FOR FOUR OR FIVE MONTHS Magellan’s fleet was secluded by winter in the harbour of misfortune. Time moved on leaden feet in this solitude, and the admiral, doubtless aware that nothing tends to make men dissatisfied and unruly so much as boredom, kept his crew hard at work. The ships, which had now been almost a year on the way, were thoroughly overhauled; fresh timber was cut, beams were made; perhaps he invented superfluous tasks if only to make his subordinates feel sure that the voyage would soon be resumed, and that, from these wintry wastes, they would find their way to the Fortunate Isles.
At length there came the first sign of spring. Throughout these frosty and fog-ridden weeks, the men had come to the conclusion that they had reached a no-man’s-land, a place utterly deserted by man and beast, and their dread at a sojourn in a primeval den remote from humankind may have increased their gloom. One morning, however, there appeared on a neighbouring hill a strange figure, that of a man whom at first they hardly recognised as one of their own kind, for in their alarm and surprise he appeared to them at least twice the ordinary human stature—“duobus humanum superantes staturam”, as Peter Martyr writes. The statement is confirmed by Pigafetta in the following words: “So tall was he, that we reached only to his waist belt. He was well enough made, and had a broad face, which was painted red, with yellow rings round his eyes, and two heart-shaped spots on the cheeks. His hair was short and was coloured white, and he was dressed in the skins of an animal cleverly stitched together.”
Especially astonished were the Spaniards by the gigantic feet of the huge creature, and because of this ‘big-foot’ (patagão) the natives were called Patagonians and the country Patagonia. But the first alarm at the son of Anak was soon dispelled. The enormous man clad in skins stretched out his arms with a grin, danced and sang, and busily sprinkled sand upon his white hair. Magellan, being well acquainted with the ways of savages, recognised the signs of a desire to be friendly, and told one of the sailors to dance in like manner and to scatter sand upon his head. To the delight of the worn and weary mariners, the wild man accepted this pantomime as a token of welcome, and drew near. After the ‘Tempest’, the Trinculos had at length found their Caliban, someone who could provide them with diversion in the wilderness. For when they unexpectedly held a metallic mirror before the nose of the good-natured giant, he jumped with the surprise of seeing his own countenance for the first time, jumped violently backward, and tumbled down, dragging four of the sailors with him. His huge appetite made them forget the smallness of their own rations. They stared at this Gargantua as he swallowed a bucket of water at a draught, and stuffed half a hamper of ship’s biscuit into his mouth as he might have stuffed one or two gingerbread nuts. What a shout did they give when, to the horror of the bystanders, on being presented with a couple of rats, he devoured them alive, skin and hair included! But the savage and the crew were inspired with mutual sympathy, and when Magellan bestowed a few little bells on the visitor, he hastened off to fetch some other ‘giants’, as well as one or two ‘giantesses’.
His nonchalance was to prove disastrous to the children of nature. Like Columbus and the other conquistadors, Magellan had received strict orders from the Casa de Contratación to collect specimens, not only of plants and ores, but also of all new varieties of man that he might encounter on the journey, and bring back some of them to Spain. To the sailors it seemed that the attempt to catch one of these ‘giants’ alive would be as dangerous as tackling a whale with their bare hands. Anxiously they crept close to the Patagãos, but again and again, at the last moment, their courage failed them. At length a mean trick occurred to them. Magellan loaded the natives with presents, so that their hands were full; then he offered them a pair of irons, and, as they were unable to hold these, showed how they could be fitted upon the legs. A couple of strokes of the hammer riveted the bolts, and the two unlucky savages were prisoners before they realised their position. They were pleased, at first, with the beautiful rings round their ankles, which made merry music. But now it was easy to sandbag them, since, fettered, they were no longer dangerous. In vain did they howl, thrash with their arms, and call Setebos, their Great Spirit, to their aid. (Shakespeare borrowed this name from the Patagonians.) The Emperor wanted them as curios, so like poleaxed oxen they were borne on board the ships, where they perished miserably from lack of proper food.
By this perfidious behaviour on the part of the representatives of Christian civilisation, good understanding with the savages was destroyed. The Patagonians kept aloof from the deceivers, and when a troop of Spaniards pursued them on one occasion (Pigafetta’s report lacks clearness about this matter) to catch or to visit some of the Patagonian women, the white men were forcibly repulsed, and one of the sailors paid for the attempt with his life.
Neither to the indigenes nor to the Spaniards did this unhappy Puerto San Julián bring anything but disaster. Magellan had no luck here. The bloodstained strand was fraught with doom. “Let us get away,” was the cry of the crew. On with the voyage, on with the voyage, was Magellan’s supreme desire. The impatience of both parties increased as the days grew longer. As soon as the worst storms of winter were over, the captain-general made a move. He sent the handiest of his ships, the little Santiago, under the command of Serrão, to sail southward along the coast on an exploring voyage, even as Noah sent the dove from the Ark. Serrão was to come back and report after a specified number of days. He overstayed his time, and Magellan impatiently watched the sea. The first tidings, however, came from the land. Two strange, tottering figures were seen on one of the hills. Believing them to be Patagonians, the sailors made ready their crossbows. But the naked men, half frozen, almost starved, exhausted and spectral, shouted words in Spanish. They were two of the crew of the Santiago and brought evil tidings. Serrão had got as far as a river which he named the Rio de Santa Cruz. It was conveniently situated, and there were abundant supplies of fish, but when he was about to continue his reconnaissance a squall from the east drove the ship ashore. Only one life was lost, that of the captain’s Negro slave. The rest, thirty-seven in all, got safely to land. They were waiting at the mouth of the Rio de Santa Cruz in the most extreme need while the two speakers had made their way along the coast to Puerto San Julián. Chosen for the task as the strongest of the party, they had just managed to keep themselves alive by devouring roots and grass.
Magellan promptly sent a boat to the rescue. The shipwrecked men were brought back. They were saved, but their ship, the most mobile in the fleet, had been utterly destroyed. She was a total loss, and like every loss in this uttermost part of the world she was irreplaceable. When, on 24th August 1520, Magellan gave orders to weigh anchor and leave the unlucky Puerto San Julián, giving a last glance to the two poor wretches he had marooned, in his secret soul he perhaps cursed the day and the hour when he had landed here. One of his ships was sunk, two of his captains had been killed, a whole year had passed since the beginning of a voyage in which nothing had been gained, nothing discovered, nothing done.
These must have been the gloomiest days in Magellan’s life, perhaps the only ones in which he, whose faith was usually not to be shaken, secretly despaired. His uncertainty was betrayed by the pretended firmness with which he declared himself resolved to sail down the Patagonian coast as far as the seventy-fifth parallel, and only then, if he had not yet discovered the way through, to turn eastward and take the customary route to the Indies round the Cape of Good Hope. This was the first time on which he admitted to his officers that there was a possibility of retreat, that the strait of which they were in search perhaps did not exist, or existed only in Antarctic waters. Obviously his innermost conviction had been undermined; his intuitive certainty that he would find the paso had at length been dispelled.
Seldom in history has anyone been in a more deplorable situation than was Magellan, when, after holding on his southward course for two days, he halted once more at the mouth of the Rio de Santa Cruz, to spend there another two months inactive until the winter was fully over. Only from the vantage point of our better knowledge can we perceive how paradoxical was this determination. Here was a man inspired with a great idea, who, misled by an erroneous report, had staked his life upon finding a navigable way from the Atlantic Ocean into the Pacific, and thus becoming the first to circumnavigate the globe. Thanks to his strength of will he had overcome material opposition, had found helpers for his almost unrealisable scheme, had (through the suggestive power of his plan) extorted a fleet from the monarch of an alien land, and had sailed this fleet farther south along the American coast than any navigator before him. He had mastered the winds and the waves, suppressed a mutiny; no obstacles, no disappointments, had, so far, been able to shake his belief that he must be close to the paso, the goal of his dreams. Now, when on the threshold of victory, this man, who was usually so clear-sighted, lost his ‘hunch’. It was as if the gods, regarding him with disfavour, had spitefully hoodwinked him. On 26th August 1520, when Magellan again called a halt which was to last a couple of months, he was already close to his destination, was approaching the entrance to the strait. Only two more degrees of latitude, only two days’ voyage after eleven months, no more than one hundred and fifty miles or so added to the thousands he had already travelled, would have brought him to that of which he was in search, and have filled him with rejoicing. But, through the spite of Destiny, the unhappy man had no inkling of this.
For two tedious months he waited off the barren, godforsaken coast at the mouth of the Santa Cruz, like one who, caught in a blizzard and not knowing where he is, waits and freezes within a stone’s throw of his own house, unaware that a few steps would bring him safe to shelter. Two months, two endless, senseless months, did Magellan brood in this desolate spot, wondering whether he would or would not ever reach the paso. Yet only two days south was the Strait of Magellan, which would bear his name for all eternity. Until the last moment he who, with Promethean gaze, was to unveil the last great mystery on the surface of our planet, had, like Prometheus, to endure the rending of the eagle’s claws of doubt.
All the more splendid would be the reaction when it came, for bliss is more glorious when we rise from the depths of despair. On 18th October 1520, Magellan gave orders to get the fleet under way once more. Before the start, mass was said, the men having first been confessed. After the ceremony, the anchors were weighed and the ships steered south under full press of sail. Even now they were baffled for two days by headwinds, and every inch had to be conquered. At length the wind shifted to the north, and they made good progress. But the land off which they coasted did not cheer their hearts with a brave show of green, for sand and rocks, such as had depressed them all the winter, stretched inhospitably before their eyes. Sand and rocks, rocks and sand. Then, on 21st October 1520, they sighted a cape with white cliffs rising above a strangely indented shore. In honour of the day, St Ursula’s, Magellan christened it Cabo de las Vírgenes. On the farther side of it they entered a deep bay with black waters. The fleet sailed into this bay. Strange, harsh and tremendous was the prospect. There were steep hills, uneasy-looking and fissured. Far in the distance were snow-clad peaks, such as they had not seen since their last winter in Europe. How dead was the landscape! No sign of human life, no vegetation; naught but the howling and roaring of the wind disturbed the silence of this ghostly spot. The men looked dubiously at the dark inlet. To all of them it seemed absurd to suppose that this landlocked bay, encircled by mountains, its waters black as Hades, could lead to the Mar del Sur, the bright, the sunny southern seas. Unanimously the pilots declared that the deep indentation in the land could be nothing but a fiord, like those found on the coast of Norway. Why waste time and energy upon exploring it, or upon soundings? Too many days and weeks had already been spent in reconnaissances along the Patagonian coast, to find that none of the bays led into the expected strait. Let there be no more hesitation. Let the chief give orders to sail on along the coast, and then, if the estrecho did not soon disclose itself, return home while the weather was still warm or, if he did not do that, let him make for the Cape of Good Hope and round it into the Indian Ocean.
But Magellan, obsessed by his idea of a hidden strait, insisted upon thoroughly exploring this remarkable bay. Reluctantly his companions heard the order, “for we all believed that it was a blind alley” (Pigafetta’s words). The flagship and the Victoria stayed behind, anchoring on the southern side of the inlet. The San Antonio and the Concepción were instructed to sail as far westward as they could, but to return and report in five days at the utmost. Time was precious, for supplies were running short. Magellan could no longer allow a fortnight for exploration, as he had in the estuary of the Río de la Plata. Five days was all he could spare for the adventure.
The dramatic moment had come. Magellan intended the Trinidad and the Victoria to cruise round the outer part of the bay until the San Antonio and the Concepción returned from their exploratory voyage. Once more, however, nature showed herself averse to the revealing of her last secret. The wind freshened to a gale, and then to one of the hurricanes common in this part of the world, of which the Spanish maps of the times warningly assure us “no hay buenas estaciones”—there are no good seasons here. In a trice the waters of the bay were lashed by the storm, the ships dragged their anchors, had to weigh them, and to make sail for the open, lucky not to be dashed on the rocks. For a day, and then for another, they were in great peril. But it was not the risk to these two ships which disturbed Magellan, who continued to weather the storm as best he could in the mouth of the bay. It was the San Antonio and the Concepción about which he felt grave anxiety. The hurricane must have overtaken them in the narrows, where they would have no room to tack, no possibility of anchoring or of seeking shelter. Save for a miracle, they must be driven ashore and dashed to pieces.
Intense must have been the leader’s disquietude, his impatience, during these days and hours when he was awaiting the decision of Fate. One day passed, and there was no sign. Another day, and the explorers had not returned. Then came a third and a fourth day of waiting. Magellan knew that if these two craft had been lost, all was lost. He could not venture to continue his voyage to the west with no more than two ships. His achievement, his dream, would have been wrecked as well as they.
At length the lookout man at the masthead hailed the deck. Alas, it was not the returning members of the fleet whom he had espied, but merely a pillar of smoke in the distance. What a terrible moment. A smoke signal could only mean shipwrecked men calling for aid. The San Antonio and the Concepción must have foundered, and with them his whole enterprise, in this nameless bay.
Magellan gave orders to lower the boats, row towards the point from which the signal came, and save what lives could still be saved. But now came a turn in his fortunes. It was like the glorious passage in Tristan and Isolde when the plaintive, the despairing death melody of the shepherd’s flute is transformed as it swells into a paean of happiness. A sail! A sail! A ship! A ship! God be praised, one ship is saved! No, both ships, both, the San Antonio and the Concepción are coming back, safe and sound. Hardly have Magellan and his companions caught sight of them, when, on the port bow, they see flashes, one, two, three, followed by the thunderous notes of large bombards, re-echoed from the hills. What has happened? Why are his subordinates, who have been strictly instructed to avoid wasting powder, firing one salvo after another? Why, thinks Magellan, who can hardly believe his eyes, are the returning craft dressed with flags? Why are the captains and the crews waving and shouting? What are they trying to say? Still too far away to hear the words or understand the signs, but those who have been so anxiously awaiting the return of the expedition are confident—Magellan most of all—that the language is that of triumph.
Yes, it was the yearned-for tidings which the San Antonio and the Concepción were bringing. With immense relief, Magellan listened to Serrão, now captain of the Concepción. The ships had had a bad time to begin with. They had sailed deep into the bay when the storm broke. Though they promptly shortened canvas, they were driven farther and farther to the west, and it seemed inevitable that they would be wrecked upon the rocks which faced them. But, at the last moment, they became aware that the bay was not closed, for behind a headland a channel opened, the ‘First Narrows’. Through this channel, where the sea was comparatively calm, they entered a second bay, followed by the ‘Second Narrows’, and the widening and narrowing of the waterway happened again and again. For three days they continued their voyage without reaching the end of this remarkable strait. Though they had not found the western outlet, they had not seen anything to show that they were in an estuary. The water was persistently salt, and the ebb and flow of the tide continued regularly on the sides of the channel. It did not narrow steadily as the estuary of the Río de la Plata had done. On the contrary, after the narrows there always recurred a new expansion. Practically certain, therefore, that this fiord, this canal, must lead into the Mar del Sur, into the ocean which, a few years before, Núñez de Balboa had been the first of all Europeans to behold.
Better news could not have reached the sorely tried Magellan after a year of tedious waiting and fruitless search. We can only guess how immense must have been the relief. He had almost surrendered to despair, had contemplated leaving the South American coast for the Cape of Good Hope, and must have made many fervent prayers to God and the Saints. Now, when faith and hope had almost come to an end, illusions were disclosing themselves as truth and dreams as reality. Let there be no more hesitation. Heave anchor and make all sail to the west. One more salvo in honour of Emperor Charles, one more prayer to the Great Admiral under whose command he was making his venturesome voyage. Then, with steady courage, forward into the labyrinth. If, out of these Acherontine waters he could find an exit into the new ocean, he would be the first man in the world to discover the passage. Followed by the other three ships, he steered into the strait, which, with a reference to the calendar, he called Todos los Santos (All Saints), but which posterity was to name the Strait of Magellan.
A strange, a ghostly sight it must have been to see these four ships gliding noiselessly into the dark and silent bay, which theirs was the first fleet to enter. Profound indeed was the silence. Like lodestone mountains the hills lined the channel; gloomy were the skies which here are almost perpetually clouded; overshadowed was the sea; like Charon’s boat upon the Styx, shadows among shadows, steered the ships soundlessly through this Plutonic world. From afar gleamed the snowy peaks, white giants whose icy breath was blown to the voyagers by the wind. No living creature showed itself, yet surely there must be human beings somewhere in the region, since by night on the southward side of the channel could be seen flickering flames, for which reason the explorers called the country Tierra del Fuego, the Land of Fire. (These unceasing fires were seen for centuries to come. They flamed because the Fuegians did not know how to make fire, and therefore burnt wood and dried grasses perpetually in their huts.) But no voice was heard, nor any moving form seen. When Magellan sent a boat for some purpose to the shore, the men found no signs of human habitation, but only an abiding place of the dead, a few dozen forsaken tombs. The one animal they stumbled upon was dead, a mighty whale whose corpse had been washed ashore. He had come hither only to die in this domain of everlasting autumn. With astonishment the explorers stared into the spectral stillness, into vistas which looked as if they belonged to some dead and cold star. Sail on, sail on. Driven slowly before the breeze, the ships glided through the untravelled waters. Again and again they cast the lead, to reach no bottom; again and again they looked ahead to if the bay would close in against them, with no free channel. But at each fresh turn, it remained open, the charmed passage meandering farther and farther.
Still, this part of the voyage, like the rest, was gloomy as well as dangerous. The strait did not in the least resemble the broad convenient passage which, in their comfortable studies, the home-keeping cosmographers of Nuremberg—Schöner and, doubtless before him, Behaim—had inscribed on their globes. Only for short, and by euphemism, is the Strait of Magellan called a strait. It really consists of a tangled, labyrinthine confusion of bays and other indentations, of fiords and complicated arms of the sea, and is navigable only with great skill and good fortune. The bays become pointed, or agglomerate into peculiar and incalculable shapes. Three or four times the passage forks, so that it is hardly possible to decide which can be the real way through, the channel that leads west, or north, or south. Shallows have to be avoided, rocks skirted, and again and again a wild squall comes to whip the waters, blowing down from the sinister hills. That is why, for so long, the Strait of Magellan has been a terror to mariners. In dozens of subsequent expeditions, ships were wrecked upon these inhospitable, still desolate strands, and nothing can testify better to Magellan’s exceptional skill as navigator than that he, who was the first to traverse the strait which bears his name, remained for years the last to pass through it without mishap. When we recall the unhandiness of his ships, with their clumsy bellying sails and their wooden tillers, and remind ourselves how they had to seek out a way through the arteries and lateral passages, and reassemble at appointed spots—doing all this at an inopportune season and harassed by storms—we cannot but wonder at his success, and our wonder is shared by generations of seamen.
On this occasion, as throughout Magellan’s career, he showed his genius for patience, and his inviolable foresight no less. He spent a month exploring the paso. Unhurryingly he studied the various channels, although inward impulses were urging him on to make an end of it and reach the southern seas. Repeatedly, when the channel forked, he divided the fleet, sending two ships to the north while the others investigated the south. As if this lonely man, born under a dark star, knew that he could never trust his luck, he did not leave to chance his choice among the many ways that offered, or decide matters by spinning a coin. He explored all the seaways to find the right one, and, while hitherto he had prevailed through the strength of his imagination, he now triumphed thanks to the soberest of the virtues—stubbornness.
The First Narrows had been successfully passed, and the Second Narrows as well. Once more Magellan reached a parting of the ways, where the widening passage divided to right and to left. Once more he split his fleet in two. The San Antonio and the Concepción were to try the south-eastern route, while he himself in the flagship, accompanied by the Victoria, would follow the south-western channel. They were to reassemble, after five days at most, at the mouth of a little river which, because of the multitude of sardines it contained, they proposed to name the River of Sardines. Detailed instructions were given to the captains. The ships were ready to make sail, when something unexpected occurred. Magellan summoned the captains to report upon the amount of stores that were available, and to ask their opinion.
Ask their opinion? What could have happened? Why, of a sudden, this democratic gesture? Why did the dictator, who hitherto had been unwilling to admit that his captains had any right to ask a question or to dispute a command, now treat his officers as comrades on so trifling an occasion? In truth, nothing could have been more logical than this change of front. After an overwhelming triumph, dictators often find it advisable to let humane considerations hold sway for a while, since now the granting of the right of free speech will serve only to safeguard their position.
Having found the paso, the estrecho, the admiral no longer had any reason to dread questions. Since, at long last, he held the trumps, he could meet the others more than halfway and show his cards. It is always easier to be just in days of good fortune than in days of bad. The taciturn, self-contained man therefore broke the long silence. His mystery having been made public, he could afford to be frank and communicative.
The captains appeared according to orders, and delivered their report. It was not encouraging. Supplies were running short, and at best could not last for more than three months longer. Magellan replied. The first aim of the voyage had been achieved, he said; the passage into the South Seas had been found. Of that there could be no doubt. What did his captains think? Would it be better for the fleet to be content with having done so much, or should they go on, in order to finish what he had promised to the Emperor, find the Spice Islands, and take possession of them for Spain? He could not deny that the shortage of provisions entailed serious danger. Still, great would be the renown and enormous the wealth that would await them on the successful completion of their task. He himself was undismayed. He wished, however, to come to a final decision as to whether they should return home with the honours they had gained, or, for the sake of still more honours, they should push forward to the goal. What did the officers think?
There is no record of the answers of the various captains and pilots, but we are not likely to go far wrong in supposing that few of them had much to say. Their memories of the beach at Puerto San Julián and of the sight of the quartered corpses of their Spanish comrades must still have been vivid, and they cannot have felt much inclined to run counter to the will of this Portuguese who had shown himself to be a man of iron. One voice, however, was raised in opposition, that of Estevão Gomes, pilot of the San Antonio, Portuguese by nationality, and, it is supposed, a kinsman of the admiral. Gomes unhesitatingly declared that, since to all appearances the paso had now been discovered, it would be better to return to Spain, and come back with a freshly equipped fleet to take advantage of the newly disclosed strait leading to the Spice Islands. Their present craft, he considered, were no longer seaworthy, were inadequately supplied, and no one could tell how far it might be to their destination across this new and unknown ocean, the Mar del Sur. They should not fail to remember that unless they speedily got to port across the waters of the trackless sea, all on board the fleet would perish miserably from starvation.
The advice of Estevão Gomes was eminently reasonable, and it seems probable that Pigafetta (who was always inclined to regard as suspect anyone who dissented from his idol Magellan) did the experienced navigator an injustice by accusing him of cowardice. From the logical, the objective outlook, Gomes’s proposal to return forthwith to enjoy the honours they had won was eminently sound. Had it been accepted, the commander and nearly two hundred other members of the expedition who were foredoomed to perish would have got home safely. Magellan, however, was more interested in his imperishable deed than in his mortal life. One who wishes to act heroically, must act unreasonably. The leader again took up his parable. No doubt they were faced with difficulties; they would probably suffer hunger and other hardships; but (and here he was strangely prophetic) “even if they had to eat the leather on the ships’ yards, he would still go on, to discover what he had promised to the Emperor, and he trusted that God would aid them and give them good fortune” (“de pasar adelante y descubrir lo que había prometido”). With this bold utterance the council came to an end, and loud calls passed from ship to ship announcing that the voyage was to be continued. Privately, however, Magellan ordered the captains to conceal from their crews the grave shortage of supplies. Anyone who allowed even a hint of it to transpire would be punishable with death.
Silently the captains obeyed orders. The ships that were to take the south-eastern channel—the San Antonio under Mesquita and the Concepción under Serrão—could hoist sail and depart, and soon they disappeared in the devious passage. The other two craft, Magellan’s flagship and the Victoria, were to have an easier time of it. They anchored at the mouth of Sardine River, for Magellan, instead of immediately taking the south-western route, provided a well-manned boat with stores. For a preliminary reconnaissance in these peaceful, narrow waters, a minor craft would do very well. Magellan ordered the commander to be back in three days with his report; then he would have two days for recuperation, since the two other big ships were not expected back until five days had elapsed. Magellan and his companions had a pleasant rest in their quiet anchorage. During the last few days, as they made their way westward, the scenery had greatly improved. Instead of bald reefs, the shore disclosed meadowland and forest. The outline of the nearby hills was lofty, the ice-capped mountains were more remote. The air was milder, and springs of fresh water reanimated the crew, who for weeks had had nothing to drink but the foul, brackish water in the tanks. They lay at ease on the soft grass, watching the wonderful exploits of the flying fish and the other denizens of the sea. There were so many edible plants that at length they could eat their fill. The aspect of nature was so beautiful, so pleasing, that Pigafetta enthusiastically exclaimed: “Credo che non sia al mondo un più bello e miglior stretto, come è questo!”*
But what was this trifling interlude of comfort and relaxation, what were these days of idleness, in comparison with the great, the exciting news which was about to reach Magellan? It was not long delayed, for on the third day the boat obediently returned, and from afar its men were seen to be hailing the flagship with excited gestures like those which had been made by the sailors on All Saints’ Day, when they came back after discovering the entrance to the strait. This time—and it was a thousandfold more important—they had found the outlet. With their own eyes they had seen the Mar del Sur, the great unknown sea into which this channel opened. “Thalassa! Thalassa!”—such was the cry, two thousand years before, uttered by the Greeks when, returning from manifold perils, they at length caught sight of the sea. Now it was re-echoed in another tongue, and at sight of an ocean which only on Balboa’s expedition had heard the jubilant tones of European voices.
This was Magellan’s supreme minute, the minute of the utmost rapture that any man can ever have enjoyed. All his expectations had been fulfilled. He had kept his word to the Emperor. He first in the world, he alone, had done what thousands before him had dreamt of doing; he had found his way into a new ocean. His life was justified by its fruit, and by this moment in it he was destined for immortality.
Then there happened what no one would have dared to expect from a man so harsh and reserved as was Magellan. The stern soldier was suddenly overcome; he who had never before betrayed his inner feelings, surrendered to a surge from within. His eyes filled with tears, which, scalding hot, ran down his weather-beaten face and dropped into his black beard.
For the first time since he had grown up, the iron man wept for joy (“il capitano-generale lacrimò per allegrezza”).
For a brief moment in his dark and toilsome life Magellan was able to taste the highest rapture vouchsafed to men of creative type. He had realised the idea which had so long dominated him. But it was also his fate that he should know no happiness without having to pay for it with extortionate interest. Every one of his successes was associated with some heart-rending disappointment. He could catch only a glimpse of delight, but could not grasp it, and even this brief hour of rapture, the most rapturous of his life, was sped before he had fully savoured it. For what had become of the two other ships? Why did they tarry? Now that the scouting boat had returned to announce the discovery of the exit into the South Seas, further search, further reconnaissance, had become a waste of time. Why did they not come, the San Antonio and the Concepción, to learn the good tidings? What had delayed them? More and more impatiently did Magellan scan the depths of the bay. The appointed time had long been exceeded, the fifth day had passed.
Had there been an accident? Had they gone off their course? Magellan could no longer wait. He ordered the sails to be set, and he steered into the channel in search of his missing consorts. But the horizon remained blank. There was no trace of them on the cold, dead waters. Not a sign was to be seen.
At length, on the second day of the search, a sail was sighted. It was the Concepción, under the command of the trusty Serrão. Where was the other ship, the San Antonio, the most important of the fleet because it was the largest? Serrão could not say. On the first day she had outstripped him, and had vanished. For a little while, Magellan did not guess that there was anything wrong. Perhaps the San Antonio had merely gone astray, or the captain had misunderstood his orders. He therefore, with all three craft, explored the remotest corners of the main channel, now known as Admiralty Sound. He lit beacons as signals, made cairns, marked with flags, and containing letters of instruction, in case the San Antonio should return after having lost her way. But she did not return. Some disaster must have taken place. She must have struck a rock and foundered with all hands—but this was improbable, for the weather had been calm. More likely did it seem that Estevão Gomes, pilot of the missing San Antonio, who in the council a few days back had insisted upon the desirability of a prompt return to Spain, had now rebelliously followed his own rede. He and the Spanish officers must have overpowered their captain, who was faithful to Magellan, and have deserted with all the stores they had on board.
Magellan did not know what had happened. All he knew was that it must be something terrible. The ship had disappeared, the best, the largest, and the most amply provisioned in his fleet. But what had become of it? There was no one to inform him, in this forsaken region, whether it was at the bottom of the sea, or had deserted and was making for Spain with the utmost speed. Nothing but the unfamiliar constellation, the Southern Cross, surrounded by the other stars of the Antarctic heavens, had witnessed the affair. They alone knew what had become of the San Antonio, they alone might have answered Magellan’s questioning. It was natural, therefore, that the admiral should summon Andrés de San Martín, astrologer and astronomer, who was with the fleet in place of Faleiro, and was the only man competent to read the stars. Let the stargazer cast a horoscope. He did so, and (influenced, no doubt, by what he remembered of Estevão Gomes’s behaviour at the recent council) announced the message of the stars, which happened, on this occasion, to speak the truth. The San Antonio, he said, had deserted, and her captain was a prisoner.
Once more Magellan was faced by the need for an important decision. He had been too ready to rejoice. What had happened to him was what would, by a remarkable parallelism of the second circumnavigation of the globe with the first, happen in like circumstances to Francis Drake, his successor. His best ship had deserted, secretly, during the night. When victory was in his hands, a fellow countryman, a man of his own blood, had treacherously stabbed him in the back. If, before this, the fleet had been poorly supplied, now the need had become pressing. On board the San Antonio was the major share of the provisions, which had been further depleted, as far as the remaining three craft were concerned, by the needless delay of six days. To launch forth into the unknown South Seas, which a week ago, when the prospects were far more favourable, had seemed unduly venturesome, would now, after the flight of the San Antonio, be practically suicidal.
From the topmost peak of pride and confidence, Magellan had been plunged into the lowest abyss of perplexity and confusion. Almost superfluous seems Barros’s report: “He was so much confused that he did not venture upon any decision” (“Quedó tan confuso que no sabía lo que había de determinar”). The disturbed state of his mind is shown all too plainly by the statement that in these circumstances his disquiet spread to the other officers of the fleet. For the second time within a few days he summoned a council and asked them their opinion as to whether the voyage should be continued, or whether they should return to Spain, and he now demanded written answers to his questions, wishing, with remarkable foresight, to provide a written record, an incontrovertible proof, of his having consulted his captains. Litera scripta manet.*
It was plain to him, and the facts were to justify his prescience, that the mutineers and deserters on the San Antonio, directly they got back to Seville, would lodge an accusation against him, to avoid being themselves accused of insubordination. They would describe him (being absent and unable to justify himself) as a man who ruled only by terror. They would give an exaggerated account of how he, a Portuguese alien, had cruelly kept in irons officers duly appointed by King Charles, had had Castilian noblemen decapitated and quartered, and had marooned others, that he might, contrary to the King’s orders, maintain the control of the fleet exclusively in Portuguese hands. To deprive these (not wholly unjustified) accusations of their force, to counteract the charge that, throughout the voyage, he had terrorised his officers and refused them any chance of expressing their opinions, Magellan now issued a remarkable order which partook more of the nature of self-defence than of comradely enquiry. “Given in the Channel of Todos los Santos off the mouth of the Rio del Isleo on 21st November, fifty-three degrees south of the equator,” this command begins. It goes on as follows:
I, Ferdinand Magellan, Knight of the Order of Santiago and captain-general of this armada, have fully realised that to all of you it appears a grave decision to continue the voyage, since you regard the season as already far advanced. Now I am a man who never despises the opinion or the advice of another, but who wishes to discuss and to carry out his affairs after general consultation.
It seems likely that the officers must have chuckled when they read this remarkable self-characterisation, for if there was anything typical of Magellan it was his unbending autocracy as leader and commander. They could not fail to remember clearly how the very man who now sought their opinions had for nine months crushed with the mailed fist every attempt to offer advice.
Magellan himself knew that they could not have forgotten his ruthless dictatorship, for he continued: “Let no one, therefore, be timid because of what happened in Puerto San Julián, for it is the duty of each of you to tell me without fear what his opinion is regarding the safety of this armada. It would conflict with your oath and your duty were you to hide your views from me.”
He asked each one of them severally (“cada uno de por si”) to communicate plainly and in writing (“por escrito”) his opinion as to whether it would be better to continue the voyage or to return immediately to Spain. The reasons for the opinion were to be adduced.
Not in one hour, however, is confidence which has been lost for many months to be restored. His officers had been too seriously alarmed to risk candour. The only answer that has come down to us, that of Andrés de San Martín, shows how little inclined he and the others were, now when the responsibility had grown so heavy, to take any part of the load off Magellan’s shoulders. The astrologer replied, appropriately for one of his craft, in ambiguous and nebulous terms, adroitly shifting from one foot to the other. It seemed doubtful, he said, whether this Canal de Todos los Santos was really the right way to the Moluccas (“aunque yo dudo que hay camino para poder navigar a Maluco por este canal”), but he advised the continuance of the voyage (so long as they had the full bloom of the summer with them). On the other hand it would be a mistake to voyage too far, and would be better to put about in the middle of January, seeing that the crew were toil-worn and weak. Perhaps it might be wiser to sail east rather than west, but let Magellan do whatever seemed to him right and take the way that God would disclose to him. We can hardly doubt that the other officers must have replied with like vagueness.
Magellan, of course, had not consulted his officers in order to get their opinions, but only to provide evidence, for subsequent use, that he had consulted them. He knew that he had ventured too far to draw back. He could only return to Spain as a conqueror, for otherwise he would be lost. Even if the verbose astronomer had prophesied his death, he would have continued on his course. On 22nd November 1520, upon his orders, the three ships left their anchorage, and a few days later they emerged from the strait which would henceforward bear his name. From a cape which he gratefully named Cabo Deseado (Cape Desire) he set sail into the pathless Pacific. Somewhere beyond the horizon must lie the Spice Islands, the islands of wealth; farther on still must be China and Japan and Hindustan; and beyond them, in the vast distance, must be the homeland Spain, and Europe. Let them rest for a little while—the last rest before thrusting forth into an ocean which had never been traversed since the creation of the world. Then (on 28th November 1520) it was up anchor and away, flags flying. With a salvo of artillery, three lonely little ships respectfully greeted the unfamiliar seas, as a man chivalrously greets a great adversary who has challenged him to a life-or-death struggle.
PASSAGE OF THE STRAIT OF MAGELLAN
Derived from a lost woodcarving (1801)