacking of Quiloa, and in all the events of that campaign. The following year he accompanied Vaz Pereira to Sofala; then, on returning to the Malabar coast, we find him assisting Albuquerque at the taking of Malacca, and bearing himself on that occasion with equal prudence and bravery. He took part in the expedition sent by Albuquerque about 1510, to seek for the famous Spice Islands, under the command of Antonio de Abreu and of Francisco Serrao, which discovered Banda, Amboyna, Ternate, and Tidor. During this time Magellan had landed at the Malaysian Islands, distant 1800 miles from Malacca, and in the Archipelago of the Moluccas he had obtained the circumstantial information which gave birth in his mind to the idea of the voyage which he was destined to accomplish later on.



On his return to Portugal, Magellan obtained leave, though not without difficulty, to search through the royal archives. He soon became certain that the Moluccas were situated in the hemisphere which the bull of demarcation adopted at Tordesillas by the kings of Spain and Portugal, and confirmed in 1494 by Pope Alexander VI., had given to Spain.

In virtue of this line of demarcation, which was destined to give rise to so many impassioned debates, all the countries situated at 360 miles west of the meridian of the Cape de Verd Islands were to belong to Spain, and all those lying to the east of the same meridian to Portugal. Magellan was of too active a nature to remain long without again taking service; he went next to fight in Africa at Azamor, a town in Morocco, where he received a slight wound in his knee, but one which by injuring a nerve made him lame for the remainder of his life, and obliged him to return to Portugal. Conscious of the superiority which his theoretical and practical knowledge and his services had earned for him above the herd of courtiers, Magellan naturally felt more keenly than another would have done the unjust treatment he received from Emmanuel with regard to certain complaints laid by the people of Azamor against the Portuguese officers. King Emmanuel's prejudices soon changed to a real dislike. It showed itself by the outrageous imputation that Magellan was pretending to suffer from a wound which was really of no consequence and was completely cured, that he might escape from accusations which he could not refute. Such an assertion was a serious matter for the honour of Magellan, so susceptible and suspicious; he thereupon came to a desperate determination which corresponded moreover with the greatness of the insult which he had received. That no one might be ignorant of it, he caused it to be legally set forth that he renounced his rights as a Portuguese citizen, and changed his nationality, and he then took out letters of naturalization in Spain. This was to proclaim, as solemnly as could possibly be done, that he intended to be looked upon as a subject of the crown of Castille, to which henceforward he would consecrate his services and his whole life. This was a serious determination, as we can see, which no one blamed, and which even the most severe historians, such as Barros and Faria y Sousa, have excused.

At the same time as Magellan, the licentiate Rey Faleiro left Lisbon with his brother Francisco and a merchant named Christovam de Haro; the former was a man deeply versed in cosmographical knowledge, and had equally with Magellan fallen under Emmanuel's displeasure. Faleiro had entered into a treaty of partnership with Magellan to reach the Moluccas by a new way, but one which was not otherwise specified, and which remained Magellan's secret. As soon as they arrived in Spain, (1517), the two partners submitted their project to Charles V., who accepted it in principle; but there remained the always delicate question touching the means for putting it into execution. Happily, Magellan found in Juan de Aranda, the factor of the Chamber of Commerce, an enthusiastic partisan of his theories, and one who promised to exert all his influence to make the enterprise a success. He had an interview accordingly with the high Chancellor, the Cardinal and Bishop of Burgos, Fonseca. He set forth with such skill the great advantage that Spain would derive from the discovery of a route leading to the very centre of the spice production, and the great prejudice which it would cause to the trade of Portugal, that an agreement was signed on the 22nd of March, 1518. The Emperor undertook to pay all the expenses of the expedition on condition that the greater part of the profits should belong to him.

But Magellan had still many obstacles to surmount before taking to the sea. In the first place there were the remonstrances of the Portuguese ambassador, Alvaro de Costa, who, seeing that his endeavours were in vain, even tried to compass the assassination of Magellan, so says Faria y Sousa. Then he encountered the ill-will of the employes of the Casa de contratacion at Seville, who were jealous of a stranger being entrusted with the command of such an important expedition, and envious of the least token of favour which had been accorded to Magellan and Rey Faleiro, who had been named commanders of the order of St. James. But Charles V. had given his consent by a public act, which seemed to be irrevocable. They tried, however, to make the Emperor alter his decision by organizing, on the 22nd of October, 1518, a disturbance paid for with Portuguese gold. It broke out on the pretext that Magellan, who had just had one of his ships drawn on shore for repairs and painting, had decorated it with the Portuguese arms. This last attempt failed miserably, and three statutes of the 30th of March, and 6th and 30th of April, fixed the composition of the crews and named the staff; while a final official document dated from Barcelona the 26th of July, 1519, confided the sole command of the expedition to Magellan.

What had meanwhile been happening to Rey Faleiro? We cannot exactly say. But this man, who had up to this time been treated on the same footing as Magellan, and who had perhaps first conceived the project, now found himself quite excluded from the command of the expedition, after some dissensions of which the cause is unknown. His health, already shaken, received a last shock from this affront, and poor Rey Faleiro, who had become almost childish, having returned to Portugal to see his family, was arrested there, and only released upon the intercession of Charles V. At last, after having sworn fidelity and homage to the crown of Castille, Magellan received in his turn the oath of his officers and sailors, and left the port of San Lucar de Barrameda on the morning of the 10th of August, 1519.

But before entering on the narrative of this memorable campaign, we must give a few particulars of the man who has left us the most complete account of it, Francesco Antonio Pigafetta or Jerome Pigaphete as he is often called in France. Born at Venice about 1491, of a noble family, Pigafetta formed part of the suite of the Ambassador Francesco Chiericalco, sent by Leo X. to Charles V., who was then at Barcelona. His attention was no doubt aroused by the noise which the preparations for the expedition made at that time in Spain, and he obtained permission to take part in the voyage. This volunteer proved an excellent recruit, for he showed himself in every respect as faithful and intelligent an observer as he was a brave and courageous companion. He was wounded at the battle of Zebu, fighting beside Magellan, which prevented him from being present at the banquet during which so many of his companions were destined to lose their lives. As to his narrative, with the exception of some exaggerations of detail according to the taste of that time, it is exact, and the greater part of the descriptions which we owe to him have been verified by modern travellers and learned men, especially by M. Alcide d'Orbigny.

Upon his return to San Lucar on the 6th of September, 1522, after having fulfilled the vow which he had made to go bare-foot to return thanks to Nuesta Senora de la Victoria, the Lombard (as they called him on board the Victoria,) presented to Charles V., then at Valladolid, a complete journal of the voyage. When he returned to Italy, by means of the original as well as of some supplementary notes, he wrote a longer narrative of the expedition, at the request of Pope Clement VII. and of Villiers de l'Isle Adam, grand-master of the Knights of Malta. He sent copies of this work to several distinguished personages, and notably to Louisa of Savoy, mother of Francis I. But she not understanding, so thinks Harrisse, the very learned author of the Bibliotheca Americana Vetustissima, the kind of patois used by Pigafetta, and which resembles a mixture of Italian, Venetian, and Spanish, employed a certain Jacques Antoine Fabre to translate it into French. Instead of giving a faithful translation, Fabre made a kind of abridgment of it. Some critics, however, suppose that this narrative must have been written originally in French; they found their opinion upon the existence of three French manuscripts of the sixteenth century, which give very different readings, and of which two are deposited in the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris.

Pigafetta died at Venice about 1534, in a house in the Rue de la Lune, which in 1800 was still to be seen, and which bore the well-known device, "No rose without a thorn."

At the same time, not wishing to confine ourselves to Pigafetta's narrative entirely, we have compared and completed it with that of Maximilian Transylvain, secretary to Charles V., of which there is an Italian translation in Ramusio's valuable collection.

The fleet of Magellan consisted of the Trinidad, of 120 tons' burden, which carried the flag of the commander of the expedition; the Sant'-Antonio, also of 120 tons, commanded by Juan de Carthagena, the second in rank, the person joined with Magellan, says the official document; the Concepcion, of 90 tons, commanded by Gaspar de Quesada; the famous Victoria, of 85 tons, commanded by Luis de Mendoza; and lastly the Santiago, of 75 tons, commanded by Joao Serrao, called by the Spaniards Serrano.

Four of these captains and nearly all the pilots were Portuguese. Barbosa and Gomez on board the Trinidad, Luis Alfonso de Goez and Vasco Gallego on the Victoria, Serrao, Joao Lopez de Carvalho on the Concepcion, Joao Rodriguez de Moefrapil on the Sant'-Antonio, and Joao Serrao on the Santiago, with 25 sailors, formed a total of 33 Portuguese out of the whole body of 237 individuals whose names have all been handed down to us, and amongst whom are found a considerable number of Frenchmen.

Of the officers whose names have been mentioned, it is to be remembered that Duarte Barbosa was brother-in-law to Magellan and that Estavam Gomez, who, by returning to Seville on the 6th of May, 1521, did not participate in the conclusion of this memorable voyage, was afterwards sent by Charles V. to seek for the north-west passage, and in 1524 sailed along the coast of America from Florida to Rhode Island, and perhaps as far as Cape Cod.

Nothing could have been better arranged than this expedition, for the equipment of which the whole resources of the nautical science of that epoch had been taxed. At the moment of departure Magellan gave his last orders to his pilots and captains, and the code of signals which were to ensure unanimity in manoeuvres, and prevent a possible separation.

On Monday morning, the 10th of August, 1519, the fleet weighed anchor and sailed down the Guadalquiver as far as San Lucar de Barrameda, which forms the port of Seville, where the victualling of the ships was completed, and it was the 20th of September before they were really off. Six days afterwards the fleet anchored at Teneriffe in the Canary Archipelago, where both wood and water were taken on board. It was on leaving this island that the first symptoms appeared of the misunderstanding between Magellan and Juan de Carthagena which was to prove so fatal to the expedition. The latter claimed to be informed by the commander-in-chief of the route which he intended to take, a claim which was at once rejected by Magellan, who declared that he was not called upon to give any explanation to his subordinate.

After having passed between the Cape de Verd Islands and Africa, the ships reached the shores of Sierra Leone, where contrary winds and dead calms detained the fleet for twenty days.



A painful incident now occurred. During a council which was held on board the flag-ship, a sharp dispute arose, and Juan de Carthagena, who affected to treat the Captain-general with contempt, having answered him with pride and insolence, Magellan felt obliged to arrest him with his own hand, and to have him put in the stocks, an instrument made of two pieces of wood placed one upon the other and pierced with holes, in which were placed the legs of the sailor who was to be punished. The other captains remonstrated loudly with Magellan against a punishment which was too degrading for a superior officer, and Carthagena in consequence was simply put under arrest, and guarded by one of the captains. To the calms now succeeded rain, tempests, and heavy squalls, which obliged the vessels to lie-to. During these storms the navigators several times witnessed an electric phenomenon of which the cause was not then known, but which they considered an undoubted sign of the protection of heaven, and which even at the present day is known by the name of St. Elmo's fire. Once past the equinoctial line—a passage which does not at that time seem to have been celebrated by the grotesque ceremony of baptism which is in vogue at the present day—they steered for Brazil, where, on the 13th of December, 1519, the fleet cast anchor in the magnificent port of Santa Lucia, now known under the name of Rio Janeiro. This was not, however, the first time that this bay had been seen by Europeans, as was long believed. Since the year 1511 it had been known under the name of Bahia do Cabo Frio. It had been visited also, four years before Magellan's arrival, by Pero Lopez, and seems to have been frequented since the commencement of the sixteenth century by mariners from Dieppe who, inheritors of the passion for adventurous navigation of their ancestors the North-men, roamed over the world, and founded small establishments or factories in all directions. Here the Spanish expedition procured cheaply, in exchange for looking-glasses, pieces of ribbon, scissors, hawks' bells or fish-hooks, a quantity of provisions, amongst which Pigafetta mentions pine-apples, sugar-canes, sweet potatoes, fowls, and the flesh of the Anta, which is thought to be the tapir.

The account given in the same narrative of the manners of the inhabitants is sufficiently curious to be repeated. "The Brazilians are not Christians," he says, "but no more are they idolaters, for they worship nothing; natural instinct is their only law." This is an interesting fact, and a singular avowal for an Italian of the sixteenth century, deeply imbued with superstition; it offers one more proof that the idea of the Divinity is not innate, as some theologians have imagined. "These natives live to a great age, they go entirely naked, and sleep in cotton nets called hammocks, suspended by the two ends to beams. As to their boats, called canoes, each is hollowed out of the single trunk of a tree and can hold as many as forty men. They are anthropophagi (cannibals), but only on special occasions, and scarcely ever eat any but their enemies taken in battle. Their dress of ceremony is a kind of vest made of paroquets' feathers, woven together, and so arranged that the large wing and tail-feathers form a sort of girdle round their loins, which gives them a whimsical and ridiculous appearance."

We have already said that the feather cloak was in use on the shores of the Pacific, among the Peruvians; it is curious to ascertain that it was worn equally by the Brazilians. Some specimens of this singular garment may be seen at the exhibition of the Ethnographical Museum. This was not however the only ornament of these savages; they suspended little stone cylinders from three holes pierced in the lower lip, a custom which is common among many of the Oceanic people, and which may be compared with our fashion of ear-rings. These people were extremely credulous and of good disposition and thus, as Pigafetta says, they could easily have been converted to Christianity, for they assisted in silence, and with gravity, at the mass which was said on shore, a remark that Alvarez Cabral had already made.



After remaining thirteen days in this place, the squadron continued its route to the south, coasting along the shore, and arrived at 34 degrees 40 minutes of south latitude in a country where flowed a large river of fresh water. It was the La Plata. The natives, called Charruas, were so frightened at the sight of the vessels that they hastily took refuge in the interior of the country, carrying with them all their valuables, and it was impossible to overtake any of them. It was in this country that four years previously, Juan Diaz de Solis had been massacred by a tribe of Charruas, armed with that terrible engine which is still in use at the present day among the gauchos of the Argentine Republic, the bolas, which are metal balls fastened to the two ends of a long leather thong, called a lasso.

A little below the estuary of the La Plata, once thought to be an arm of the sea opening into the Pacific, the flotilla anchored at Port Desire. Here they obtained an ample supply of penguins for the crews of the five vessels—a bird which did not make a very delicious meal. Then they anchored in 49 degrees 30 minutes in a beautiful harbour, where Magellan resolved to winter, and which received the name of St. Julian's Bay. The Spaniards had been two months there, when one day they perceived a man who seemed to them to be of gigantic stature. At sight of them he began dancing and singing and throwing dust upon his head. This was a Patagonian, who allowed himself without resistance to be taken on board the vessels. He showed the greatest surprise at all he saw around him, but nothing astonished him so much as a large steel mirror which was presented to him. "The giant, who had not the least idea of the use of this piece of furniture, and who, no doubt, now saw his own face for the first time, drew back in such terror, that he threw to the ground four of our people who were behind him." He was taken back on shore loaded with presents, and the kind welcome which he had received induced eighteen of his companions, thirteen women and five men, to come on board. They were tall, and had broad faces, painted red except the eyes, which were encircled with yellow; their hair was whitened with lime, they were wrapped in enormous fur cloaks, and wore those large leather boots from which was given to them the name of Large-feet or Patagonians. Their stature was not, however, so gigantic as it appeared to our simple narrator, for it varies from 5ft. 10in. to 5ft. 8in., being somewhat above the middle height among Europeans. For arms they had a short massive bow, and arrows made of reed, of which the point was formed of a sharp pebble.

The captain, to retain two of these savages whom he wished to take to Europe, used a stratagem, which we should characterize as hateful in the present day, but which had nothing revolting about it for the sixteenth century, when Indians and negroes were universally considered to be a kind of brute beasts. Magellan loaded these Indians with presents, and when he saw them embarrassed with the quantity, he offered to each of them one of those iron rings used for chaining captives. They would have desired to carry them away, for they valued iron above everything, but their hands were full. It was then proposed to fasten the rings to their legs, to which they agreed without suspicion. The sailors then closed the rings, so that the savages found themselves in fetters. Nothing can give an idea of their fury when they discovered this stratagem, worthy rather of savages than of civilized men. The capture of others was attempted, but in vain, and in the chase one of the Spaniards was wounded by a poisoned arrow, which caused his death almost instantaneously. Intrepid hunters, these people wander about perpetually in pursuit of guanaquis and other game; they are endowed with such wonderful voracity "that what would suffice for the nourishment of twenty sailors, can scarcely satisfy seven or eight of them." Magellan, foreseeing that the stay here was likely to be prolonged, and perceiving that the country only presented meagre resources, gave orders to economize the provisions, and to put the men on fixed rations, that they might not experience too great privations before the spring, when they might reach a country where there was more game. But the Spaniards, discontented at the sterility of the place, and at the length and rigour of the winter, began to murmur. This land seemed to stretch southwards as far as the Antarctic pole, they said; there did not seem to be any strait; already several had died from the privations they had endured; lastly it was time to return to Spain, if the commander did not wish to see all his men perish in this place.

Magellan, fully resolved to die, or else to bring the enterprise he commanded to a successful issue, replied that the Emperor had assigned him the course which the voyage was to take, and he neither could nor would depart from it under any pretext, and that in consequence, he should go straight forward to the end of this land, or until he met with some strait. As to provisions, if they found them insufficient, his men might add to their rations the produce of their fishing or hunting. Magellan thought that so firm a declaration would impose silence on the malcontents, and that he would hear no more of privations, from which he suffered equally with his crews. He deceived himself completely. Certain of the captains, and Juan de Carthagena in particular, were interested in causing a revolt to break out. These rebels therefore began by reminding the Spaniards of their old animosity against the Portuguese. The captain-general being one of the latter nation, had never, according to them, tendered a whole-hearted allegiance to the Spanish flag. In order to be able to return to his own country and to gain pardon for what he had done wrong, he wished to commit some heinous crime, and nothing could be more advantageous to Portugal than the destruction of this fine fleet. Instead of leading them to the Archipelago of the Moluccas, of the riches of which he had boasted to them, he wished to take them into frozen regions, the dwelling-place of eternal snow, where he could easily manage that they should all perish; then with the help of the Portuguese on board the squadron, he would take back to his own country the vessels which he had seized.

Such were the reports and accusations that the partisans of Juan de Carthagena, Luis de Mendoza, and Gaspar de Quesada had disseminated among the sailors, when on Palm Sunday, the 1st of April, 1520, Magellan summoned the captains, officers, and pilots, to hear mass on board his vessel and to dine with him afterwards. Alvaro de la Mesquita, a cousin of the captain-general, accepted this invitation with Antonio de Coca and his officers, but neither Mendoza nor Quesada, nor Juan de Carthagena, who was Quesada's prisoner, appeared. The next night the malcontents boarded the Sant'-Antonio with thirty of the men of the Concepcion, and desired to have La Mesquita given up to them. The pilot, Juan de Eliorraga, while defending his captain, received four stabs from a poniard in the arm. Quesada cried out at the same time, "You will see that this fool will make our business fail." The three vessels, the Concepcion, Sant'-Antonio, and Santiago, fell without difficulty into the hands of the rebels, who reckoned more than one accomplice among the crews. In spite of this success, the three captains did not dare openly to attack the commander-in-chief, and sent to him some proposals for a reconciliation. Magellan ordered them to come on board the Trinidad to confer with him; but this they stoutly refused to do, whereupon Magellan, having no further need of caution, had the boat seized which had brought him this answer, and choosing six strong and brave men from amongst his crew, he sent them on board the Victoria under the command of the alguazil Espinosa. He carried a letter from Magellan to Mendoza enjoining him to come on board the Trinidad, and when Mendoza smiled in a scornful manner, Espinosa stabbed him in the throat with a poniard, while a sailor struck him on the head with a cutlass. While these events were taking place, another boat, laden with fifteen armed men, came alongside the Victoria, and took possession of her without any resistance from the sailors, surprised by the rapidity of the action. On the next day, the 3rd of April, the two other rebel vessels were taken, not however without bloodshed. Mendoza's body was divided into quarters, while a clerk read in a loud voice the sentence that blasted his memory. Three days afterwards, Quesada was beheaded and cut in pieces by his own servant, who undertook this sad task to save his own life. As to Carthagena, the high rank which the royal edict had conferred upon him in the expedition saved him from death, but with Gomez de la Reina, the chaplain, he was left behind on the shore, where some months afterwards he was found by Estevam Gomez. Forty sailors convicted of rebellion were pardoned because their services were considered indispensable. After this severe lesson Magellan might well hope that the mutinous spirit was really subdued.

When the temperature became milder the anchors were weighed; the squadron put to sea on the 24th of August, following the coast, and carefully exploring all the gulfs to find that strait which had been so persistently sought. At the level of Cape St. Croix, one of the vessels, the Santiago, was lost on the rocks during a violent gale from the east. Happily both the men and merchandise on board were saved, and they succeeded also in taking from the wrecked vessel the rigging and appurtenances of the ship, which they divided among the four remaining vessels.

At last on the 21st of October, according to Pigafetta, the 27th of November according to Maximilian Transylvain, the flotilla penetrated by a narrow entrance into a gulf, at the bottom of which a strait opened, which as they soon saw passed into the sea to the south. First they called this the Strait of the Eleven Thousand Virgins, because this was the day dedicated to them. On each side of the strait rose high land covered with snow, on which they saw numerous fires, especially to the left, but they were unable to obtain any communication with the natives. The details which Pigafetta and Martin Transylvain have given with regard to the topographical and hydrographical dispositions of this strait are rather vague, and as we shall have to mention it again when we speak of De Bougainville's expedition, we shall not dilate upon it now. After sailing for twenty-two days across this succession of narrow inlets and arms of the sea, in some places three miles wide, in some twelve, which extends for a distance of 440 miles and has received the name of Magellan's Strait, the flotilla emerged upon a sea of immense extent and great depth.

The rejoicings were general when at last the sailors found themselves at the long-wished-for end of their efforts. Henceforward the route was open and Magellan's clever conjectures were realized.

Nothing is more extraordinary than the navigation of Magellan upon this ocean, which he called Pacific, because for four months no storm assailed him upon it. The privations endured by the crews during this long space of time were excessive. The biscuit was nothing more than dust mixed with worms, while the water had become bad and gave out an unbearable smell. The sailors were obliged to eat mice and sawdust to prevent themselves from dying of hunger, and to gnaw all the leather that it was possible to find. As it was easy to foresee under these circumstances, the crews were decimated by scurvy. Nineteen men died, and thirty were seized with violent pains in their arms and legs, which caused prolonged sufferings. At last, after having sailed over more than 12,000 miles without meeting with a single island, in a sea where so many and such populous archipelagos were destined to be discovered, the fleet came upon two desert and sterile islands, called for that reason the Unfortunate Islands, but of which the position is indicated in much too contradictory a manner, for it to be possible to recognize them.

In 12 degrees north latitude and 146 degrees longitude, on Wednesday the 6th of March, the navigators discovered successively three islands, at which they greatly desired to stop to recruit, and take in fresh provisions; but the islanders who came on board stole so many things, without the possibility of preventing them, that the sailors were obliged to give up the idea of remaining there. The natives contrived even to carry off a long boat. Magellan, indignant at such daring, made a descent with forty armed men, burned some houses and boats, and killed seven men. These islanders had neither chief, king, nor religion. Their heads were covered with palm-leaf hats, they wore beards, and their hair descended to their waists. Generally of an olive tint, they thought they embellished themselves by colouring their teeth black and red, while their bodies were anointed with cocoa-nut oil, no doubt in order to protect themselves from the heat of the sun. Their canoes of curious construction, carried a very large matting sail, which might have easily capsized the boat if the precaution had not been taken of giving a more stable trim by means of a long piece of wood kept at a certain distance by two poles; this is what is called the "balance." These islanders were very industrious, but had a singular aptitude for stealing, which has gained for their country the name of the Islands of Thieves (Ladrone Islands).



On the 16th of March was seen, at about 900 miles from the Ladrones, some high ground; this was soon discovered to be an island which now goes by the name of Samar Island. There Magellan, resolving to give his exhausted crews some rest, caused two tents to be pitched on land for the use of the sick. The natives quickly brought bananas, palm wine, cocoa-nuts, and fish; for which mirrors, combs, bells, and other similar trifles were offered in exchange. The cocoa-nut, a tree which is valuable beyond all others, supplied these natives with their bread, wine, oil, and vinegar, and besides they obtained from it their clothing and the necessary wood for building and roofing in their huts.

The natives soon became familiar with the Spaniards, and told them that their archipelago produced cloves, cinnamon, pepper, nutmegs, ginger, maize or Indian-corn, and that even gold was found there. Magellan gave this archipelago the name of the St. Lazarus Islands, afterwards changed to that of the Philippines from the name of Philip of Austria, son of Charles V.

This archipelago is formed of a great number of islands which extend in Malaysia, between 5 degrees 32 minutes and 19 degrees 38 minutes north latitude, and 114 degrees 56 minutes and 123 degrees 43 minutes longitude east of the meridian of Paris. The most important are Luzon, Mindoro, Leyte, the Ceylon of Pigafetta, Samar, Panay, Negros, Zebu, Bohol, Palawan, and Mindanao.

When they were a little restored, the Spaniards put to sea again, in order to explore the archipelago. They saw in succession the islands of Cenalo, Huinaugan, Ibusson, and Abarien, as well as another island called Massava, of which the king Colambu could make himself understood by a slave a native of Sumatra, whom Magellan had taken to Europe from India, and who by his knowledge of Malay rendered signal service in several instances. The king came on board with six or eight of his principal subjects. He brought with him presents for the captain-general, and in exchange he received a vest of red and yellow cloth, made in Turkish fashion, and a cap of fine scarlet, while mirrors and knives were given to the members of his suite. The Spaniards showed him all their fire-arms and fired some shots from the cannon in his presence, at which he was much terrified. "Then Magellan caused one of our number to be fully armed," says Pigafetta, "and ordered three men to give him blows with the sword and stiletto, to show the king that nothing could wound a man armed in this manner, which surprised him greatly, and turning to the interpreter he said to the captain through him, 'that a man thus armed, could fight against a hundred.' 'Yes,' replied the interpreter, in the name of the commandant, 'and each of the three vessels carries 200 men armed in this manner.'" The king, astonished by all that he had seen, took leave of the captain, begging him to send two of his men with him, to let them see something of the island. Pigafetta was chosen, and was much satisfied with the welcome that he received. The king told him "that in this island they found pieces of gold as large as nuts, and even eggs, mixed with the earth which they passed through a sieve to find them; all his vessels and even some of the ornaments of his house were of this metal. He was very neatly dressed, according to the custom of the country, and was the finest man that I have seen among these people. His black hair fell upon his shoulders; a silk veil covered his head, and he wore two rings in his ears. From his waist to his knees, he was covered with a cotten cloth embroidered in silk. On each of his teeth there were three spots of gold, arranged in such a manner that one would have said all his teeth were fastened together with this metal. He was perfumed with storax and benzoin. His skin was painted, but its natural tint was olive."

On Easter Day, the Europeans went on shore to celebrate mass in a kind of little church which they had constructed on the sea-shore with sails and branches of trees. An altar had been set up, and during the whole time that the religious ceremony lasted, the king with a large concourse of people, listened in silence and imitated all the motions of the Spaniards. Then a cross having been planted on a hill with great solemnity, they weighed anchor and made for the port of Zebu, as being the best for revictualling the vessels and trading. They arrived there on Sunday, the 7th of April. Magellan sent one of his officers on shore at once with the interpreter, as ambassador to the king of Zebu. The envoy explained that the chief of the squadron was under the orders of the greatest king in the world. The object of the voyage, he added, was the wish to pay him a visit, and at the same time to take in some fresh provisions in exchange for merchandise, and then to go to the Molucca Islands. Such were the motives which caused them to tarry in a country where they came as friends.

"They are welcome," replied the king; "but if they intend to trade they should pay a duty to which all vessels are subject that enter my port, as did, not four days since, a junk from Siam, which came to seek for slaves and gold, to which a Moorish merchant who has remained in this country can testify."

The Spaniard replied that his master was too great a king to submit to such an unreasonable demand. They had come with pacific intentions; but if war were declared, it would be seen with whom they had to deal.

The king of Zebu, warned by the Moorish merchant, of the power of those who stood before him, and whom he took for Portuguese, at length consented to forego his claims. Moreover the king of Massava, who had continued to serve as pilot to the Spaniards, so altered the inclinations of his brother sovereign, that the Spaniards obtained the exclusive privilege of trading in the island, and a loyal friendship was sealed between the king of Zebu and Magellan by an exchange of blood which each drew from his right arm.

From this moment, provisions were brought and cordial relations established. The nephew of the king came with a numerous suite to visit Magellan on board his ship, and the latter took this opportunity to relate to his visitors the wonderful history of the creation of the world, and of the redemption of the human race, and to invite him and his people to become converts to Christianity. They showed no repugnance to being baptized, and on the 14th of April the kings of Zebu and Massava, and the Moorish merchant, with 500 men and as many women received baptism. But what was only a fashion at first, for it cannot be said that the natives knew the religion which they embraced or were persuaded of its truth, became a real frenzy, after a wonderful cure had been effected by Magellan. Having learnt that the father of the king had been ill for two years and was on the point of death, the captain-general promised, that if he consented to be baptized and the natives would burn their idols, he would find himself cured. "He added that he was so convinced of what he said," relates Pigafetta—for it is as well to quote the author verbatim in such a matter—"that he agreed to lose his head if what he promised did not happen immediately. We then made a procession, with all possible pomp, from the place where we were to the sick man's house, whom we found really in a very sad state in that he could neither speak nor move. We baptized him with two of his wives and ten daughters. The captain asked him directly after his baptism how he found himself, and he suddenly replied that thanks to our Lord he was well. We were all witnesses of this miracle. The captain above all rendered thanks to God for it. He gave the prince a refreshing drink, and continued to send him some of it every day till he was quite restored. On the fifth day the invalid found himself quite cured and got up. His first care was to have burned, in the presence of the king and all the people, an idol for which he had great veneration, and which some old women guarded carefully in his house. He also caused some temples which stood on the sea-shore, and in which the people assembled to eat the meat consecrated to their old divinities, to be thrown down. All the inhabitants applauded these acts, and proposed themselves to go and destroy all the idols, even those which were in use in the king's house, crying at the same time 'Vive la Castille!' in honour of the king of Spain."

Near to the Island of Zebu is another island called Matan which had two chiefs, one of whom had recognized the authority of Spain, while the other having energetically resisted it, Magellan resolved to impose it upon him by force. On Friday, the 26th of April, three long boats left for the Island of Matan containing sixty men wearing cuirasses and helmets, and armed with muskets; and thirty balangais bearing the king of Zebu, his son-in-law, and a number of warriors.

The Spaniards waited for day and then to the number of forty-nine leapt into the water, for the boats could not approach the land on account of the rocks and shallow water. More than 1500 natives awaited them, and at once threw themselves upon them, and attacked them in three troops, both in front and flank. The musketeers and the crossbow-men fired on the multitude of warriors from a distance, without doing them much harm, they being protected by their bucklers. The Spaniards, assailed by stones, arrows, javelins, and lances, and overwhelmed by numbers, set fire to some huts to disperse and intimidate the natives. But these, made more furious by the sight of the fire, redoubled their efforts, and pressed the Spaniards on all sides, who had the greatest difficulty in resisting them, when a sad event took place which compromised the issue of the combat. The natives were not slow in remarking that all the blows which they directed towards those parts of their enemies' bodies which were protected by armour, caused no wounds; they set themselves therefore to hurl their arrows and javelins against the lower part of the body, which was undefended. Magellan, wounded in the leg by a poisoned arrow, gave the order for retreat, which, begun in good order, soon changed into such a flight, that seven or eight Spaniards alone remained at his side. With much difficulty they kept moving backwards, fighting as they went, in order to reach the boats. They were already knee-deep in the water when several islanders rushed all together upon Magellan, who, wounded in the arm, was unable to draw his sword; they gave him such a sabre-cut upon his leg that he immediately fell down in the water, where he was speedily despatched. His remaining companions, and among them Pigafetta, every one of whom had been hit, hastily regained the boats. Thus perished the illustrious Magellan on the 27th of April, 1521. "He was adorned with every virtue," says Pigafetta, "and ever exhibited an unshaken constancy in the midst of the greatest adversity. At sea he always condemned himself to greater privations than the rest of his crew. Better versed than any one else in the knowledge of nautical charts, he was perfect in the art of navigation, as he proved by making the tour of the world, which none before him had ventured to do." Pigafetta's funeral eulogy, though a little hyperbolical, is not untrue in the main. Magellan had need of singular constancy and perseverance to penetrate, despite the fears of his companions, into regions peopled by the superstitious spirit of the time with fantastic dangers. Peculiar nautical science was also necessary to achieve the discovery at the extremity of that long coast of the strait which so justly bears his name. He was obliged to give unceasing attention to avoid all untoward accidents while exploring those unknown parts without any exact instruments. That one of the vessels was lost must be imputed to pride and a spirit of revolt in her own captain, more than to any incapacity or want of caution in the captain-general. Let us add with our enthusiastic narrator, "The glory of Magellan will survive his death."



Duarte Barbosa, Magellan's brother-in-law, and Juan Serrano were elected commanders by the Spaniards, who were destined to meet with further catastrophes. The slave who had acted as interpreter up to this time had been slightly wounded during the battle. From the time of his master's death he had kept aloof, not rendering any further service to the Spaniards, and remaining extended upon his mat. After some rather sharp reproofs from Barbosa, who told him that his master's death did not make him a free man, he disappeared all at once. He was gone to the newly-baptized king, to whom he declared that if he could allure the Spaniards into some trap and then kill them, he would make himself master of all their provisions and merchandise. Serrano, Barbosa, and twenty-seven Spaniards were accordingly invited to a solemn assembly to receive the presents destined by the king of Zebu for the Emperor; during the banquet they were attacked unexpectedly, and were all massacred except Serrano, who was led bound to the sea-shore, where he besought his companions to ransom him, for if they did not he would be murdered. But Juan de Carvalho and the others, fearing that the insurrection would become general, and that they might be attacked during the negotiations by a numerous fleet which they would not be able to resist, turned a deaf ear to the unfortunate Serrano's supplications. The ships set sail and reached the Island of Bohol, which was not far distant.

When there, thinking that their numbers were too much reduced to navigate three vessels, they burnt the Concepcion, after having transshipped all that was most precious on board the other vessels. Then, after having coasted along the Island of Panilongon they stopped at Butuan, which forms part of Mindanao, a magnificent island, with numerous ports, and rivers abounding in fish, to the north-west of which lies the Island of Luzon, the most considerable of the Archipelago. The ships touched also at Paloan, where they found pigs, goats, fowls, different kinds of bananas, cocoa-nuts, sugar-canes, and rice, with which they provisioned the ships. This was for them, as Pigafetta expresses it, "a promised land." Among the things which he thought worthy of notice, the Italian traveller mentions the cocks kept by the natives for fighting; a passion which after so many years is still deeply-rooted amongst the population of the whole Philippine Archipelago. From Paloan, the Spaniards next went to the Island of Borneo, the centre of Malay civilization. From that time they had no longer to deal with poverty-stricken people, but with a rich population, who received them with magnificence. Their reception by the rajah is sufficiently curious to warrant a few words being devoted to it. At the landing-place they found two elephants with silk trappings, who bore the strangers to the house of the governor of the town, while twelve men carried the presents which were to be offered to the rajah. From the governor's house where they slept, to the palace of the king, the streets were kept by armed men. Upon descending from their elephants the Spaniards were admitted to a room filled with courtiers. At the end of this room opened another smaller room, hung with cloth of gold, in which were 300 men of the king's guard armed with poniards. Through a door they could then see the rajah, sitting by a table with a little child, chewing betel-nut. Behind him there were only some women.

Etiquette required that the petition to be made must pass in succession through the mouths of three nobles, each of higher rank than the last, before being transmitted, by means of a hollow cane placed in a hole in the wall, to one of the principal officers, who submitted it to the king. Then there was an exchange of presents, after which the Spanish Ambassadors were conducted back to their vessels with the same ceremony as on their arrival. The capital is built on piles in the sea; so that when the tide rises, the women who sell provisions go about the town in boats. On the 29th of July more than 100 canoes surrounded the two vessels, whilst at the same time some junks weighed anchor to approach them more nearly. The Spaniards, fearing to be treacherously attacked, took the initiative and fired off their artillery, which killed a number of people in the canoes, upon which the king excused himself, saying that his fleet had not been directed against them, but against the Gentiles with whom the Mussulmen had daily combats. This island produces arrack (the alcohol of rice), camphor, cinnamon, ginger, oranges, citrons, sugar-canes, melons, radishes, onions, &c. The articles of exchange are copper, quicksilver, cinnabar, glass, woollen cloths, and canvas, and above all iron and spectacles, without mentioning porcelain, and diamonds, some of which were of extraordinary size and value. The fauna comprises elephants, horses, buffaloes, pigs, goats, and domestic poultry. The money in use is of bronze, it is called sapeque and consists of small coins which are perforated with holes, that they may be strung together.

On leaving Borneo the travellers sought for a suitable spot in which to repair their vessels, which were in such great need of it that the men were not less than forty-two days over the work. "The oddest things which I have found in this island," says Pigafetta, "are the trees of which all the leaves are animated. These leaves resemble those of the mulberry, but are not so long; the stalk is short and pointed, and near the stalk on both sides there are two feet. If you touch the leaves, they escape; but when crushed no blood comes from them. I have kept one of them in a box for nine days; when I opened the box, the leaf was walking about in it; I believe they must live upon air." These very curious animals are well known at the present day, and are commonly called leaf-flies (mouches-feuille); they are of a grey-brown, which makes them more easily mistaken for dead leaves, which they exactly resemble in appearance.

It was while in these parts that the Spanish expedition, which, during Magellan's life had preserved its scientific character, began perceptibly to become piratical. Thus, on several occasions, junks were seized upon, and their crews forced by their Spanish captors to pay large ransoms.

The ships next passed by the Archipelago of the Sooloo Islands, the haunt of Malay pirates, who have even now only lately submitted to the Spanish arms; then by Mindanao, which had been already visited, for it was known that the eagerly sought-for Moluccas must be in its neighbourhood, whether more or less remote. At last, after having seen a number of islands, of which the names would not convey much idea to us, on Wednesday, the 6th of November the Spaniards discovered the Archipelago, about which the Portuguese had related such terrifying fables, and two days later they landed at Tidor. Thus the object of the voyage was attained.

The king came to meet the Spaniards, and invited them to go on board his canoe. "He was seated under a silk parasol which covered him entirely. In front of him were placed one of his sons who carried the royal sceptre, two men who had each a golden vase full of water for washing the king's hands, and two others holding small gilt boxes filled with betel." Then the Spaniards made the king come on board the vessels, where they showed him much respect, at the same time loading him and those who accompanied him with presents, which seemed to them very precious. "This king is a Moor, that is to say, an Arab," Pigafetta affirms; "he is nearly forty-five years of age, tolerably well made, and with a fine physiognomy. His clothing consisted of a very fine shirt, the cuffs of which were embroidered in gold; drapery descended from his waist to his feet; a silk veil (no doubt a turban) covered his head, and upon this veil there was a garland of flowers. His name is Rajah-sultan Manzor."

The next day, in a long interview which he had with the Spaniards, Manzor declared his intention of placing himself with the Islands of Ternate and Tidor under the protection of the king of Spain.



This is the place to give some details about the Archipelago of the Moluccas, drawn from Pigafetta's narrative, which we are following step by step in the version that M. Ed. Charton has given, and to which he has added such valuable notes.

This Archipelago properly speaking, comprises the Islands of Gilolo, Ternate, Tidor, Mornay, Batchian, and Misal; but the Banda and Amboyna groups are also often comprehended under the general name of Molucca. Formerly convulsed by repeated volcanic commotions, this Archipelago contains a great number of craters almost all extinct, or in repose during a long succession of years. The air there is burning, and would be almost unfit to breathe, if frequent rains did not fall and refresh the atmosphere. The natural productions are extremely valuable. In the first rank must be placed the sago-tree, of which the pith called sago takes, with yams, the place of cereals throughout Malacca. As soon as the tree is cut down, the pith is extracted, which is then grated, passed through a sieve, and afterwards cut up in the form of small rolls, which are dried in the shade. There are also the mulberry, the clove, the nutmeg, the camphor, and pepper-trees; in fact all the spice-trees and all the tropical fruits. The forests contain some valuable kinds of wood, ebony, iron-wood, teak, famous for its strength and employed from the most ancient times in costly buildings, and the Calilaban laurel, which yields an aromatic essential oil that is highly prized. At this period domestic animals were not numerous in the Moluccas, but among the wild animals the most curious were the babiroussa, an enormous wild boar with long tusks bent backwards; the opossum, a kind of didelphis a little larger than our squirrel; the phalanger, a marsupial which lives in thick, dark forests, where it feeds upon leaves and fruit; and the tarsier, a kind of jerboa, a very harmless, inoffensive little animal with reddish-coloured hair, about the size of a rat, but whose body bears some resemblance to that of an ape. Among the birds, the most remarkable were the parroquets and cockatoos, the birds of Paradise of which so many fabulous accounts were given, and which until then had been believed to be without legs, the king-fishers, and the cassowaries, great wading-birds almost as large as ostriches.

A Portuguese named Lorosa had been long settled in the Moluccas, and to him the Spaniards forwarded a letter, in the hope that he would betray his country and attach himself to Spain. They obtained the most curious information from him with regard to the expeditions which the king of Portugal had despatched to the Cape of Good Hope, to the Rio de la Plata and to the Moluccas; but from various circumstances these latter expeditions had not been able to take place. He himself had been sixteen years in this Archipelago; the Portuguese had been installed there for ten years, but upon this fact they preserved the most complete silence. When Lorosa saw the Spaniards making their preparations for departure, he came on board with his wife and his goods to return to Europe. On the 12th of November all the merchandise destined for barter was landed, it being chiefly derived from the four junks which had been seized in Borneo. Certainly the Spaniards traded to great advantage, but nevertheless not to so great an extent as they might have done, for they were in haste to return to Spain. Some vessels from Gilolo and Batchian came also to trade with them, and a few days later they received a considerable stock of cloves from the king of Tidor. This king invited them to a great banquet which he said it was his custom to give when a vessel or junk was loaded with the first cloves. But the Spaniards, remembering what had happened to them in the Philippines, refused the invitation while presenting compliments and excuses to the king. When their cargo was completed, they set sail. Scarcely had the Trinidad put to sea before it was perceived that she had a serious leak, and the return to Tidor as fast as possible was unavoidable. The skilful divers whom the king placed at the disposal of the Spaniards, were unable to discover the hole, and it became necessary to partly unload the ship to make the necessary repairs. The sailors who were on board the Victoria would not wait for their companions, and the ship's officers seeing clearly that the Trinidad would not be fit for the voyage to Spain, decided that she should go to Darien, where her valuable cargo would be discharged and transported across the Isthmus to the Atlantic, where a vessel would be sent to fetch it. But neither the unfortunate vessel nor her crew was destined ever to return to Spain.

The Trinidad, commanded by the alguazil Gonzalo Gomez de Espinosa, who had Juan de Carvalho as pilot, was in so bad a state that after leaving Tidor, she was obliged to anchor at Ternate, in the port of Talangomi, where her crew consisting of seventeen men was immediately imprisoned by the Portuguese. The only reply given to Espinosa's remonstrances was a threat to hang him to the yard of a vessel; and the unfortunate alguazil, after having been transferred to Cochin, was sent to Lisbon, where for seven months he remained shut up in the prison of the Limoeiro with two Spaniards, the sole survivors of the crew of the Trinidad.

As to the Victoria, she left Tidor richly laden under the command of Juan Sebastian del Cano, who, after having been simply a pilot on board one of Magellan's ships, had taken the command of the Concepcion on the 27th of April, 1521, and who succeeded to Juan Lopez de Carvalho, when the latter was superseded in his command for incapacity. The crew of the Victoria was composed of only fifty-three Europeans and thirteen Indians. Fifty-four Europeans remained at Tidor on board the Trinidad.

After passing amidst the islands of Caioan, Laigoma, Sico, Giofi, Cafi, Laboan, Toliman, Batchian, Mata, and Batu, the Victoria left this latter island to the west, and steering west-south-west, stopped during the night at the island of Xulla or Zulla. At thirty miles from thence the Spaniards anchored at Booro, (the Boero of Bougainville), where the ship was revictualled. They stopped 105 miles further on, at Banda, where mace and nutmegs are found, then at Solor, where a great trade in white sandal-wood is carried on. They spent a fortnight there to repair their ship, which had suffered much, and there they laid in an ample provision of wax and pepper; then they anchored at Timor, where they could only obtain provisions by retaining by stratagem the chief of the village and his son, who had come on board the ship. This island was frequented by junks from Luzon, and by the "praos," from Malacca and Java, which traded largely there in sandal-wood and pepper. A little further on the Spaniards touched at Java, where, as it appears, suttee was practised at this time, as it has been in India until quite recently.

Among the stories which Pigafetta relates, without entirely believing them, is one which is most curious. It concerns a gigantic bird the Epyornis, of which the bones and the enormous eggs were discovered in Madagascar about the year 1850. It is an instance proving the caution needed before rejecting as fictitious many apparently fabulous legends, but which on examination may prove to possess a substratum of truth. "To the north of Greater Java," says Pigafetta, "in the gulf of China, there is a very large tree called campanganghi inhabited by certain birds called garula, which are so large and strong that they can bear away a buffalo and even an elephant, and carry it as they fly to the place where the tree puzathaer is." This legend has been current ever since the ninth century, among the Persians and Arabs, and this bird plays a wonderful part in Arabian tales under the name of the roc. It is not surprising, therefore, that Pigafetta found an analogous tradition among the Malays.

After leaving greater Java, the Victoria rounded the peninsula of Malacca, which had been subjugated to Portugal by the great Albuquerque ten years before. In the immediate neighbourhood are Siam and Cambodia, and Tchiampa, where rhubarb grows. This substance is discovered in the following manner. "A company of from twenty to five-and-twenty men go into the wood, where they pass the night in the trees, to protect themselves from lions (note here, that there are no lions in this country), and other ferocious beasts, and also that they may better perceive the odour of the rhubarb, which the wind wafts towards them. In the morning they go towards the place whence came the odour, and search there for the rhubarb until they find it. Rhubarb is the putrefied wood of a great tree, and acquires its odour even from its putrefaction, the best part of the tree is the root, nevertheless the trunk, which they call calama, has the same medicinal virtue."

Decidedly it is not from Pigafetta that we should seek to acquire botanical knowledge; we should run a great risk of deceiving ourselves if we took in earnest the nonsense that the Moor told him from whom he drew his information. The Lombard traveller gives us also fantastic details about China with the greatest seriousness, and falls into the grave errors, which his contemporary Duarte Barbosa had avoided. It is to the latter we owe the information that the trade in anfiam or opium has existed from this period. When once the Victoria had left the shores of Malacca, Sebastian del Cano took great care to avoid the coast of Zanguebar, where the Portuguese had been established since the beginning of the century. He kept to the open sea as far as 42 degrees south latitude, and for nine weeks he was obliged to keep the sails furled, on account of the constant west and north-west winds, which ended in a fearful storm. To keep to this course required great perseverance on the part of the captain, with a settled desire on his part to carry his enterprise to a successful issue. The vessel had several leaks, and a number of the sailors demanded an anchorage at Mozambique, for the provisions which were not salted having become bad, the crew had only rice and water for food and drink. At last on the 6th of May, the Cape of Tempests was doubled and a favourable issue to the voyage might be hoped for. Nevertheless, many vexatious accidents still awaited the navigator. In two months, twenty-one men, Europeans and Indians, died from privations, and if on the 9th July they had not landed at Santiago, one of the Cape de Verd Islands, the whole crew would have died of hunger. As this archipelago belonged to Portugal, the sailors took care to say that they came from America, and carefully concealed the route which they had discovered. But one of the sailors having had the imprudence to say that the Victoria was the only vessel of Magellan's squadron which had returned to Europe, the Portuguese immediately seized the crew of a long-boat, and prepared to attack the Spanish vessel. However, Del Cano on board his vessel was watching all the movements of the Portuguese, and suspecting, by the preparations which he saw, that there was an intention of seizing the Victoria, he set sail, leaving thirteen men of his crew in the hands of the Portuguese. Maximilian Transylvain assigns a different motive from the one given by Pigafetta, for the anchorage at the Cape de Verd Islands. He asserts that the fatigued state of the crew, who were reduced by privations, and who in spite of everything had not ceased to work the pumps, had decided the captain to stop and buy some slaves to aid them in this work. Having no money the Spaniards would have paid with some of their spices, which would have opened the eyes of the Portuguese.

"To see if our journals were correctly kept," says Pigafetta, "we inquired on shore what day of the week it was. They replied that it was Thursday, which surprised us, because according to our journals it was as yet only Wednesday. We could not be persuaded that we had made the mistake of a day; I was more astonished myself than the others were, because having always been sufficiently well to keep my journal, I had uninterruptedly marked the days of the week, and the course of the months. We learnt afterwards, that there was no error in our calculation, for having always travelled towards the west, following the course of the sun, and having returned to the same point, we must have gained twenty-four hours upon those who had remained stationary; one has only need of reflection to be convinced of this fact."

Sebastian del Cano rapidly made the coast of Africa, and on the 6th of September entered the Bay of San Lucar de Barrameda, with a crew of seventeen men, almost all of whom were ill. Two days later he anchored before the mole at Seville, after having accomplished a complete circuit of the world.

As soon as he arrived, Sebastian del Cano went to Valladolid, where the court was, and received from Charles V. the welcome which was merited after so many difficulties had been courageously overcome. The bold mariner received permission to take as his armorial bearings, a globe with this motto, Primus circumdedisti me, and he also received a pension of 500 ducats.

The rich freight of the Victoria, decided the Emperor to send a second fleet to the Moluccas. The supreme command of it was not, however, given to Sebastian del Cano; it was reserved for the commander Garcia de Loaisa, whose only claim to it was his grand name. However, after the death of the chief of the expedition, which happened as soon as the fleet had passed the Strait of Magellan, Del Cano found himself invested with the command, but he did not hold it long, for he died six days afterwards. As for the ship Victoria, she was long preserved in the port of Seville, but in spite of all the care that was taken of her, she at length fell to pieces from old age.