.
THE STORY OF MAGELLAN AND THE
DISCOVERY OF THE PHILIPPINES
BY HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH.
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Magellan planting the Cross in the Philippine Islands.
(See page 123)
THE STORY OF MAGELLAN
AND
THE DISCOVERY OF THE PHILIPPINES
BY
HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH
AUTHOR OF
THE TREASURE SHIP, THE PILOT OF THE MAYFLOWER,
TRUE TO HIS HOME, THE WAMPUM BELT,
IN THE BOYHOOD OF LINCOLN, ETC.
ILLUSTRATED BY FRANK T. MERRILL
AND OTHERS
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1899
Copyright, 1899,
By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
"Fired by thy fame,[A] and with his King in ire
To match thy deed, shall Magalhaes aspire.
"Along the regions of the burning zone,
To deepest South he dares the course unknown.
"A land of giants shall his eyes behold,
Of camel strength, surpassing human mould.
"Beneath the Southern star's gold gleam he braves
And stems the whirl of land-surrounded waves.
"Forever movèd to the hero's fame,
Those foaming straits shall bear his deathless name."
Camoëns.
PREFACE.
I have been asked to write a story of Ferdinand Magellan, the value of whose discoveries has received a new interpretation in the development of the South Temperate Zone of America, and in the ceding of the Philippine Islands to the United States. The works of Lord Stanley and of Guillemard furnish comprehensive histories of the intrepid discoverer of the South Pacific Ocean and the Philippine Islands; but there would seem to be room for a short, picturesque story of Magellan's adventures, such as might be read by family lamps and in schools.
To attempt to write such a story is more than a pleasure, for the study of Magellan reveals a character high above his age; a man unselfish and true, who was filled with a passion for discovery, and who sought the welfare of humanity and the glory of the Cross rather than wealth or fame. Among [viii] great discoverers he has left a character well-nigh ideal. The incidents of his life are not only honorable, but usually have the color of chivalry.
His voyages, as pictured by his companion Pigafetta, the historian, give us our first view of the interesting native inhabitants of the South Temperate Zone and of the Pacific archipelagoes, and his adventures with the giants of Patagonia and with the natives of the Ladrone Islands, read almost like stories of Sinbad the Sailor. The simple record of his adventures is in itself a storybook.
Magellan, from his usually high and unselfish character, as well as for the lasting influence of what he did as shown in the new developments of civilization, merits a place among household heroes; and it is in this purpose and spirit I have undertaken a simple sympathetic interpretation of his most noble and fruitful life. I have tried to put into the form of a story the events whose harvests now appear after nearly four hundred years, and to picture truthfully a beautiful and inspiring character. To the narrative of his lone lantern I have added some tales of the Philippines.
H. Butterworth.
28 Worcester Street, Boston, Mass.
CONTENTS.
| CHAPTER | PAGE | |
| I.— | A strange royal order | 1 |
| II.— | Friends with a Purpose | 9 |
| III.— | Prince Henry the Navigator and Vasco da Gama | 15 |
| IV.— | The enthusiasts carry their plans to the king | 24 |
| V.— |
About the happy Italian who wished to see the world.—Beautiful Seville! |
38 |
| VI.— | Enemies.— Estaban Gormez | 43 |
| VII.— | "Marooned" | 52 |
| VIII.— |
"The wonders of new lands."—Pigafetta's tales of his adventures with Magellan.—The story of "the fountain tree."—"St Elmo's Fire" |
60 |
| IX.— | Pineapples, potatoes, very old people | 70 |
| X.— |
The first giant.— The islands of geese and goslings.— The dancing giants |
76 |
| XI.— | Capturing a giant.— Magellan's decision | 84 |
| XII.— | The mutiny at Port Julian.— The Straits.— 1519 | 91 |
| XIII.— | "The Admiral was mad" | 99 |
| XIV.— | The Pacific.— The death of the giants | 103 |
| XV.— | Welcome to the Philippines | 108 |
| XVI.— | The visit of the King.— Pigafetta visits the King | 116 |
| XVII.— | Easter Sunday.— Magellan plants the cross | 122 |
| XVIII.— |
Christianity and trade established.— The Baptist of the Queen |
129 |
| XIX.— | Halcyon Days | 136 |
| XX.— | The Death of Magellan | 139 |
| XXI.— |
The Spice Islands.— Wonderful birds.— Cloves, cinnamon nutmegs, ginger.— The ships overloaded |
144 |
| XXII.— | Mesquita in prison | 157 |
| XXIII.— |
Strange stories.— The wise old women.— The walking leaves.— The haunted sandalwood trees.— The Emperor Of China.— The little boy and the giant bird |
161 |
| XXIV.— | The lost day | 173 |
| XXV.— | In the Church of Our Lady of Victory.— Pigafetta | 176 |
| Supplemental | 183 | |
LIST OF FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS.
| FACING PAGE |
|
| Magellan planting the Cross in the Philippine Islands | Frontispiece |
| "He is a renegade. His arms must come down!" | 2 |
| Lisbon, from the south bank of the Tagus | 4 |
| Ferdinand Magellan | 6 |
| Barcelona | 34 |
| Night after night the ships followed Magellan's lantern | 55 |
| Interior of the Alcázar of Seville | 60 |
| The dancing giant | 80 |
| Mount Mayon, on the Island of Luzon | 125 |
| The death of Magellan | 142 |
| Pigafetta presenting the history of the voyage to the King of Spain | 179 |
| Map of the Philippine Islands | 187 |
| Native houses in Manila | 190 |
| Hong Kong | 202 |
| Iloilo | 206 |
| Boats on the River Pasig | 218 |
THE STORY OF MAGELLAN.
CHAPTER I.
A STRANGE ROYAL ORDER.
I am to tell the story of a man who had faith in himself.
The clouds and the ocean bear his name. Lord Stanley has called him "the greatest of ancient and modern navigators."
That was a strange royal order, indeed, which Dom Manoel, King of Portugal, issued in the early part of the fifteenth century. It was in effect: "Go to the house of Hernando de Magallanes, in Sabrosa, and tear from it the coat of arms. Hernando de Magallanes (Ferdinand Magellan) has transferred his allegiance to the King of Spain."
The people of the mountain district must have been very much astonished when the cavaliers, if such they were, appeared to execute this order.
As the arms were torn away from the ancient house, we may imagine the alcalde of the place inquiring:
"What has our townsman done? Did he not serve our country well in the East?"
"He is a renegade!" answers the commander.
"But he carried his plans for discovery to our own King first before he went to the court of Spain."
"Say no more! Spain is reaping the fruits of his brain, and under his lead is planting her colonies in the new seas, to the detriment of our country and the shame of the throne. His arms must come down. Portugal rejects his name forever!"
"He is a renegade. His arms must come down!"
The officers of the King tore down the arms. They thought they had consigned the name for which the arms stood to oblivion. As the Jewish hierarchy said of Spinoza: "Let his name be cast out under the whole heavens!" That name rose again.
Years passed and a nephew of Magellan inherited one of the family estates. He was stoned in the streets on account of his name. This man fled in exile from Portugal to Brazil. He died there, and said: "Let no heir or descendant of mine ever restore the arms of my family."
In his will he wrote:
"I desire that the arms of my family (Magellan) should remain forever obliterated, as was done by order of my Lord and King, as a punishment for the crime of Ferdinand Magellan, because he entered the service of Castile to the injury of our kingdom."
It is the history of this same Ferdinand Magellan, [3] whom Portugal and his own family sought to crush out from the world, that we are now about to trace.
Following his highest inspiration, he shut his eyes to the present, and followed the light of the star of destiny in his soul. His discovery seems to open to the West the doors of China.
He was filled from boyhood with a passion for finding unknown lands and waters; he was haunted by ideals and visions of noble exploits for the good of mankind. His own country, Portugal, would not listen to his projects at the time that he offered them to the court; so, like Columbus, Vespucci, and Cabot, he sought the favor of another country. Nothing could stand before the high purpose of his soul. "If not by Portugal, then by Spain," he said to an intimate friend; meaning that, if his own country denied him the favor of giving him an opportunity for exploration, he would present his cause to the court of Spain, which he did.
This man, whose real name was Fernao de Magalhaes, was born about the year 1480, at Sabrosa, in Portugal, a wintry district where the hardy soil and the "gloomy grandeur" of the mountain scenery produced men of strong bodies and lofty spirit. He belonged to a noble family, "one of the noblest in the kingdom." His boyhood was passed in the sierras. He had a love of works of geography and [4] travel, and he dreamed even then of sunny zones, undiscovered waters, and unknown regions of the world. Henry the Navigator and his school of pilots, astronomers, and explorers, had left the country full of the spirit of new discoveries which yet lived.
He went to the capital of Portugal to be educated, and was made a page to the Queen. He was yet a boy when Columbus returned, bringing the enthralling news of a new world. Spain was filled with excitement at the event; her cities rang with jubilees by day and flared with torches at night. Portugal caught the new spirit of her late King, Henry the Navigator, and was ambitious to rival the discoveries of Spain. She had already established herself in the glowing realms of India.
In 1509 Magellan went to the West Indies in the service of the Portuguese Government. He joined the expedition that discovered the Spice Islands of Banda, and it became his conviction that these islands could be reached by a new ocean way.
A great vision arose in his mind. It was a suggestion that never left him until he saw its fulfillment in an unexpected way on seas of which he never had dreamed.
This view was that he could sail around the world and reach the Spice Islands by the way of the West.
Lisbon, from the south bank of the Tagus.
In the service of the King against the Moors in one of the Portuguese wars, he received a wound which healed, but left him lame for life. He, like other officers, sent in his claim for the pension due to such service. He received answer from the parsimonious King (Dom Manoel):
"Your claim is not good. Your wound has healed."
He was wounded more deeply by this insult than he could have been by any poisoned dart from the Moors. That he should have been refused the recognition of those who had shed blood in his country's cause rankled in his heart, especially as he saw his comrades paraded in honor and pensioned for lesser disabilities. He left Portugal, as an exile, and went to Spain.
Here the high aspirations of the lame soldier met with recognition, and it was this service that caused the Portuguese King to issue the strange order which has introduced the young and high-spirited grandee to the readers of this story.
If he had faults—as far as history records he had no vices—his high aim overcame them. He had caught the spirit of Portuguese Henry the Navigator, and his soul had glowed when the fame of Columbus first thrilled Spain. He had learned the history of Vasco da Gama, whose name was the glory of Portugal. He had educated himself for action.
Ferdinand Magellan.
After a painting by Velasquez.
It was the age of opportunity. He saw it; he could not know the way, but he knew the guide that was in him. As a son of the Church, which he then was, he consecrated all he had to her glory. What was fame, what was wealth, what was anything to becoming a benefactor of the world, and living forever in the heart of all mankind?
So his deserted house crumbed in Sabrosa, and his coat of arms did not there reappear until centuries had followed the course of his genius, and the whole world came to know his worth.
In view of recent events his character becomes one of the most interesting of past history.
After nearly four hundred years that cast-out name rises like a star!
Why, in the view of to-day, was that name cast out?
Because Magellan saw his duty in a larger life than in the restrictions of a provincial court. The lesson has its significance. He who sinks self and policy, and follows his highest duty and enters the widest field, will in the final judgment of man receive the noblest and best reward.
We love a lover of mankind, and it strengthens faith and hope to follow the keel of such a sailor on any sea.
CHAPTER II.
FRIENDS WITH A PURPOSE.
Souls kindle kindred souls, and the inspirations of friendship commonly form a part of the early history of beneficent lives.
One of Magellan's early friends was Francisco Serrao, who sailed with him for Malacca, a great mart of merchandise in the East. It was to him that Magellan wrote that he would meet him again in the East, "if not by the way of Portugal, by that of Spain;" words of signal import, which we have already quoted.
Serrao had a very curious, romantic, and pathetic history. He lived in the times of the Portuguese Viceroys of India. He was made captain of a ship which sought to explore the Spice Islands, which were then held to be the paradise of the East. Cloves and nutmegs then were luxuries, and when brought to Portugal bore the flavor of the sun lands of the far-off mysterious seas.
At Banda ships were loaded with spices. On sailing there Serrao suffered shipwreck and was cast [10] upon a reef and found refuge on a deserted island. The place was a resort of pirates or wreckers. Some pirates sighted the wreck of the ship and sought to plunder the wreckage.
"We have no ship, and the island is without food or water," said Serrao to his men. "Hide under the rock and obey me, and we will soon have a ship and water and food."
The men hid among the caverns of the reef. The pirates landed, and left their ship for the wreckage.
Serrao rushed through the surf, followed by his men, and boarded the pirates' vessel.
The wreckers were filled with terror when they saw what would be their fate if left there, and they begged to be taken on board, and were received by Serrao as prisoners.
Serrao traded for many years among the Spice Islands and was advanced to high positions, but was poisoned at last, as is supposed, by an intrigue of the King of Tidor.
One of the most inspiring of Magellan's friends was Ruy Faleiro, who had wonderful instincts and a wide vision, but who became a madman. Faleiro was a Portuguese who, like Magellan, was out of favor with the court. He was an astronomer, a geographer, and an astrologer. He had a fiery and impulsive temper, but with it a passion for discovery, and so was drawn into Magellan's heart by gravitation. The two journeyed together, studied together, and [11] started at about the same time for Spain. At Seville they met in a club of famous discoverers, students, and refugees.
They had one vision in common, that there was a short route to the Moluccas by the way of the West. The route was not what they dreamed it to be; but there was a new way to the Spice Islands by the West and East, a way that probably no voyager from Europe had ever seen, and their vision was decisive of one of the greatest events—the circumnavigation of the world. The angle of vision was not true in their private meetings, nor had Magellan's been before they met; but another angle leading from it was true, and would cause a change of the conception of the world when poor Ruy Faleiro's brain was losing its hold on such entrancing hopes.
"We can reach Molucca by a short voyage to the West," said Ruy Faleiro.
"I am sure that I can do this, if I can have an expedition such as the King of Spain can give me," said Magellan.
"You must never communicate this secret to any man," said Ruy.
"I will never mention the subject to any but you," said Magellan, "until we can act together."
The vision of finding the East by a short passage to the West, involved so great a prospect of human progress and glory that it would not let Magellan [12] rest at any time. It haunted him wherever he went. He began to talk about it under restraint, and friends came to see what was on his mind and to take advantage of it.
The earliest map of the world.
By Hecatæus of Miletus (sixth century b.c.). Probably copied in part from Anaximander, inventor of map drawing.
The fiery Ruy Faleiro, when he found that his friend had opened their confidential secret, partly broke friendship with him. Magellan could only [13] acknowledge his error, and say that he never meant in his heart to betray the secrets of his friend, the cosmographer.
Faleiro dreamed on, but his mind weakened.
The popular legend about this unhappy man was, that being an astrologer he cast his own horoscope, and found that the expedition that he hoped to command would be lost, and so feigned madness. This is only a story.
Faleiro died in Seville about 1523.
It would be interesting to know if he lived to hear of the great discovery of his old friend Magellan, and if he joined in the general rejoicing over it. It is probable that he lived to see the strange ways by which his countryman had been led, not over a short passage, but over far-distant seas. His was a pitiable fate; but his name merits honorable mention among men, who, like Miranda in South America, have inspired great deeds which they themselves could not accomplish.
Men of vision and men of action are essential to each other; for many men can see what only a few others can perform.
Magellan married Beatriz Barbosa about the year 1518. He was the father of one son. His wife died shortly after hearing the news of his great discovery of the Pacific and the new way to the East.
He was now prepared to go to Charles V, King [14] of Spain, son of the demented Queen Joanna, the daughter of Isabella, and to lay before him a plan of opening a short way to the East by sailing West. This purpose more and more absorbed his soul—he himself was nothing, discovery was everything. The frown of Portugal no longer cast any deep shadow over his life; it was his mission to find. He heard in the acclaim of Columbus a prophecy of what his own name would one day be.
CHAPTER III.
PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR AND VASCO DA GAMA.
All things follow suggestion and inspiration, and the discovery of the Western World owes much to the heart and brain of Prince Henry, called the Navigator. Although the son of a King, he felt that he was more than that—a son of Humanity. He took up his residence far from the pomp of courts on the bleak, bare, solitary promontory of Sagres, the sharp angle of Western Europe. Here he could see the sun go down on the western sea, day by day. Some inward genius like a haunting spirit seemed to beckon his thoughts toward the West.
In view of his abode on a tall headland were the ruins of a Druidical temple, where Strabo tells us the gods used to assemble at night under the moon and stars. So the place was called the Sacrum Promontorium, and it was in this region that Prince Henry schooled his soul in navigation and sought to inspire all adventurers upon the sea. "Farther" was his motto, and "Farther yet!" In his solitude [16] he called to him a company of restless spirits with a passion for discovery, and said to them all, "Farther," and "Farther yet!"
The night of the dark ages was passing, and in the new dawn of civilization, Prince Henry had visions of new ways to India, the magnificent; the land of gold, gems, and spices, where the sun shone on gardens of palms and seas of glory.
There were no lighthouses then on the African coast; there were no sea charts, and the compass was but little known. But there were eternal stars, and under them were the living instincts that awaken genius.
Prince Henry the Navigator was the fourth son of King Joao I, or John the Great, and of Queen Philippa, of the Roses. He was a great-grandson of Edward III, of England.
Prince Henry's motto was "Talent de bien faire"—"talent of good faculty." The motto furnishes in brief a history of his life.
The first fruit of Prince Henry's geographical studies was the discovery of the islands of Madeira; but there were islands beyond Madeira, and his restless spirit cried out in the night: "Farther!" and "Farther yet!"
Cape Bojador, farther "than the farthest point of the earth," rose just before the supposed regions of sea monsters, fire, and darkness. Prince John sent a navigator there, and found serene seas. [17]
PROGRESS OF PORTUGUESE DISCOVERY
"Farther!"
In 1446 the Prince obtained a charter of the Canary Islands. His ships next discovered the Azores. But there were lands and islands and seas "farther yet."
Prince Henry died in 1463, about thirty years before the triumph of Columbus.
Prince Henry the Navigator
From a drawing by Allegra Eggleston,
in The Story of Columbus
He was the father of modern discovery, the spirit of which rested not until the map of the whole world could be drawn. He was buried in a splendid tomb, and the pupils of his school of cosmography and navigation continued to penetrate the ocean farther and farther to the South and West. Vasco da Gama opened the ocean ways to India, and the two great navigators, Columbus and Magellan, owed much to the spirit of the Prince who left courts that he might found a school amid the sea desolations of St. Vincent, in order to inspire young sailors to venture always "Farther!" and "Farther yet!"
We must here tell you something of Vasco da Gama, in order that you may better understand the plan and purpose of Magellan.
Take your map of the world. Before the passage to India was discovered by sailing around the Cape of Good Hope, Africa, the trade between Asia and Europe was carried on in this manner: There was a great commercial city on the southern coast of Arabia (Arabia Felix) called Alda, or Port Alda. It was a city of merchants. To this port came the ships from the East—China, Japan, India—laden with gold, silk, and spices. The merchants of Alda carried these goods to the Port of Suez on the Red Sea. Thence the merchandise was conveyed on camels to the Nile and to Alexandria, Egypt, and thence by ships to the ports of the Mediterranean.
Vasco da Gama discovered a new way to India by doubling the Cape of Good Hope, and when he returned from that voyage all Europe rang with his praise. His discovery of the way to India from the Mediterranean by rounding Africa was one of the most momentous ever made. Vasco da Gama holds rank with Columbus in the unveiling of the mysteries of the ocean world.
King John the Navigator had heard such wonderful tales of India that he wished to find a way there by water. He accordingly sent one Bartholomeu Diaz on an expedition with this end in view. [20] Diaz did not find India, but he found a cape on the southernmost point of Africa, which he doubled.
So fearful were the tempests there that he called it the Cape of Storms.
But King John saw that the islands of India lay in that direction, and he exclaimed in delight on hearing Diaz's narrative of the tempestuous place:
"'Tis the Cape of Good Hope!" This gave the cape its name.
A Jewish astrologer told Dom Manoel, King of Portugal, that the riches of India could yet be found by way of the sea. Of such a discovery the new King dreamed. Who should he get to undertake a voyage with such a purpose?
One day, as he sat in his halls among his courtiers and grandees studying maps, a man of about thirty years, who had a noble bearing, entered an outer apartment. A sword hung by his side.
The King, who had been thinking of his great mariners, lifted his face and said:
"Thank God! I have found my man. Bring to me Vasco da Gama."
He it was that stood in the outer hall.
"Vasco," said the King, "I know your soul. For the glory of Portugal you must find India by the way of the sea!"
"I am at your service, sire, while life shall last."
"Depart in all haste."[21]
It was March, 1497. Vasco da Gama raised his sails and departed from Lisbon.
Vasco da Gama.
He passed the "Cape of Good Hope," and met with many adventures, the narratives of which would fill a book.
He crossed the India Ocean, blown pleasantly on by the trade winds.
One day a loud cry arose:
"Land! land!"
The pilot came running to Vasco da Gama, and fell at his feet.
"Captain, behold India!"
The shores of India rose in the burning light of the tropic seas. Vasco da Gama saw them and fell upon his knees.
Mountain rose above mountain, and hill over hill; then green palms and shining beaches came into view like scenes of enchantment.
"That is Cananor," said the Moorish pilot; "the great city of Calicat is twelve leagues distant."
They sailed over those twelve leagues of clear resplendent waters and came to Calicat, or Malabar. That day of discovery was Portugal's glory. [22]
PORTUGUESE INDIES
Calicat was a merchant city of the East, and one of the most famous of India. Here came Arabian and Egyptian merchants. It was a Mohammedan city, and the princes of Calicat encouraged trade between the Arabs and Hindoos. The city was now to become an emporium for the Western World.
After many adventures in Malabar, Vasco da Gama cruised along the coast of India. Everything was wonderful, and the wonders grew.
In September, 1499, he returned, and was received like a sovereign by the Portuguese King. His arrival was a holiday, the glory of which has lived in all Portuguese holidays until now.
He was given titles of distinction. He was made a Viceroy of India.
Twenty years after these events Magellan was destined to discover another way to India.
CHAPTER IV.
THE ENTHUSIASTS CARRY THEIR PLANS TO THE KING.
Magellan, full of his project of finding a short way to the rich spicery by sailing West, now sought the favor of the Spanish court. Gold has ever been the royal want, and nobles have always had open ears to schemes that promised to fill the public treasury.
Magellan's interesting friend Francisco Serrao, who had remained in the Indian possessions of the Portuguese, after Magellan's return, had discovered resources of the tropical seas of the Orient that were almost boundless. He had written to Magellan:
"If you would become rich return to the Moluccas."
This letter would be a sufficient passport to the nobles who had the ear of the King. He showed the letter to the King's ministers.
He thought that the point of South America turned westward, as the Cape of Good Hope toward the East. He had an imaginary map in his mind of [25] an ocean world whose shape had no real existence, but that answered well as a theory.
Magellan had brought a globe from Portugal on which he had drawn the undiscovered world as he thought it existed. The strait which he had hoped to find was omitted on this globe in his drawings that no navigator might anticipate his discovery.
Some of the ministers listened to the project with indifference, a few with ridicule; but as a rule Magellan appealed to willing ears. The ministers as a body agreed to commend the enterprise to the King. The Haros of Antwerp, the Rothschilds of the time, favored the expedition. So Magellan and Faleiro made out a petition of formal proposals which they desired to present to the King, and awaited the opportunity.
That opportunity soon came. Charles V, son of Joanna, who was passing her days in solitude and grief on account of the loss of her husband, was on his way to Aragon. He was Emperor of Germany and King of Spain. He was a youth now; having been born in Ghent, February 24, 1500. He came to the throne of Spain in 1516, as the disordered intellect of his mother made her incapable of reigning. He was elected German Emperor in 1519.
Charles V.
After a painting by Titian.
In his youth he had been dissolute. Seeing the responsibilities that he owed to the world and the age, he suddenly received new moral impulses and conquered himself, and his moral life was followed [26] by a religious disposition. He received from the Pope the title of Roman Emperor. His powerful intellect subdued a great part of continental Europe to his will; but he became weary of the cares of [27] state, retired from the world, and ended his life as a religious recluse.
The young King entered Spain in triumph, but amid the glare of receptions his ears were not dull to projects for acquiring gold.
Magellan and Faleiro, under the commendation of the ministry, were soon able to lay their project before the young grandson of the great Isabella. He received them in the spirit that Isabella had met Columbus. He approved their plans, and charged them to make preparations for the expedition.
Charles entered Zaragoza in May, 1518, a youth of eighteen, and Magellan and Faleiro followed the royal train on its triumphal march in the blooming days of the year. They were happy men, and their glowing visions added to the joy of the court on its journey amid singing nightingales and pealing bells.
The royal name signed to Magellan's commission was "Juana," who had been the favorite daughter of Queen Isabella, who had signed the commission of Columbus.[B] This royal daughter of Aragon and Castile was born at Toledo, November 6, 1479. She was in the bloom of her girlhood when the news of the return of Columbus thrilled Spain.
She was a girl of ardent affections; a lover of music; not beautiful, but charming in manner; and at the age of eighteen was betrothed to Philip of the Low Countries, called Philip the Handsome.
The wedding of this daughter of Isabella was to be celebrated in Flanders by fêtes of unusual splendor. A fleet of one hundred and thirty vessels prepared to bear the bride to her handsome Prince. The ships were under the command of the chivalrous admiral of Castile.
Juana took leave of her mother at the end of August, 1496, and embarked at the port of Laredo. A more interesting bride under more joyous circumstances had seldom gone forth to meet a bridegroom.
The sails covered the sea under the flags of the glory of Spain. They drifted away amid music and shoutings, but the salvos of the guns had hardly died away before terrible storms arose. The fleet was shattered, and many of the vessels were lost.
The young bride herself arrived in Flanders safely, and her marriage with the archduke followed at Lille.
When Queen Isabella heard of the birth of Charles, she recalled that it fell on the day of Matthias, and exclaimed, "Sors cecidit super Mathiam"—"the lot fell upon Matthias."[29]
She predicted that the infant would become the King of Spain.
Ferdinand and Isabella.
From a coin.
Philip and Juana were summoned to Spain to meet the people over whom it then seemed probable that they would soon be called to reign. They entered France in 1501, attended by Flemish nobles, and wherever they went was a holiday. There were weeks of splendid fêtes in honor of the progress.
When Ferdinand and Isabella heard of the arrival of Philip and Juana in Spain they hastened to Toledo to meet them. Here Philip and his Queen received the allegiance of the Cortes.
But Philip was a gay Prince, and he loved the dissipations of Flanders more than his wife or the interests of his prospective Spanish possessions. So he left his wife, and returned to Flanders.
The conduct of the handsome Prince drove Juana mad. She loved him so fondly that she thought only of him, and sat in silence day after day with her [30] eyes fixed on the ground, as an historian says, "equally regardless of herself, her future subjects, and her afflicted parents."
She subsequently joined Philip at Burgos. Here Philip died of fever after overexertion at a game of ball. Juana never left his bedside, or shed a tear. Her grief obliterated nearly all things in life, and she was dumb. Her only happiness now, except in music, was to be with his dead body.
She removed her husband's remains to Santa Clara.
The body was placed on a magnificent car, and was accompanied in the long way to the tomb by a train of nobles and priests. Juana never left it. She would not allow it to be moved by day. She said:
"A widow who has lost the sun of her soul should never expose herself to the light of day!"
Wherever the procession halted, she ordered new funeral ceremonies. She forbade nuns to approach the body. Finding the coffin had been carried to a nunnery at a stage of the journey, she had it removed to the open fields, where she watched by it, and caused the embalmed body to be revealed to her by torches. She had a tomb made for the remains in sight of her palace windows in Santa Clara, and she watched over it in silence for forty-seven years, taking little interest in any other thing.
But as she survived Ferdinand and Isabella, her [31] name for a time was affixed to royal commissions, and so Magellan sailed in the service of Charles under the signature of Juana, who was silently watching over her husband's tomb, in the hope that the Prince would one day rise again.
We relate this narrative to give a view of the events of the period, and for the same reason we must speak of another eminent person who acted in the place of the Queen in her unhappy state of mind.
Cardinal Ximenes.
After a painting by Velasquez
This was the great political genius of the time, the virtuous and benevolent Cardinal Ximenes, statesman, archbishop, the heart of the people and the conscience of the Church. He was born of a humble family in Castile in 1487. He was educated in Rome. His character and learning were such that Queen Isabella chose him for her confessor, and made him Archbishop of Toledo, with the approval of the Pope.
On the death of Philip in 1505, he was made[32] regent for Juana. Ferdinand named Ximenes regent of Spain on his deathbed, until Charles V should return from Flanders to Spain.
The regency of Ximenes was one of honor and glory. He himself lived humbly and simply amid all his associations of pomp and power.
He maintained thirty poor persons daily at his own cost, and gave half of his income to charity. He excited the jealousy of Charles V at last, and lost his power in consequence. He lived to extreme age, and left a character that Spain has ever loved to hold in honor.
Such was the political condition of Spain in the early days of Magellan.
CHAPTER V.
ABOUT THE HAPPY ITALIAN WHO WISHED TO SEE
THE WORLD.—BEAUTIFUL SEVILLE!
We should have known but little of the adventures of Magellan, but for Antonia Pigafetta, Chevalier, and Knight of Rhodes.
He was a young Italian of a susceptible heart and happy imagination.
He came wandering to Barcelona, Spain, in the generation that remembered Columbus, and the splendid scenes that welcomed the return of Columbus on the field of Sante Fé. He must have heard the enthralling description of those golden days—he could not be a Columbus; but, if he could win the good will of Magellan, he might go after Columbus and see what no Europeans had seen.
So he wandered the streets of Barcelona and heard the tales of the events that occurred when the "Viceroy of the Isles" was received there by Isabella.
What days those had been! The march of Columbus through Spain to meet Isabella at Sante Fé, was [34] such as had a demigod appeared on earth. Spain was thrilled. The world knew no night. The trumpets of heralds rent the air, and men's hearts swelled high at the tales of the golden empires that Colon had added to Aragon and Castile. Alas! they did not know that there are riches which do not enrich, and that it is only the gold that does good that ennobles.
As Columbus approached with his glittering cavaliers songs rent the air, whose words have been interpreted—
"Thy name, O Fernando!
Through all earth shall be sounded,
Columbus has triumphed,
His foes are confounded!"
or
"Thy name, Isabella,
Through all earth shall be sounded,
Columbus has triumphed,
His foes are confounded!"
To Aragon and Castile Columbus had "given a new world." Peals of golden horns shook the delighted cities, where balconies overflowed with flowers.
Barcelona
His reception at Barcelona by the King and Queen had been made inconceivably splendid:
"That was a glorious day
That dawned on Barcelona. Banners filled
The thronging towers, the old bells rung, and blasts
Of lordly trumpets seemed to reach the sky
Cerulean. All Spain had gathered there,
[36] And waited there his coming; Castilian knights,
Gay cavaliers, hidalgos young, and e'en the old
Puissant grandees of far Aragon,
With glittering mail and waving plumes and all
The peasant multitude with bannerets
And charms and flowers.
"Beneath pavilions
Of brocades of gold, the Court had met.
The dual crowns of Leon old and proud Castile
There waited him, the peasant mariner.
"The heralds waited
Near the open gates; the minstrels young and fair
Upon the tapestries and arrased walls,
And everywhere from all the happy provinces
The wandering troubadours.
"Afar was heard
A cry, a long acclaim. Afar was seen
A proud and stately steed with nodding plumes,
Bridled with gold, whose rider stately rode,
And still afar a long and sinuous train
Of silvery cavaliers. A shout arose,
And all the city, all the vales and hills,
With acclamations rung.
"He came, the Genoese,
With reverent look and calm and lofty mien,
And saw the wondering eyes and heard the cries,
And trumpet peals, as one who followed still
Some Guide unseen.
"Before his steed
Crowned Indians marched with lowly faces,
And wondered at the new world that they saw;
Gay parrots screamed from their gold-circled arms,
And from their crests swept airy plumes. The sun
Shone full in splendor on the scene, and here
The old and new world met!"
The young Italian Chevalier, Pigafetta, Knight of Rhodes, visited the scenes that his own countryman had made immortal by his voyage.
He thought of the plumed Indians and of the [37] birds of splendid plumage that Columbus had brought back.
He heard much of Magellan, the "new Columbus." Why might he not go out upon unknown seas with him and discover new races, and bring back with him tropic spices, birds, and flowers?
He journeyed to Seville and there met Magellan. He entered into the dreams of the new navigator. He asked Magellan to let him sail with him.
"Why do you wish to enter upon such a hazardous undertaking?"
"I am desirous of seeing the wonderful things of the ocean!"
Magellan saw it was so. The Spaniards might distrust him, the Portuguese be jealous of him, but here was a man who would have no race prejudices—a man after his own heart, whom he could trust.
"You wish to see the wonders of the ocean world?" he asked.
"Yes, and I can write, and whatever I may do, and wherever I may go, I will always be true to you—the heart of Pigafetta will always be loyal to the Admiral!"
"My Italian Chevalier, you may embark with me to see the wonders of the ocean world. You shall follow my lantern."
From that hour the young Italian lived in anticipation. What new lands would he see, what palm [38] islands, what gigantic men and strange birds, and inhabitants of the sea?
The young Knight of Rhodes had spoken truly, whatever light might fail, his heart would ever be true to the Admiral.
So the Knight embarked with the rude crew to follow, in the silences of uncharted seas, the lantern of Magellan.
He composed on the voyage a narrative for Villiers de l'Isle Adams, Grand Master of Rhodes. By this narrative we are still able to follow in fancy the lantern of Magellan through the straits that now bear the name of Magellan, to the newly discovered Pacific, and around the world.
His character was as spirited as Magellan's was noble.
We will sail with him in our voyage around the world, for he went all the way and bore the news of Magellan's triumphs to Seville again.
Beautiful Seville! We must glance at the city here. She was the pride of Spain in those times when Spain dazzled the world. The Hispal of the Phœnicians, the Hispales of the Roman conquest, and the Seville of the Moors! Her glory had arisen in the twilight of history, and had grown with the advancement of the race.
She was indeed beautiful at the time when Magellan was preparing for the sea. The Moorish [39] period had passed leaving her rich in arts and treasures, and splendid architecture.
Situated on the banks of the Guadalquivir, circular in shape and surrounded with more than a hundred Moorish towers, and about ten miles in circumference, she rivaled the cities of Europe and of the Orient.
The Giralda.
The great cathedral was being completed at that time, a mountain of art, arising from its plain of marble. It was four hundred and thirty-one feet long, and three hundred and fifteen feet wide, with solemn and grand arches lighted by the finest windows in Spain, perhaps the most enchanting lights through which the sun ever shone. The altars were enriched by the wealth of discovery.
Over this mountain of gold, marbles, and gems [40] gleamed the Giralda, or weather vane, in the form of a statue, three hundred and fifty feet high.
Seville at this time was a city of churches. To these, sailors resorted while waiting for an expedition to complete its preparations for the sea, for most of them were good Catholics, and such as hoped for God's favor in the enterprise upon which they were about to enter.
Here, too, was the old Moorish palace, the Alcázar, with its delicate lacework like the walls of the Alhambra, but richer in color. In this palace was the Hall of the Ambassadors, one of the most enchanting apartments ever created by the genius of man.
In the latter dream of Moorish fancy have passed aching hearts, as well as those filled with wonder and delight. Here Pedro the Cruel received one of the kings of Granada, and murdered him with his own hand, to rob him of the jewels that adorned his person.
The tales of Pedro the Cruel haunted the city at this time.
We are told that this monarch used to go about the city in disguise.
One night he went out thus to serenade a beautiful lady. As he approached the balcony with his guitar where the lady lived, he saw another man there, who had come for the same purpose. The rival musician filled him with rage, and the King [41] rushed upon him and struck him down and killed him.
He fled away. He reasoned that as he was in disguise no one could know him.
There was an old woman who kept a bakery across the way from the house where the noble lady lived. She was looking out of her window at the time of the murder. She saw the act, and got a view of the terrible face of the royal musician as he was fleeing away.
"That was the King himself," said the old bake woman. "By my soul, that was the King!"
The next day the news of the murder filled the city. The murdered man was a person of rank and importance. The people were alarmed and indignant.
"Who did the deed?" was a question that arose to every lip.
The King, cruel as he was, did not wish to be suspected of being a street assassin. So he issued a proclamation in this form:
"Unless the alcalde (judge) of Seville shall discover the murderer of the gallant musician within three days, the alcalde shall lose his head."
The city judge began to make great exertions to discover the murderer.
The old bake woman came to him and said:
"I know who did the deed. But silence, silence! [42] I saw it with my own eyes, but we must be still. It was the King himself!"
The alcalde dared not accuse the King, and yet he must save his own head. What was he to do?
He made an image of the King. He then went to the palace.
"O King! I have found the murderer. I have brought him here to receive sentence."
The King was glad that a suspected person had been found, so that the public thought might be directed to the suspect.
"What shall be done with him?" asked the alcalde.
"What! He who would slay a musician about to serenade a noble lady?"
"Yes, your Majesty."
"What shall be done with him? I condemn him to death. Bring him before me."
The alcalde brought in the image of the King, and uncovered it.
The King beheld himself.
"I will save your head," said the King, and the alcalde went thoughtfully away.
CHAPTER VI.
ENEMIES.—ESTEBAN GORMEZ.
No man living could better know what he needed for such a stupendous and unprecedented undertaking than Magellan, who had already been to the spicery of the Orient in the service of Albuquerque, the Portuguese Viceroy. Under the royal sanction, the dockyards of Seville were at his command. He repaired to Seville, and was there looked upon as one destined to harvest the wealth of the Indies.
But as soon as it became known in Portugal that Magellan was to lead a new expedition of discovery, the mistake that the King had made in rejecting the proposal of the lame soldier, to whom he had refused pension honors, became apparent. The court saw what this rejected man of positive purpose and invaluable knowledge of navigation might accomplish. Should his dreams be prophetic and his projects prove successful, the glory would go to Spain, and the King would be held responsible for another mistake like that which his predecessor had made in the case of Columbus.[44]
What must the court of Portugal do? The hammers were flying in Seville on the ships loading for the voyage. Magellan was making up his crews. Spain had faith in him, and he had faith in himself; never a man had more.
Portugal must prevent the expedition. The Crown must appeal to Magellan to withdraw from it. The King must ask young King Charles to dismiss Magellan as an act of royal courtesy. If these efforts were not successful, it was argued that the expedition must be arrested by force, or Magellan must be murdered by secret spies of the court.
The fleet preparing was to consist of five ships with ample equipment. These were named the Trinidad, the San Antonio, of one hundred and twenty Spanish tons each; the Concepcion, of ninety Spanish tons; the Victoria, of eighty-five tons; and the Santiago, of seventy-five. The Victoria, the ship of destiny, was to circumnavigate the globe.
And now while the hammers were at work, the dull King of Portugal began to arouse himself to arrest the plan, and the court, seeing his spirit, acted with him.
In the bright days in Zaragoza Magellan had been warned that he was in danger of being assassinated. But he did not take alarm. As his project rose into public view at Seville he must have known that he was surrounded by spies, but he did not heed them; he kept right on, marching forward as it [46] were after the inspiration that had taken possession of his soul.
BEHAIM'S GLOBE. 1492.
There was an India House in Seville, composed of merchants, and these were favorable to the expedition. In Spain everything favored Magellan.
Aluaro da Costa was the Portuguese minister to the court of Spain. He plotted against Magellan, and sought an interview with young Charles in order to induce him to eliminate the Portuguese from the expedition. Charles was about to become a brother-in-law to Dom Manoel, and Aluaro da Costa could appeal to the King in this cause in many ways.
Full of diplomacy and craft, he met the King who had to weigh the prospect of gold and glory against this personal argument. Gold outweighed the family considerations, for Charles in his young days was a man of powerful ambitions.
Aluaro da Costa wrote to Dom Manoel a graphic account of this interview. It shows how politic ministers of state were in those days. We can not give the reader a clearer view of some of the obstacles against which Magellan had to contend in those perilous days in Spain than by citing Aluaro's account to Dom Manoel of his interview with young Charles V in his intrigue against Magellan:
"Sire: Concerning Ferdinand Magellan's affair, how much I have done and how I have labored, God knows, as I have written you at length; and now I have spoken upon the subject very strongly [47] to the King, putting before him all the inconveniences that in this case may arise, and also representing to him what an ugly matter it was, and how unusual for one King to receive the subjects of another King, his friend, contrary to his wish, a thing unheard of among cavaliers, and accounted both ill-judged and ill-seeming. Yet I had just put your Highness and your Highness's possessions at his service in Valladolid at the moment that, he was harboring these persons against your will. I begged him to consider that this was not the time to offend your Highness, the more so in an affair which was of so little importance and so uncertain; and that he would have plenty of subjects of his own and men to make discoveries when the time came, without availing himself of those malcontents of your Highness, whom your Highness could not fail to believe likely to labor more for your disservice than for anything else; also that his Highness had had until now so much to do in discovering his own kingdoms and dominions, and in settling them, that he ought not to turn his attention to these new affairs, from which dissensions and other matters, which may well be dispensed with, may result.
"I also presented to him the bad appearance that this would have at the very moment of the marriage—the ratification of friendship and affection. And also that it seemed to me that your Highness would much regret to learn that these men asked leave of him to return,[C] and that he did [48] not grant it, the which are two faults—the receiving them contrary to your desire, and the retaining them contrary to their own. And I begged of him, both for his own and for your Highness's sake, that he would do one of two things: either permit them to go, or put off the affair for this year, by which he would not lose much; and means might be taken whereby he might be obliged, and your Highness might not be offended, as you would be were this scheme carried out.
"He was so surprised, sire, at what I told him, that I also was surprised; but he replied to me with the best words in the world, saying that on no account did he wish to offend your Highness, and many other good words; and he suggested that I should speak to the Cardinal, and confide the whole matter to him.
"May the Lord increase the life and dominions of your Highness to his holy service. From Saragoca, Tuesday night, the 28th day of September.
"I kiss the hands of your Highness,
"ALUARO DA COSTA."
Court intrigue against Magellan did not avail. There was one thing statecraft could do. It could set spies on Magellan on board his own ships. This it succeeded in doing.
There was in Spain at this time a Portuguese adventurer and navigator by the name of Estevan or Esteban Gormez—Stephen Gormez.
He was a student of navigation, and was restless to follow the examples of Columbus and Vasco [49] da Gama. He had applied to the court of Spain—probably to Cardinal Ximenes, for a commission to go on a voyage of discovery and he had received a favorable answer, and was preparing to embark, when Magellan appeared at court and promised to find the Spice Islands by way of South America.
Magellan's scheme was so much larger and definite than that of Gormez that the court canceled its favors to the lesser plans, and Gormez had to abandon his prospects of sailing under the royal favors of Spain.
The eyes of Spain were now fixed on Magellan.
"I will find a way to the Spice Islands by South America or by the West," said Magellan to the ministers of the King, "or you may have my head."
These were bold words. Magellan had not only been to the Spice Islands, but he had gone out on the very voyage that discovered some of them. He had behaved heroically on the voyage. So his application to the court superseded the plan of Gormez and the latter sunk out of sight.
In his despondency at the failure of his plans, Gormez came to Magellan.
"My countryman," said Gormez, "your schemes have supplanted mine and turned my ships into air. I was the first to plan a voyage to the Moluccas out of the wake of hurricanes and monsoons. I do not feel that I have been treated rightly. Something surely is due to me."[50]
Magellan was a man of generous impulses. He saw that Gormez had a case for moral appeal.
"My friend," said he, "you shall have a place in my expedition."
He could but think that the inspiration and knowledge of navigation of his countryman would be useful to him, and he pitied him for his disappointment, knowing how he himself would feel were his plans to be set aside.
So Gormez, the Portuguese, was made the pilot of the Antonio.
Magellan, had he reflected, must have seen that this man would carry with him envy and jealousy, passions that are poisons. But Estefano, or Esteban, or Stephen Gormez, took his place at the pilot house of the Antonio to follow the lantern of Magellan, but the hurt in his heart at being superseded never healed.
On the ships also was one Juan de Carthagena, captain of the Concepcion, a spy, and one of the "malapots" of the expedition. He was called the reedor, or inspector. He inspected Magellan, and Magellan inspected him, as we shall see.
And now the flags arose in the clear air, and the joyful fleet cleared the Guadalquivir and leaped into the arms of the open sea, amid the acclamations of gay grandees and a happy people.
It was September 20th when the anchors were lifted, of which probably one was destined to come [51] back in triumph after an immortal voyage that encompassed the earth, and gave to Spain a new ocean.
And the King of Portugal ordered the coat of arms to be torn down from the house of Magellan, as we have pictured at the beginning of our narrative.
CHAPTER VII.
"MAROONED."
The expedition moved down its western way, over the track of Columbus. It had left poor Ruy Faleiro behind—he who had seen the progress of it all in the fitful light of a disordered vision. He had not relinquished his own high aims. He hoped to follow Magellan with an expedition of his own.
The ships were furnished with "castles," fore and aft; they carried gay pennons and were richly stored. The artillery comprised sixty-two culverins and smaller ordnance. Five thousand or more pounds of powder were shut up in the magazines, and a large provision was made for trading with the natives—looking glasses for women, velvets, knives, and ivory ornaments, and twenty thousand bells.
Magellan's ship bore a lantern, swung high in the air amid the thickly corded rigging, which the other ships were to keep in view in the night. What a history had this lantern! It gleamed out on the night track of a new world, a pillar of fire that encompassed the earth as in the orbit of a star. [53]
The fleet had fifteen days of good weather and passed Cape Verde Islands, running along the African coast.
But the fleet carried with it disloyal hearts. The Portuguese prejudice against Magellan sailed with it. The Spanish sailors distrusted the loyalty of Magellan to Spain.
The commander was a man of great heart, chivalrous, and noble, but he could be firm when there arose an occasion for it.
After leaving Teneriffe Magellan altered his course.
Juan de Carthagena, captain of the San Antonio, "the inspector" and a spy, demanded of Magellan why he had done so.
"Sir," said Magellan, "you are to follow my flag by day and my lantern by night, and to ask me no further questions."
Carthagena demanded that Magellan should report his plans to him. Finding that the Admiral was bent on conducting his own expedition, he began to act sullenly, and to disobey orders.
Again the captain of the San Antonio demanded of Magellan that he should communicate his orders in regard to the course of steerage to him. He did this by virtue of his office as inspector. He showed a very haughty and disloyal spirit, and if this were not to be checked, the success of the expedition would be imperilled. He was abetted by Pedro [54] Sanches, a priest. Magellan saw treason already brewing, and he determined to stamp it out at once.
He went to Carthagena, and laid his hands on him.
"Captain, you are my prisoner."
The astonished captain cried out to his men:
"Unhand me—seize Magellan!"
Carthagena had been a priest, and he had great personal influence, but the men did not obey him.
"Lead him to the stocks and secure him there," ordered Magellan.
The order was obeyed. The fallen inspector was committed to the charge of the Captain of the Victoria, and another officer was given charge of the San Antonio.
"When we reach land Juan de Carthagena shall be marooned," was the sentence imposed upon the inspector. A like sentence was imposed upon Sanches.
It touched the hearts of the crews to hear this sentence. What would become of the two priests, were it to be executed? Would they fall prey to the natives, or perhaps win the hearts of the people and be made chiefs among them?
There was a pilot on board the ship who sympathized with the mutineers, but who had close lips, Esteban Gormez, of whom we have spoken. Were the two mutineers to be marooned he would be glad to rescue them.
He had been discontented since the day that his own plans for an expedition had been superseded by those of Magellan.
His discontentment had grown. He became critical as the fleet sailed on. Every day reminded him of what he might have done, if he could have only secured the opportunity.
A disloyal heart in any enterprise is a very perilous influence. A wooden horse in Troy is more dangerous than an army outside.
Magellan in Gormez had a subtle foe, and that foe was his own countryman.
This man probably could not brook to see his rival add the domains of the sea to the crowns of Juana and of Charles, though he himself had sought to do the same thing. Magnanimous he could not be. Discovery for the sake of discovery had little meaning for him, but only discovery for his own advancement and glory.
He became jealous of Mesquita, Magellan's cousin, now master of the Antonio, who is thought to have advised severe measures to suppress conspiracy.
Night after night the ships followed Magellan's lantern.
Night after night he sat down under the moon and stars, and brooded over his fancied neglect, and dreamed. Night after night the ships followed the lantern of Magellan, and the wonders of the sea grew; but to him it were better that no discoveries should be made than that such achievements were [56] to go to the glory of Spain through the pilotage of Magellan.
Discontent grows; jealousy grows as one broods over fancied wrongs, and sees the prospects of a rival's success. So it was with Gormez. In his heart he did not wish the expedition to succeed. He was ambitious to lead such an enterprise himself, which he also did, at last, sailing along Massachusetts Bay and giving it its first name.
When Gormez had heard that the two disloyal men were to be marooned, his feelings rose against Magellan. That they deserved their sentence he well knew, but they were opposed to Magellan, as was his own heart. He would have been glad to have saved them from the execution of their sentence, but he did not know how to do it.
"I will rescue them if ever I can," he thought. "This expedition is not for the glory of Portugal."
The ships sailed on, bearing the two conspirators to some place where they could be marooned.
Let us turn from this dark scene to one of a more hopeful spirit.
One day, as we may picture the scene, the sea lay unruffled like a mirror. The ships drifted near each other, and night came on after a sudden twilight, and the stars seemed like liquid lights shot forth or let down from some ethereal fountain. The Southern Cross shone so clearly as to uplift the eyes of the sailors. The ships were becalmed. [57]
Boats began to ply between the ships, and the officers of the Trinity, Santiago, Victoria, and Concepcion assembled under the awning of the San Antonio, Mesquita's ship, of one hundred and twenty tons.
Mesquita, as we have said, was a cousin of Magellan, and so the Antonio seemed a friendly ship.
Magellan sat down by his cousin. The lantern was going out; its force was spent.
"We must get a new kind of lantern," said Magellan to his cousin, "and a code of signal lights. We need a lantern that is something more steady and durable than a faggot of wood."
"I have here a new farol," he continued, the men listening with intent ears. "Here it is, and I wonder, my sailors, how far your eyes will follow it."
"All loyal hearts will follow it," said Mesquita, "wherever it may go."
Gormez frowned. His heart was bitter.
There rose up an officer named Del Cano, and stood hat in hand. All eyes were fixed upon him.
"May it please you, Admiral," he said, "to receive a word from me. I will follow the new farol wherever it may lead me. I have ceased to count my own life in this cause."
Gormez frowned again.
"Del Cano," said the Admiral, "I believe in you. [58] You have a true heart. If I should fall see that this farol goes back to Spain!"
Del Cano bowed.
Arms granted to Sebastian Del Cano,
Captain of the Victoria, the first vessel
that circumnavigated the globe.
Magellan showed the new lantern to the officers. It was made of beaten reeds that had been soaked in water, and dried in the sun. It would hold light long, and carry it strongly and steadily.
"All the ships must have these new farols," said he, "and I must teach you how to signal by them."
He stood up. The moon was rising, and the dusky, purple air became luminous.
He held the farol in his hand.
"Two lights," he said, "shall mean for the ship to tack.
"Three lights that the sails shall be lowered. Four, that they shall stop.
"Five lights, or more, that we have discovered land, when the flagship shall discharge a bombard. Follow my lantern always; you can trust it [59] wherever it may fare. My farol shall be my star!"
The men sat there long. There sprung up a breeze at last, and the sea began to ripple in the moon.
Most expeditions that have made successful achievements have carried men of great hope. Such a man was Del Cano. He was loyal to the heart of Magellan; and happy is any leader who has such a companion, whose steel rings true.
Magellan hung out the farol. The sails were spread, and the fleet passed on over the solitary ocean.
Whither?
CHAPTER VIII.
"THE WONDERS OF NEW LANDS."—PIGAFETTA'S TALES OF HIS ADVENTURES WITH MAGELLAN.—THE STORY OF "THE FOUNTAIN TREE."—"ST. ELMO'S FIRE."
The ships moved on, bearing the hopeful Del Cano, the frowning Gormez, the two prisoners, and the happy Italian Pigafetta.
Our next chapters will be a series of wonder tales which reveal the South Temperate Zone and its inhabitants as they appeared to the young and susceptible Italian, Pigafetta, nearly four hundred years ago.
Interior of the Alcázar of Seville.
Pigafetta, as we have shown, desired to accompany Magellan that he might "see the wonders of the new lands." He saw them indeed, and he painted them with his pen so vividly that they will always live. We get our first views of the strange inhabitants of the Southern regions of the New World from him. We are to follow his narratives, as printed for the Hakluyt Society, London, making some omissions, and changing its form in part, hoping [62] thereby to render the text more clear. We closely follow the spirit of events. Pigafetta addresses his narrative "To the very illustrious and very excellent Lord Philip de Villiers Lisleaden, Grand Master of Rhodes," of whom we have spoken.
He says, by way of introduction:
"Finding myself in Spain in the year of the nativity of our Lord, 1519, at the court of the most serene King of the Romans (Charles V), and learning there of the great and awful things of the ocean world, I desired to make a voyage to unknown seas, and to see with my own eyes some of the wonderful things of which I had heard.
"I heard that there was in the city of Seville an armada (armade) of five ships, which were ready to perform a long voyage in order to find the shortest way to the Islands of Moluco (Molucca) from whence came the spices. The Captain General of this armada was Ferdinand de Magagleanes (Magellan), a Portuguese gentleman, who had made several voyages on the ocean. He was an honorable man. So I set out from Barcelona, where the Emperor was, and traveled by land to the said city of Seville, and secured a place in the expedition.
"The Captain General published ordinances for the guidance of the voyage.
"He willed that the vessel on which he himself was should go before the other vessels, and that the others should keep in sight of it. Therefore he hung [63] by night over the deck a torch or faggot of burning wood which he called a farol (lantern), which burned all night, so that the ships might not lose sight of his own.
"He arranged to set other lights as signals in the night. When he wished to make a tack on account of a change of weather he set two lights. Three lights signified "faster." Four lights signified to stop and turn. When he discovered a rock or land, it was to be signalled by other lights.
"He ordered that three watches should be kept at night.
"On Monday, St. Lawrence Day, August 10th, the five ships with the crews to the number of two hundred and thirty-seven[D] set sail from the noble city of Seville, amid the firing of artillery and came to the end of the river Guadalcavir (Guadalquivir). We stopped near the Cape St. Vinconet to make further provisions for the voyage.
"We went to hear mass on shore. There the Captain commanded that all the men should confess before going any further.
"On Tuesday, September 20th, we set sail from St. Lucar.
"We came to Canaria (Canaries)."
This account repeats in a different way a part of the facts we have given.
Here the young Italian relates his first story, which is substantially as follows:
THE FOUNTAIN TREE.
"Among the isles of the Canaria there is one which is very wonderful. There is not to be found a single drop of water which flows from any fountain or river.
"But in this rainless land at the hour of midday, every day, there descends a cloud from the sky which envelops a large tree which grows on this island.
"The cloud falls upon the leaves of the tree, when a great abundance of water distills from the leaves. The tree flows, and soon at the foot of it there gathers a fountain.
"The people of the island come to drink of the water. The animals and the birds refresh themselves there."
The story is true so far as relates to the fountain tree. But that a cloud comes down from Heaven at midday to refresh it, is not an exact statement of the manner in which this tree furnishes water to the sterile island. The young Italian writer describes the tree as he saw it, and as it seemed to be. The tree that supplies water as from a natural fountain may still be found.
With such a tree to begin his researches on the sea, Pigafetta must have been impatient to proceed along [65] the marvelous ocean way. All the world was to him as he saw it; he seldom stopped to inquire if appearances were true.
With men like Del Cano on board, who had ears for a marvelous story, his life in the early part of the voyage must have been a very happy one. Wonder followed wonder....
"Monday, the 3d of October," says the interesting Italian, "we set sail making the course auster, which the Levantine mariners call siroc (southeast) entering into the ocean sea. We passed Cape Verde and navigated by the coast of Guinea of Ethiopia, where there is a mountain called Sierra Leona. A rain fell, and the storm lasted sixty days."
They came to waters full of sharks, which had terrible teeth, and which ate all the people whom they found in the sea, alive or dead. These were caught by a hook of iron.
ST. ELMO'S FIRE.
Here good St. Anseline met the ships; in the fancy of the mariners of the time, this airy saint appeared to favored ships in the night, and fair weather always followed the saintly apparition. He came in a robe of fire, and stood and shone on the top of the high masts or on the spars. The sailors hailed him with joy, as one sent from Heaven. Happy was the ship on the tropic sea upon whose rigging the form of good St. Anseline appeared in [66] the night, and especially in the night of cloud and storm!
To the joy of all the ships good St. Anseline came down one night to the fleet of Magellan. The poetical Italian tells the story in this way:
"During these storms, the body of St. Anseline appeared to us several times.
"One night among others he came when it was very dark on account of bad weather. He came in the form of a fire lighted at the summit of the main mast, and remained there near two hours and a half.
"This comforted us greatly, for we were in tears, looking for the hour when we should perish.
"When the holy light was going away from us it shed forth so great a brilliancy in our eyes that we were like people blinded for near a quarter of an hour. We called out for mercy.
"Nobody expected to escape from the storm.
"It is to be noted that all and as many times as the light which represents St. Anseline shows itself upon a vessel which is in a storm at sea, that vessel never is lost.
"As soon as this light had departed the sea grew calmer and the wings of divers kinds of birds appeared."
Beneficent St. Anseline who manifested his presence by illuminations in the mast and spars in equatorial waters! The beautiful illusion has long been explained and dispelled. It is but an electric [67] fire at the end of atmospheric disturbances. But it is usually a correct prophecy of fair skies and smooth seas. It is now called St. Elmo's Fire.
If ever there was an expedition that the saint of the mariners might favor it would seem to be this.
One can almost envy the pious Italian his imagination in the clearing tropic night.
His next wonders were the sea birds, of which there were flocks and clouds, and with them appeared flying fish.
The ships were now off the coasts of Brazil and stopped at Verzim.
The people of the Brazilian Verzim were accustomed to paint themselves "by fire." We do not clearly understand how this painting "by fire" was done. The art of scorching has perished with them. But besides these indelible marks, the men had three holes in their lower lips, and hung in them, after the manner of earrings, small round ornamental stones, about a finger in length. The men did not shave, for they plucked out their beard.
Their only clothing was a circle of parrot feathers. How terribly gay they must have looked! And yet such customs were hardly more ridiculous than those of later times, and more civilized countries—earrings, beauty patches, plume, and snuffboxes.
It was the land of parrots. The most beautiful and intelligent parrots still come from Brazil. Columbus [68] saw parrots in "clouds" over the islands of the Antilles.
Parrots were not expensive in these equatorial forests at this time. "The natives," says Pigafetta, "give eight or ten parrots for a looking glass," and as a looking glass would multiply the picture of parrots indefinitely the Verzimans must have thought the exchange a marvelous bargain.
If Brazilian parrots were cheap and so charming as likely to become an embarrassment of riches, so were the little cat monkeys which delighted the men. These little creatures, which looked like miniature lions, still delight the visitors to the coast of Brazil, but they shiver up when brought to the northern atmospheres and piteously cry for the home lands of the sun again.
Very curious birds began to excite the surprise of the voyagers, among such as had a "beak like a spoon," and "no tongue."
The markets of the new land displayed another commodity far more surprising than birds or animals, young slaves, which were offered for sale by their own families. So a family who had many children was rich. It cost a hatchet to buy one of these, and for a hatchet and a knife one might buy two.
The people made bread of the "marrow of trees," and carried victuals in baskets on their heads.
Masses were said for the crews on shore, and the natives knelt down with the men. [69]
The people were so pleased with their visitors that they built a common house for them.
A pleasing illusion had made the sailors most welcome here.
It had not rained in Verzim for two months when the expedition landed. The people were looking to the heavens for mercy day by day. But the copper sun rose as often in a clear sky.
At last Magellan's sails appeared in the burning air. The sight of the sails was followed by that of clouds.
The people thought that the fleet had brought the clouds with them.
"They come from Heaven," said they of the adventurers.
So when they were exhorted to accept Christianity, they at once fell down before the uplifted crosses and believed the teachings of the sea heroes who could command the clouds and bring rain to the parched land.
They thought the ships were gods and the small boats the children of such beings, and when the latter approached the ships they imagined that they were children come home to their fathers or mothers.
The ships remained in this delightful country of Verzim thirteen weeks. Pigafetta and Del Cano must have thought that life here was ideal. What scenes would follow?
CHAPTER IX.
PINEAPPLES, POTATOES, VERY OLD PEOPLE.
Other things were there on the wonderful Brazilian coast. There the mariners traded in them and were refreshed with a delicious fruit, called pique—pineapples.
They came to the knowledge here of a nutritious ground fruit called battate. "This," says our Italian, "has the taste of a chestnut and is the length of a shuttle." These ground fruits were potatoes.
The people here seem to have been very liberal in trading.
They would give six fowls for a knife—well they might do so, as they used stone implements.
They gave two geese for a comb—here they were both generous and wise.
They gave as great a quantity of fish as ten men could eat for a pair of scissors.
And for a bell, they gave a whole basket full of potatoes (battate).
Marvelous indeed as was this same country of [71] Verzim, it also abounded in the conditions and atmospheres of long life.
"Some of these people," says our Italian chronicler, "live to be a hundred or a hundred and twenty, or a hundred and forty or more. They wear little clothing."
Which speaks well for pineapples, potatoes, and easy dress.
"They sleep on cotton nets, which are fastened on large timbers, and stretch from one end of the house to another."
It is good to sleep in ample ventilation. We do not wonder that many of the people passed a hundred years.
The boats of these people were as simple as their open houses.
"These are not made with iron instruments, for there are none, but with stones."
The canoes were dug out of one long tree—some giant growth of the forest which would convey from thirty to forty men. The paddles for these canoes resembled shovels. The rowers were usually black men.
The people ate human flesh, but only at feasts of triumph. They then served up their enemies.
Pigafetta draws the following grewsome picture:
"They do not eat up the whole body of a man whom they take prisoner; they eat him bit by bit, and for fear that he should be spoiled, they cut him [72] up into pieces, which they set to dry before the chimney. They eat this day by day, so as to keep in mind the memory of their enemy."
This was indeed the sweet food of revenge, and as barbarous as it seems, the spirit of revenge secretly cherished is hardly less unworthy when it finds expression in words that are bitter, if not carnal.
The region abounded with bright birds, yet with all these delights, and pineapples and potatoes, there fell great rains. So there were shadows in the sunlands.
We can fancy Pigafetta relating his discoveries on the shore to a susceptible spirit, like Del Cano, and writing an account of them day by day in his immortal journal.
These strange adventures by sea and on land which so greatly interested the Italian Knight Pigafetta, our historian, do not seem to have greatly impressed the mind of Magellan. The lands had been sighted before. His whole soul was bent on one purpose—not on rediscovery, but on discovery. He was sailing now where other keels had been. It was his purpose to find new ways for the world to follow over unknown seas. His heart could find no full satisfaction but in water courses that sails had never swept; a new way to the Moluccas that no ship had ever broken.
Notwithstanding the friendly spirit and liberal patronage of the Emperor, he still stood against the [73] world. He represented a cast-out name. His own countrymen, on his own ships in the long delays on the voyage to unknown seas, were plotting against him.
Let us recall in fancy a night scene as the ships lay on the waters of the meridional world. Magellan sits alone in one of the castles of the ship and looks out on the phosphorescent sea. The stars above him shine in a clear splendor, and are reflected in the sea. The sky seems to be in the waters; the waters are a mirror of the sky. Among the clear stars the Southern Cross, always vivid, here rises high. Magellan lifts to it his eye, and feels the religious inspiration of the suggestion. He is a son of the Church, and he holds that all discoveries are to be made for the glory of the Cross.
On the distant shores palms rise in armies in the dusky air. The shores are silent. When arose the tall people that inhabited them?
Magellan dreams: he wonders at himself, at his inward commission; at his cast-out name and great opportunity.
One of his trusty friends comes to him; he is a Spaniard and his disquieting words break the serenity of the scene.
"Captain General, it hurts my soul to say it, but there is disloyalty on the ships—it is everywhere."
"I seem to feel the atmospheres of it," said Magellan. [74] "Why should it be? The sea and the sky promise us success. Who are disloyal?"
"Captain General, they are your own countrymen!"
"And why do they plot treason under the Cross of discovery?"
"Captain General, if the ocean open new ways before you, and you should achieve all of which you dream, they will have little share in the glory; you are facing stormy waters and perils unknown, not for Portugal, but for Spain."
"Not for Spain alone, nor for Portugal, but for the glory of the Cross, and the good of all the world. A divine will leads me, and sustains me, and directs me. I am not seeking gold or fame or any personal advantage; my soul goes forth to reveal the wonders and the benevolence of Providence to the heart of the whole world. I go alone, and feel the loneliness of my lot. I left all that I had to make this expedition. It is my purpose to discover unknown seas. Joy, rapture, and recompense would come to me, beyond wealth or fame, could my eyes be the first to see a new ocean world, and to carry back the knowledge of it to all nations. What happiness would it be to me to ride on uncharted tides! My friend, you are loyal to me?"
"Captain General, I am loyal, and the Spanish sailors are loyal; it is your own men who plot in dark corners to bring your plans to naught." [75]
In the shadow of one of the tall castles of another ship sit a band of idle men. They are Portuguese.
One of them, who seems to lead the minds of the others, is whittling, and after a long silence says:
"We do not know where we are going, and wherever we are going, we are Portuguese and are slaves to Spain."
"Ay, ay," returned an old Portuguese sailor, "and when we go back again, should that ever be, the profit to us will be little at the India House."
"Right," answered a number of voices, and one ventured to say:
"Magellan, after all, may be mad, like his old companion, the astronomer. Both came from the same place in Portugal."
Some of the officers had schemes of their own.
But the ships crept on and on, along the Brazilian coast, where the flag of Spain and the farol guided them in the track of the Admiral they followed. Night after night the lantern of the flagship gleamed in the air, moving toward cooler waters under the Southern Cross.
And in Magellan's heart was a single purpose, and he anticipated the joy of a great discovery, as a revelation that would answer the prophetic light that shone like a star in his own spiritual vision. On, and on!
CHAPTER X.
THE FIRST GIANT.—THE ISLANDS OF GEESE AND GOSLINGS.—THE DANCING GIANTS.
The narrative of Pigafetta, the Knight of Rhodes, has much curious lore in regard to giants. At a place on the coast, formerly called Cape St. Mary, the first of these giants appeared.
He was a leader of a tribe "who ate human flesh." The lively Knight of Rhodes informs us that this man, who towered above his fellows, "had a voice like a bull."
He came to one of the captains' ships and asked—of course in sign language; for a man may have a "voice like a bull" and yet fail to be understood in cannibal tongues—if he might come on board the ship and bring his fellows with him.
He left a quantity of goods on the shore. While he was negotiating at the ships, his people on the shore, who seem to have been unusually wise and prudent, began to remove the stores of goods from exposure to danger to a kind of castle at some distance. [77]
The officers of the ships grew inpatient when they saw the tempting goods being thus removed. So they landed a hundred men to recover the goods, which they seemed to have deemed theirs after the "right of discovery."
The men began to run after the provident natives, when they became greatly surprised. The natives seemed to fly over the ground, and leave them behind at a humiliating distance.
"They did more in one step than we could do at a bound," says Pigafetta, Knight of Rhodes.
The giant people here showed that there was need to approach them with caution. Some time before, these "Canibali" had captured a Spanish sea captain and sixty men, who had landed and pastured inland to make discoveries. They ate them all—a fearful feast!
Our voyagers probably had no desire to go too far inland in view of such a warning; so they returned and proceeded on their course toward the antarctic pole.
They discovered two small islands, which had more agreeable inhabitants than the land of Cape St. Mary. "These islands," says our good Knight Pigafetta, "were full of geese and goslings and sea wolves." He adds: "We loaded five ships with them for an hour."
The Knight has also left us the following curious picture of the birds, which must have [78] been very much surprised at being so rudely disturbed:
"The geese are black, and have feathers all over the body of the same size and shape; and they do not fly but live on fish, and they were so fat that we did not pluck them, but skinned them. They have beaks like that of a crow.
"The sea wolves of these islands are of many colors and of the size and thickness of a calf, and have a head like a calf, and ears small and round. They have teeth but no legs, but feet joining close to the body, which resemble a human hand. They have small nails to their feet, and skin between the fingers like geese.
"If these animals could run they would be very bad and cruel, but they do not stir from the waters, and swim and live upon fish."
This seems to be a very admirable description of a sea wolf, O Knight of Rhodes!
A great storm came down upon the ships here. But, marvelous to relate, the fiery body of good St. Anselmo or Anseline "appeared to us, and immediately the storm ceased."
The fleet sailed away again and came to Port St. Julian, the true land of the giants, of which place our Knight has some very interesting stories to tell.
The fleet entered the Port of St. Julian. It was [80] winter, and for a long time no human beings appeared.
The world according to the Ptolemy of 1548.
Suddenly one day a most extraordinary sight met the eyes of some of the adventurers. Our Knight's description of this being is very vivid. He says:
"One day, without any one's expecting it, we saw a giant who was on the shore of the sea, quite naked, and was dancing and leaping and singing, and, while singing, he put sand and dust on his head." The Captain of one of the ships, who first saw this extraordinary creature, said to one of the sailors:
"Go and meet him. He dances and sings as a sign of friendship. You must do the same. Beckon him to me."
The Captain himself was on a little island.
The scene that followed must have been comical indeed.
The giant danced and sung and sprinkled his head with sand. The sailor did the same, danced and sang, and the two approached each other.
So the giant was made to think that he was among friends. The sailor led him on to the island, where he met the Captain.
But the lively giant now began to be afraid in the presence of a new people. He seemed to wish to ask them who they were and whence they came. Then an answer to this question came to him. He looked up to the sky and pointed upward with one finger, saying by signs:
"Did you come down from Heaven?"
"He was so tall," says our descriptive Knight, "that the tallest of us only came up to his waist." He was probably hardly taller than many of his race. Falkner, in his account of Patagonia (1774), says that he saw men there seven feet and a half high.
Of this dancing giant our historian gives a further description in lively and interesting colors:
"He had a large face painted red all around, and around his eyes were rings of yellow, and he had two hearts painted on his cheeks. He had but little hair on the top of his head, which was painted white.
"When he was brought before the Captain, he had thrown over him the skin of a certain beast, which skin was very carefully sewed."
The dancing giant
The skin was that of a guanaco, a kind of llama.
Our historian thus describes the guanaco:
"This beast has its head and ears of the size of a mule, and the neck and body of the fashion of a camel, the legs of a deer, and the tail of a horse, and it neighs like a horse. There are great numbers of these animals in the same place."
Patagonia is the land of these strange animals, which are still found there, and are hunted by Indians who lie upon the ground with drawn bows. The animal has great curiosity, and he draws near this living snare and is killed. When tame he is an interesting companion, but if angered he suddenly emits a great quantity of offensive liquid from his nose, like a half bucket of water, which he throws upon the offender. He is the South American camel.
This giant when he made himself ready to meet the adventurers had shoes of leather or skins, and carried a bow made of the "gut of a beast" and a bundle of cane arrows feathered, at the end of which were small white stones.
"The Captain caused food and drink to be given to him.
"Then the crew began to show him some of the presents they had brought, among them a looking-glass." [82]
When the giant saw himself in the glass he was filled with wonder. It was as though his own ghost had appeared to him. There were men behind him curious to see how he would be affected. He leaped back with such force as to tumble them over. They were but pigmies to him.
The Captain now gave the giant two bells, a mirror, a comb, and beads, and sent him back to the shore.
One of the giants of the country saw him coming back, ran to the habitation of the giants, and summoned the giant people to the shore to meet him. They came, almost naked, leaping and singing, and pointing upward to Heaven. What a sight it must have been!
The women were laden with goods. The sailors beckoned them to the ships to trade.
Queerly enough, the women brought with them a baby or little guanaco, which they led by a string. Our historian learned that when these giants wished to capture the old guanacos or camels they fastened one of the little guanacos to a bush, and the old ones came to the bush to play with it, and so became an easy prey.
"Six days afterward, our people going to cut wood," writes the Knight, "saw another giant, who raised his hands toward Heaven.
"When the Captain General came to know of it, he sent to fetch him with his ship's boat, and brought [83] him to one of the little islands in the port. This giant was of a better disposition than the other, and was a gracious and amiable person, he loved to dance and leap. When he leaped, he caused the earth to sink to a palm's depth at the place where his feet touched."
The good giant remained for a time with the adventurers. They gave him the name of John. They learned him to pronounce the name of Jesus.
"Say Pater Noster," said they.
"Pater Noster," said the giant.
"Say Ave Maria," said the men.
"Ave Maria," said the susceptible giant.
They made him presents when he went away, among them some of the many tinkling bells.
"We must capture some of these people," said the Captain, "and take them to Spain for wonders."
So the explorers began to study how to secure some interesting specimens of these tall people, to excite the wonder of the people of Spain.
CHAPTER XI.
CAPTURING A GIANT.—MAGELLAN'S DECISION.
The attempts to capture wild giants greatly interested Pigafetta.
Our historian says that it was "done by gentle and cunning means, for otherwise they would have done a hurt to some of our men."
One day some sailors saw four giants hidden in some bushes, and they were unarmed. They brought these into the power of the Captain. Two of them were young, and such as would excite admiration anywhere for their noble development.
They gave these two lusty young Herculeses as many knives, mirrors, bells, and trinkets as they could hold in their hands, and while the delighted youths were thus abounding in riches, the Captain said:
"Now show them the iron fetters."
The two youths could but wonder at these when they were brought.
The Captain ordered that the fetters be presented to them.[85]
But their hands were already full. What could they do with them? Where could they put them?
The Captain signified to them that he would ornament their feet with the fetters. To this they consented.
So the fetters were put on the feet of each of them, like necklaces or rings, but when the young giants saw a blacksmith bring a hammer and rivet the fetters, they began to be distrustful and presently greatly agitated. They tried to walk, but they could not move.
Our historian thus describes their fury when they saw that they were helplessly bound:
"Nevertheless when they saw the trick which had been played on them they began to be enraged, and to foam like bulls, crying out to the devil to help them." We do not see why our Knight should have taken this view of the case; we would think that two human beings who had been so treacherously deceived, might have been regarded as appealing to the Deity of justice.
"The hands of the other two giants were bound," says the original narrative, "but it was with great difficulty; then the Captain sent them back on shore, with nine of his men to conduct them, and to bring the wife of one of those who had remained in irons, because he regretted her greatly." This last touch gives us a very favorable view of this young giant.
But on being conducted away, one of the two [86] giants who were to be liberated, untied his hands and escaped. As soon as he found that he was free, his feet were picked up nimbly indeed. He flew, as it were, his long strides leaving his late captors far behind him. He had no heart to trust Europeans again. He rushed to his native town, but he found only the women there, who must have been greatly alarmed; the men had gone to hunt.
He rushed after the hunters to tell them how his companions had been betrayed.
What became of the other giant whose hands were bound? He struggled, too, to break the cords, seeing which, one of the men struck him on the head. He became quiet when he saw that he was helpless, and led the men to the giant's town where the women and children were.
The men concluded to pass the night there, as it was near night and everything there looked harmless and inviting.
But during the night the other giant who had gone to meet the hunters returned with his companions. These saw the bruised head of the giant who had also been bound, and warned the women who began to run. We are told that the youngest "ran faster than the biggest" and that the men "ran faster than horses," at which we can not wonder. The fleeing giant shot one of the men from the ships, and he was buried there on shore. The [87] poor giant in irons who had lamented for his wife probably never saw the giantess again.
The methods of treating sickness in the town of the giants were curious. For an emetic one ran a stick down his throat. For a headache, one cut a gash on the forehead, not unlike the old method of bleeding. The philosophy of this latter treatment was interesting—blood did not remain with pain, and pain departed with blood—quite true; white people have advanced theories as conclusive.
"When one of them dies," says our Knight, "ten devils appear and dance around the dead man." One of the poor giants who was forced to remain on board said he had seen devils with horns, and hair that fell to their feet, who spouted fire. There seems to be the color of the European imagination in this statement.
The giants lived on raw meat, thistles, and sweet root, and one of them drank a "bucket of water" at a time.
The expedition remained at St. Julian five months, and acquired much information about the country from the captive giants with whom they learned to talk by sign language.
They here set up a cross on a mountain and took possession of the country in the name of the King of Spain. They called the signal elevation where they planted the cross the Mount of Christ.
The primitive people of the shores of Brazil and [88] Patagonia delighted in exciting the wonder of their visitors. Many of these people who thought that the Europeans had come down from the sky, where they conceived all life must be wonderful indeed, liked to show them some of the feats that the people of the earth could do. The people who came down from the sky they reasoned had great wisdom in sailing the seas, but they were not giants. They could trail a lantern along the sea in the night air in some unaccountable way, but they did not know how to run with flying feet on the land or how to wing arrows with unerring aim into the sky and sea.
One day there came from a company of the primitive people, a champion in an art of which the Europeans could have never heard. They had seen these people run, leap, and vault with almost magic power, but they had never seen one who could make a tube of himself.
This new champion approached the men in the usual way, inviting attention. He carried in his hand an arrow which was a cubit and a half long.
He tilted it, opened his great mouth to receive it, dropped it into his throat, when, amid muscular contortions, it began to descend. The sailors watched him with amazement as it went down. It disappeared at last, having, as we are told, descended to the "bottom of his stomach." It seemed to cause him no pain.
Presently the quiver began to appear again. The [89] long arrow slowly rose out of the human tube which the man had made of himself, and dropped into his hand at last, the whole being performed by muscular movement.
He must have been delighted at the sensation which this mental control over the muscles of digestion had produced. It was less strange that the arrow should have gone down than that it should have come up again.
Such feats as these entertained the sailors from time to time when they were on shore. Pigafetta was now seeing the "wonders of the world" indeed.
Magellan's mind was given to the more serious problems of the voyage.
The Antarctic pole star now rose to his view. It was cold. Magellan saw that the voyage would be likely to last long.
Not only the Portuguese came to distrust him, but some of the Spanish sailors caught the infection of the deleterious atmosphere. They reasoned differently from the Portuguese.
"The Admiral is a native of Portugal," said they, "and though the Portuguese court rejected him, he will be sure in the end to be true to his own people and King. He will never allow the glory of his discoveries to go to Spain."
Some of them came to him to say that the wind blew cold, that the sea was full of perils, that nothing [90] but disaster could come by pushing on into the sea where they were tending.
"Turn south," said they.
The answer of Magellan was royal and loyal. We give it in what, from what was reported of it, must be in his own thought, and very nearly his own words.
"Comrades, my course was laid down by Cæsar (the King) himself. I—will—not—depart—from—it—in—any—degree. I will open to Cæsar an unknown world."
CHAPTER XII.
THE MUTINY AT PORT JULIAN.—THE STRAITS.—1519.
Days of mutiny came in the cold waters.
The spirit of disloyalty that had found expression in the inspector broke out anew at Port St. Julian. It spread through the officers and crews of three of the ships. These caused to be published the resolution that they would sail no farther.
"You are leading us to destruction," said the mutineers.
Luis de Mendoza, Captain of the Victoria, the treasurer of the expedition, was a leader of the mutiny. Another disturbing spirit was Gasper de Queixada, Captain of the Concepcion.
Magellan, of the kind heart, had, as we have seen, the resolution to meet emergencies. This expedition was his life. It must not be opposed, hindered, or thwarted. He lived in his purpose. He must stamp out the mutiny. He no more used gentle and courteous words. He thundered his will.
One day Ambrosia Fernandez, his constable, came to him, and said:[92]
"Three crews are ready to mutiny, to force you to go back."
Magellan saw that he must make the leaders of these ships his prisoners, or that he would become theirs.
"Constable," he said, "pick out sixty trusty men and arm them well. Go with them on board the treasurer's ship, and arrest Mendoza and lay him dead on the deck."
The fleet was moored in line. It was flood tide, and Mendoza's ship rode astern of Magellan's, and the ship of Queixada, ahead.
Magellan prepared his own crew to face the consequences of a tragedy should one occur. He ordered his hawser to be attached to the cable, and called his crew to arms.
When the flood tide was at its height, Fernandez, the constable, prepared to execute his order.
He appeared before the ship of the mutinous Mendoza, and asked to be received on board.
"Back to your own ship," said the mutineer. "I command the Victoria."
"But we are few against many," said the constable, "and I have a message from the Admiral which I must deliver."
He was helped on board the Victoria.
His feet had no sooner touched the deck than he seized Mendoza.
"I arrest you in the name of the Emperor." [93]
The armed men that the constable had left on the boat rushed on board.
The crew of the Victoria, stood aghast. They saw the power of the Admiral's mind.
Magellan brought his ship alongside the Victoria.
He led his armed crew on board the Victoria, and halted before a terrible scene. Mendoza had been stabbed by the constable, and the crew of the Victoria plead for mercy, and promised to be loyal to the Admiral.
In this hour of tragedy and terror Magellan bore his ship around to Queixada's, and made the officers and crew of the Concepcion his prisoners. The leaders of the mutiny were executed. It was a necessity.
Magellan caused also the sentence he had imposed on the inspector and his accomplice to be carried out here.
Carthagena and Sanches were led from their prison to the shore.
As the sails were being lifted to depart, they were marooned—left with some provisions, among which were some bottles of wine, on the desert shore.
There were hearts that pitied them as the ships sailed away. There was one who plotted to rescue them. It was Gormez.
They left them some biscuits with the bottles of wine.[94]
"It is the last bread they will ever eat," said their companions.
"And the last wine that they will ever drink," said a loyal priest on board.
But there was one on board that shook his head.
If he could have his will the two would eat bread and drink wine again in the convents of beautiful Seville.
The execution of the disloyal Spaniards again awakened the jealousy of Gormez. He probably began to plan about this time to separate the Antonio from the expedition, and lead her back to Spain. His heart was with the inspector and friar far away on the desolate shore.
The ships sailed away, and the marooned priests saw them disappear.
"They were cast aside for opposing a madman," reasoned Gormez. "Magellan is no fit leader of an expedition. If I had full command of the Antonio, I would rescue the inspector, if I were to find him alive."
But he could not take the Antonio back while Mesquita, Magellan's loyal cousin, was in command. Had he breathed a breath of disloyalty in the presence of this Portuguese, he might have himself been deposed from his position and marooned, as had been the inspector and the friar.
A dark plot began to form in the pilot's mind. If he could incite the crew against Mesquita in some [95] hour of peril, he might cause him to be imprisoned on his own ship, and then he could succeed to the command, and take the Antonio back to Spain.
And he would also endeavor to rescue the inspector and the friend of the inspector who had been marooned. If he could rescue them and take them back with him to Spain, they would be powerful witnesses for him against Magellan.
Gormez now waited his opportunity. A jealous man seeks for a principle of life to ease his conscience and justify evil deeds. Gormez had two principles to sustain him in his disloyalty. The one was that he could lead a better expedition, and the other the merciful rescue of his two companions who had been marooned for the same opinions that he had from the first carried in his heart. So calling treachery, loyalty and sympathy, he awaited an hour favorable to his plan.
If he could return to Spain he would offer his services to Portugal or to Spain to lead an expedition to the Spice Islands that should be conducted in some more promising way than by the winter seas.
As the ships sailed on into the clouds and cold, the sailors were filled with apprehension. But the farol still shone at night like a star in the changing atmosphere. They had expected that the extremity of South America would point West, but this was not the case. Whither were they tending? [96]
It was the middle of October. The water grew colder and the land became more desolate. Suddenly a bay appeared and the continent seemed to part. The sea poured its tides to the East amid towering mountains, and a strait appeared, which now bears the name of Magellan.
The soul of the Admiral thrilled. It was the fulfillment of his visions. He called the opening to the swift channel Cape Virgins, as he discovered it on the day on which the Church commemorated the martyrdom of the "eleven thousand virgins."
His lone lantern entered the straits. The way was toward the East.
Magellan sent the ship Antonio, which was commanded by his cousin Alvaro de Mesquita, to explore the bay, of which ship Gormez still held the position of pilot. The mutineer's hour had come.
The pilot entered the bay, but presently a powerful tide carried the ship back, and beyond the sight of the flag and the lantern of Magellan.
The jealous Portuguese had seen enough to know that great perils were before the fleet or that a glory like to that of Columbus was now likely to fall to the lot of Magellan. He determined to be revenged upon the Admiral for supplanting him in accepting the favors of the King.
He called the crew secretly about him.
"You are rushing on to ruin," he said. "I can take you back to Spain. Put Mesquita in irons, and [97] let us return. Mesquita advised Magellan to execute our comrades!"
The crew, overcome by the perils of the situation, obeyed the pilot.
Mesquita was placed in irons, and the pilot bore the Antonio away from the wintry seas, and turned her prow toward Spain.
But untrue as the sailors were to Magellan, he was true to them. He delayed the expedition for their return, and sent out the Victoria in search of them. The Victoria's crew planted signal standards, under which were letters.
Now perhaps for the first time Magellan was master of the expedition. He supposed at first that the Antonio had become lost in the terrible tides, but he still suspected treachery.
As the fleet entered the straits, the hills at night blazed with fires. The explorers thought these fires were volcanoes. They were signal fires kindled by the natives. Magellan gave the place the name of "Tierra del Fuego"—the "Land of Fire," a name that it still bears.
The water ran icy cold. Peaks of crystal towered above the straits, and the sublimities of mountain desolations everywhere appeared. So amid awful chasms of the sea, now white with snows, now dark with shadows, the little fleet glided on, the farol in the air at night, and all eyes strained with wonder to see what new disclosure this strait would bring. [98]
What must have been the reflection of Magellan as the mysteries of the new world lifted before his eyes?
Joy is the compensation of suffering, and if his happiness was as great as his trials had been, he must have indeed known thrilling moments. He had dared, and he had achieved.
He wondered at the fate of the Antonio, as the days went by. He indeed thought her lost, but yet hoped that she might appear.
"She has deserted us," ventured a loyal officer.
"No," reasoned the Admiral. "Mesquita would never desert me."
He was right. There were many true hearts that made the voyage like Del Cano's, but no heart was truer to Magellan than Mesquita's; and true hearts know and love each other.
The ships glided on slowly, without the Antonio. They had two new passengers in the giants whose lives must have been filled with wonder on ship-board.
CHAPTER XIII.
"THE ADMIRAL WAS MAD!"
Grave as was the act of treachery that the jealousy of Gormez led him to commit, he was true to the two marooned priests who had opposed the daring schemes of Magellan.
"We must not leave them to perish," he said.
So with Mesquita in irons he steered his ship toward the lonely islands where the crew had passed the winter.
They found Carthagena and his brother monk still living, and never could two men have been more glad to escape from exile. To live among naked giants, whom they could not civilize, must have become a horror to them. But their lives had been spared, though their biscuits and wine, we fancy, were gone.
"The Admiral has gone mad," said the men who had come to rescue them. "He knows not the way to the Moluccas, nor to anywhere."
The marooned men asked them where they were now going.[100]
"To Spain," was the answer. "We have come to rescue you. Our Captain has never forgotten you. He will need you as witnesses. You must testify that the Admiral is mad."
They were ready to testify that.
The ship sailed back to Spain.
The tales that they carried back to beautiful Seville caused a great disappointment in Spain. They must have stricken the heart of the wife of Magellan.
Gormez related there that the Admiral had become mad; that he had marooned the two priests whom they had brought back as witnesses of the truth of what he asserted; that Magellan had sailed into winter seas, and quite lost his reason, and knew not where he was going.
Then he told a terrible story of the execution of the mutinous Spaniards, friends of the King, at St. Julian. He said:
"His cousin, Mesquita, our captain, advised these crimes, and so we put him in irons, and have brought him back to receive justice in Spain."
Mesquita protested his innocence and tried to gain credence for his case. But no one cared to listen to him. The court and the popular feeling were against him. He was consigned to a prison. It was useless for him to protest, and to say that Magellan had made a great discovery; that he had found straits which were leading to the South Sea, and which were [101] likely to prove that the ocean that Balboa had beheld was continuous.
He was placed in a lonely dungeon, and there brooded over his wrongs and dreamed.
He had one hope; it was that Magellan would return triumphant, a second Columbus or Vasco da Gama. If that day were to come, he would be released, and the court would honor him, and he would be hailed as a hero.
"I have been made a prisoner by treachery," he said to a few men. "I believe that the day of my vindication will one day dawn."
Cardinal Ximenes died. Juana still watched by the tomb of her husband, and took no interest in the world. Charles V was entering upon his career as a conqueror who was to subdue the Roman world to his will.
As for Magellan in Spain he was to be but little more remembered now. Spain believed the story of the jealous Gormez, and the mariners of Seville said:
"The Admiral was mad!"
In the common view the mad Admiral had gone down in Antarctic seas. Like Faleiro, his friend, who had been sent to the mad house, it was thought that his brain had become unsettled, and that his bright visions had failed.
The two mutineers ate bread and drank wine again in the convent bowers of Seville. [102]
Gormez had schemes of his own. He desired the authority of the throne to make an expedition to the Spice Islands, which he believed he could find by sailing West. Strangely enough, as we have said, this jealous, treacherous man was afterward made a pilot in an expedition that visited Florida, Cape Cod, and Massachusetts Bay. But he did not find the way to the Spice Islands on the voyage.
Mesquita, still believing in the success of the expedition of Magellan, said to a few whom he could reach:
"Magellan is not mad. He executed those who had planned to murder him. He had to put to death these men for the sake of the expedition. He will return again!"
Few believed his story, and fewer his prophecy.
Still there were some who hoped that the prisoner's prophecy might prove true. Columbus was deemed mad, and quelled a mutiny, but he returned again. Vasco da Gama faced doubt and destruction, but he returned again. There were not wanting some who asked, "Will Magellan ever return again?" Such usually received the answer, "The Admiral was mad!"
The poor wife of Magellan, who had hoped much from him for the sake of her child, as well as for Spain, heard these reports in an agony of grief. But she still hoped. She must have believed in her husband's destiny.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE PACIFIC.—THE DEATH OF THE GIANTS.
The four ships glided along the wonderful straits which Magellan named the "Virgins," but which will always bear his own name. The scenery continued wild and fierce, and in some places overawing and sublime; they sailed amid domes of crystal and almost under the roofs of a broken world. They still moved slowly—the scenery growing more and more wonderful.
The air grew bright again. The ships were in the sea. They had entered a sea broad and glorious, but which Magellan could have hardly dreamed to be nearly ten thousand miles long, and more than that wide! Its waters were placid—an ocean plain. Columbus had heard of this vast sea, and Balboa had seen it from the peak of Darien.
All the joy that Magellan had anticipated in his visions of years now burst upon him.
"The Pacific!"
This was the name that came to him as he surveyed the new ocean world. He was the discoverer [104] of the South Pacific, which was continuous with the ocean discovered by Balboa. What did it contain? Whither might he sail over the new serenity of waters?
His soul had stood against his own country; his name had been cast out by his countrymen. But in the splendors of the sunset sea he had found his faith to be reality. It is said that the sailors wept when they beheld the Pacific.
We may fancy the joy of Del Cano.
We may imagine how the heart of Pigafetta, the young Italian, which had always been true to the Admiral, must have overflowed with delight when the Pacific opened before his eyes! There is a strong heart beat in the happiness of one who has been true to a successful man in the hour of his need.
He may have sung the song that cheered Columbus and his men—the mariners' hymn to the Virgin:
"Gentle Star of Ocean!
Portal of the sky!
Ever Virgin Mother
Of the Lord most high!"
"Wednesday, the 20th of November, 1520," says the original narrative, "we came forth out of the same strait, and entered the Pacific Sea."
The ships sailed on into the calm mystery of the ocean, the soul of Magellan glowing. But though the Admiral had risen superior to so many obstacles, there were others to be met. The sea was indeed [105] placid and full of promise, but starvation now stared him in the face, and after the spectre of Treason had departed that of Famine appeared.
Day after day the sun arose on the same serenity of sea. One month passed, and still there spread before the ships the same infinite ocean. Another month passed, and another, and twenty days more.
How did the crews live on this long voyage of silence and calms?
The narrative says: "We only ate old biscuit reduced to powder, and full of grubs, and we drank water that had turned yellow and smelled."
But a more perilous diet had to be followed.
They ate the "ox hides that were under the main yard." To eat these hides they had to soak them for some days in the sea, and then cook them on embers.
They ate sawdust; then the vermin on the ships.
A worse condition came. The gums of the men swelled from such food, so that many of them could not eat at all, and nineteen died. Beside those who died, twenty-five fell ill of "divers sicknesses."
Kind-hearted Pigafetta, who was always true to the Portuguese Admiral, formed an intimacy with the poor young giant, presumably with the giant whose wife had been left behind. This giant was imprisoned on the flagship of Magellan.
One day the giant said to him, helplessly:
"Capac."[106]
Our Italian understood that this must be the Patagonian word for bread. So he wrote it down, and the giant saw that he was interested in the meaning of his native words.
So the young giant began to teach the young Italian.
"Her-dem" meant a chief.
"Holi" meant water.
"Ohone," a storm.
"Setebos," the Unseen Power.
They studied together for a time, and shared each other's good will.
One day the Italian drew a cross on paper. The young giant raised it to his lips and kissed it, as he had seen Pigafetta kiss the sign of the Cross.
But he said by signs: "Do not make the Cross again, else Setebos will enter into you and kill you."
The meaning of the cross was explained to him.
The poor giant fell ill at last, amid all the misery.
"Bring me the Cross," he said by signs.
He kissed it again.
He knew that he would soon die.
"Make me a Christian," he said.
They named him "Paul," and baptized him.
One day found him dead, and they cast his great frame into the sea. He was probably the first convert to the faith among Patagonians, and his so-called [107] conversion was the heart's cry in helplessness.
The other giant may have lived to see the days of famine, when men shrank and death threatened all. Then he, too, famished and died, and found a grave in the sea. Another account, makes this giant die on the Antonio before that ship went back to St. Julian.
Two islands only appeared in the months of steady sailing. They were uninhabited except by birds. The sky in all this time brought no storm.
In these days of ocean solitude, hunger, and death, Magellan was sure always of the faith of two true hearts—the susceptible Italian and Del Cano.
Magellan dreamed of the fate of Mesquita in these strange experiences, and Mesquita in his lonely prison thought continually of him. Would Magellan ever return? the latter must have asked daily.
If so, his prison doors might swing open. He had no other hope, but this hope was a star. Magellan's wife must have shared this hope with the prisoner.
CHAPTER XV.
WELCOME TO THE PHILIPPINES!
On Wednesday, March 6th, Magellan sighted islands. His lantern had crossed the Pacific Ocean. Here he hoped to find food. He approached the shores eagerly. So hungry were the crews that one of the sick men begged that if any of the natives were killed human flesh might be brought him.
But the natives here were not only wild men, they were robbers; they sought to kill the voyagers and to steal everything. Hence, Magellan called the islands the Ladrones (robbers).
The robbers threw stones at the famishing mariners as the ships turned away in search of more hospitable shores. The women were dressed in bark.
The ships moved on into unknown seas.
On Saturday, March 16, 1521, a notable sight appeared in the dawn of the morning. It was a high bluff, some three hundred leagues distant from the Thieves' Islands. The island was named Zamal, now called Samar.
Magellan saw another island near. It was inhabited [109] by a friendly people. He determined to land there for the sake of security, as he could there gather sea food and care for the sick. He planted his tents there, and provided the sick with fresh meat.
Where was he?
Here surely was a new archipelago which had found no place on a map. March 16, 1521, was to be a notable date of the world.
He had discovered the Philippine Islands, though they were not then known by that name. They were the door to China from the West—this he could hardly have known.
The islands as now known consist of Luzon, fifty-one thousand three hundred square miles in extent; and Mendanao, more than twenty-five thousand miles in extent. The islands lying between Luzon and Mendanao are called the Bissayas, of which Samar has an area of thirteen thousand and twenty miles. Magellan visited Mendanao and then sailed for Zebu, a small island where the first Spanish settlement was made, before Manila, which was founded in 1581.
This archipelago was a new world of wonder. The small islands are now computed to number fourteen hundred. Magellan never knew the extent of his discovery.
Here he was to find the happiest days of his life, after the serene but famishing voyage. [110]
The people here were to receive him with open arms; to feast him; to raise his expectations and to bow down before the Cross. We must describe in detail—thanks to the Italian who was true to the heart of the Admiral—this golden age of the troubled life of Magellan.
After all the struggle for so many years against many overwhelming oppositions, Magellan now rose into the vantage ground of success, and fulfilled the vision which had illumined his soul in his darkest hours.
Every man has a right to his record, and whatever might happen now, his record no power could destroy; he had discovered the Pacific Ocean, and a new way around the world. Whatever might be his fate, the world must follow his lantern.
On the 18th of March, 1521, after dinner on shore, the Admiral saw a boat coming out from a near island toward his ship. There were men in it.
"Let no one move or speak," said Magellan.
The crews awaited the coming of the strangers in the blazing sunlight of the tropic sea. The Indians landed, led by a chief.
They were friends. They signified by signs their joy at seeing them. Magellan feasted the Indians and gave them presents.
When these people saw the good disposition of the Captain, they gave him palm wine and figs [111] "more than a foot long." On leaving they promised to return with fruits.
Pigafetta, our Italian Chevalier, vividly describes the scenes that followed between Magellan and the friendly people of the newly-discovered islands, which we call the Philippines, but which were not so named at that time.
He tells us in a wonderfully interesting narrative a translation of which we closely follow:
"That people became very familiar and friendly, and explained many things in their language, and told the names of some islands which they beheld. The island where they dwelt was called Zuluam, and it was not large. As they were sufficiently agreeable and conversible the crews had great pleasure with them. The Captain seeing that they were of this good spirit, conducted them to the ship and showed them specimens of all his goods—that he most desired—cloves, cinnamon, pepper, ginger, nutmeg, mace, and gold.
"He also had shots fired with his artillery, at which they were so much afraid that they wished to jump from the ship into the sea. They made signs that the things which the Captain had shown them grew there.
"When they wished to go they took leave of the Captain and of the crew with very good manners and gracefulness, promising to come back.
"The island where the ships had moored was [112] named Humunu; but because the men found there two springs of very fresh water it was named the Watering Place of Good Signs. There was much white coral there, and large trees which bear fruit smaller than an almond, and which are like pines. There were also many palm trees both good and bad. In this place there were many circumjacent islands, on which account the archipelago was named St. Lazarus. This region and archipelago is in ten degrees north latitude, and a hundred and sixty-one degrees longitude from the line of demarcation.
"Friday, the 22d of March, the above-mentioned people, who had promised to return, came about midday with two boats laden with the said fruit, cochi, sweet oranges, a vessel of palm wine, and a cock, to give us to understand that they had poultry in their country." The Italian thus describes the habits of the people:
"The lord of these people was old, and had his face painted, and had gold rings suspended to his ears, which they name 'schione,' and the others had many bracelets and rings of gold on their arms, with a wrapper of linen round their head. We remained at this place eight days; the Captain went there every day to see his sick men, whom he had placed on this island to refresh them; and he gave them himself every day the water of this said fruit, the cocho, which comforted them much."
Pigafetta tells us that near this isle is another [113] where there is a kind of people "who wear holes in their ears so large that they can pass their arms through them"—a very remarkable statement—"and these people go naked, except that round their middles they wear cloth made of the bark of trees. But there are some of the more remarkable of them who wear cotton stuff, and at the end of it there is some work of silk done with a needle. These people are tawny, fat, and painted, and they anoint themselves with the oil of cocoanuts and sesame to preserve them from the sun and the wind. Their hair is very black and long, reaching to the waist, and they carry small daggers and knives, ornamented with gold."
Pigafetta fell into the sea here, and he gives a vivid account of the personal accident:
"The Monday of Passion week, the 25th of March, and feast of our Lady, in the afternoon, and being ready to depart from this place, I went to the side of our ship to fish, and putting my feet on a spar to go down to the storeroom, my feet slipped, because it had rained, and I fell into the sea, without any one seeing me; and being near drowning, by luck I found at my left hand the sheet of the large sail which was in the sea, I caught hold of it and began to cry out till some came to help and pick me up with the boat. I was assisted not by my merits, but by the mercy and grace of the Fountain of Pity. That same day we took the course between [114] west and southwest, and passed amid four small islands; that it to say, Cenalo, Huinanghar, Ibusson, and Abarien."
The Italian describes in an interesting way the visit of the King of one of the islands to the ships. He says of this first visit of a Philippine King to the Europeans:
"Thursday, the 28th of March, having seen the night before fire upon an island, at the morning we came to anchor at this island, where we saw a small boat which they call boloto, with eight men inside, which approached the ship of the Captain General. Then a slave of the Captain's, who was from Sumatra, otherwise named Traprobana, spoke from afar to these people, who understood his talk, and came near to the side of the ship, but they withdrew immediately, and would not enter the ship from fear of us.
"So the Captain, seeing that they would not trust to us, showed them a red cap and other things, which he had tied and placed on a little plank, and the people in the boat took them immediately and joyously, and then returned to advise their King. Two hours afterward, or thereabout, we saw come two long boats, which they call ballanghai, full of men.
"In the largest of them was their King sitting under an awning of mats; when they were near the ship of the Captain General, the said slave spoke [115] to the King, who understood him well, because in these countries the kings know more languages than the common people. Then the King ordered some of his people to go to the Captain's ship, while he would not move from his boat, which was near enough to us.
"This was done, and when his people returned to the boat, he went away at once. The Captain made a good entertainment to the men who came to his ship, and gave them all sorts of things, on which account the King wished to give the Captain a rather large bar of solid gold, and a chest full of ginger. However, the Captain thanked him very much, but would not accept the present. After that, when it was late, he went with the ships near to the houses and abode of the King."
The Captain in refusing the offer of gold and ginger from his guest, showed indeed a true sense of hospitality. The incident pictures the life of Magellan. He obeyed his moral sense and his heart was true. He was a Portuguese gentleman of the old type, and presented an example worthy of imitation in any age.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE VISIT OF THE KING.—PIGAFETTA VISITS THE KING.
They were ready to meet the King now, when all was so friendly and promising. The good soul of Pigafetta felt that these islands of fruits and spiceries were indeed an earthly paradise. He alone had not been sick in all of the long monotonous voyage across the Pacific. His strength had never abated and his faith in the Admiral had never faltered.
Night after night he had watched the lantern swinging in the unknown air, and had said his prayers. He had had ever a cheering word to say to the Admiral on all occasions. His heart was true to the lantern, the stars, the Admiral, and the Divine Power which he believed was leading him.
He was now in the sea gardens of palms and spices. He thus continues his narrative (we follow in part the translation of the Hakluyt Society in the work of Lord Stanley Alderley).
He tells us that on "the next day, which was [117] Good Friday, the Captain sent on shore a slave, who was an interpreter, to the King to beg him to give him for money some provisions for his ships, sending him word that he had not come to his country as an enemy, but as a friend. The King on hearing this came with seven or eight men in a boat, and entered the ship, and embraced the Captain, and gave him three China dishes covered with leaves full of rice, and two dorades, which are rather large fish. The Captain gave this King a robe of red and yellow cloth, made in the Turkish fashion, and a very fine red cap, and to his people he gave knives and mirrors. After that refreshments were served up to them. The Captain told the King, through the interpreter, that he wished to be with him, as cassi cassi; that is to say, brothers. To which the King answered that he desired to be the same toward him. After that the Captain showed him cloths of different colors, linen, coral, and much other merchandise, and all the artillery, of which he had some pieces fired before him, at which the King was much astonished; after that the Captain had one of his soldiers armed with white armor, and placed him in the midst of three comrades, who struck him with swords and daggers.
"The King thought this very strange, and the Captain told him, through the interpreter, that a man thus in white armor was worth many common men; he answered that it was true; he was further [118] informed that there were in each ship two hundred like that man.
"After that the Captain showed him a great number of swords, cuirasses, and helmets, and made two of the men play with their swords before the King; he then showed him the sea chart and the ship compass, and informed him how he had found a strait, and of the time which he had spent on the voyage; also of the time he had been without seeing any land, at which the King was astonished. At the end the Captain asked if he would be pleased that two of his people should go with him to the places where they lived to see some of the things of his country. This the King granted, and I went with another."
The Italian was again in his element, and he gives a graphic account of his visit to the natives:
"When I had landed, the King raised his hands to the sky, and turned to us two, and we did the same as he did; after that he took me by the hand, and one of his principal people took my companion, and led us under a place covered with canes, where there was a ballanghai; that is to say, a boat, eighty feet long or thereabouts, resembling a fusta. We sat with the King upon its stern, always conversing with him by signs, and his people stood up around us, with their swords, spears, and bucklers. Then the King ordered to be brought a dish of pig's flesh and wine. Their fashion of drinking is in this wise: they [119] first raise their hands to Heaven, then take the drinking vessel in their right hand, and extend the left hand closed toward the people. This the King did, and presented to me his fist, so that I thought that he wanted to strike me; I did the same thing toward him; so with this ceremony, and other signs of friendship, we banqueted, and afterward supped with him."
The Italian was a pious man, but he says:
"I ate flesh on Good Friday, not being able to do otherwise, and before the hour of supper, I gave several things to the King, which I had brought. There I wrote down several things as they name them in their language, and when the King and the others saw me write, and I told them their manner of speech, they were all astonished.
"When the hour for supper had come, they brought two large China dishes, one of which was full of rice, and the other of pig's flesh, with its broth and sauce. We supped with the same signs and ceremonies, and then went to the King's palace, which was made and built like a hay grange, covered with fig and palm leaves."
Here the two found delightful hospitality; the house was "built on great timbers high above the ground, and it was necessary to go up steps and ladders to it. Then the King made us sit on a cane mat, with our legs doubled as was the custom; after half an hour there was brought a dish of fish roast [120] in pieces, and ginger fresh gathered that moment and some wine. The eldest son of the King, who was a Prince, came where we were, and the King told him to sit down near us, which he did; then two dishes were brought, one of fish, with its sauce, and the other of rice, and this was done for us to eat with the Prince. My companion enjoyed the food and drank so much that he got drunk. They use for candles or torches the gum of a tree which is named anime, wrapped up in leaves of palms or fig trees. The King made a sign that he wished to go to rest, and left us with the Prince, with whom we slept on a cane mat, with some cushions and pillows of leaves. Next morning the King came and took me by the hand, and so we went to the place where we had supped, to breakfast, but the boat came to fetch us. The King, before we went away, was very gay, and kissed our hands, and we kissed his. There came with us a brother of his, the King of another island, accompanied by three men. The Captain General detained him to dine with us, and we gave him several things."
"The King abounded in gold, and was a grand figure. In the island belonging to the King who came to the ship there are mines of gold, which they find in pieces as big as a walnut or an egg, by seeking in the ground. All the vessels which he makes use of are made of it, and also some parts of his house, which was well fitted up according to the [121] custom of the country, and he was the handsomest man that we saw among these nations. He had very black hair coming down to his shoulders, with a silk cloth on his head, and two large gold rings hanging from his ears; he had a cloth of cotton worked with silk, which covered him from the waist to the knees; at his side he wore a dagger, with a long handle which was all of gold, his sheath was of carved wood. Besides he carried upon him scents of storax and benzoin. He was tawny and painted all over."
An island where nuggets of gold as big as eggs could be found must have offered a tempting place of residence.
But Magellan's first thought was for the good of the souls of this hospitable people.
CHAPTER XVII.
EASTER SUNDAY.—MAGELLAN PLANTS THE CROSS.
Now begins the dawn of Christianity in the Philippines. Magellan was a deeply religious man, and Pigafetta was a Christian Knight. Magellan saw the significance of his marvelous voyage, and his soul glowed with gratitude to Heaven.
Easter Sunday approached. Magellan had made preparations to plant a cross on a mountain overlooking the sea.
Easter Sunday fell on the last day of March. "The Captain," to follow the Italian's narrative in part, "sent the Chaplain ashore early to say mass, and the interpreter went with him to tell the King that they were not coming on shore to dine with him, but only to hear the mass.
"When it was time for saying mass the Captain went ashore with fifty men, not with their arms, but only with their swords, and dressed as well as each one was able to dress, and before the boats reached the shore our ships fired six cannon shots as a sign of peace.[123]
"At our landing the two Kings of the islands were there, and received the Captain in a friendly manner, and placed him between them, and then we went to the place prepared for saying mass, which was not far from the shore."
The ceremonies that followed were dramatic. "Before the mass began the Captain threw a quantity of musk-rose water on those two Kings," is the picture drawn by the Italian, "and when the offertory of the mass came, the two Kings went to kiss the Cross like us, but they offered nothing, and at the elevation of the body of our Lord they were kneeling like us, and adored our Lord with joined hands. The ships fired all their artillery at the elevation of the body of our Lord."
The scene that followed discloses the religious nature of Magellan and his joy in what was ennobling.
He caused a great cross to be lifted, "with the nails and crown, to which the Kings made reverence." He told the Kings that he wished to place it in their country for their profit, "because if there came afterward any ships from Spain to those islands, on seeing this cross, they would know that we had been there, and therefore they would not cause them any displeasure to their persons nor their goods; and if they took any of their people, on showing them this sign, they would at once let them go." [125]
Mount Mayon, on the Island of Luzun.
The Captain continued his address to the Kings in the same spirit. He told them that it was necessary that this cross "should be placed on the summit of the highest mountain in their country, so that seeing it every day and night they might adore it." He further told them that if they did thus, "neither thunder, lightning, nor the tempest could do them hurt." This he believed to be true. The Kings "thanked the Captain, and said they would do it willingly." The Captain asked them how they worshiped. They answered that "they did not perform any other adoration, but only joined their hands, looking up to Heaven, and that they called their God Aba. Hearing this, the Captain was very joyful; on seeing that, the first King raised his hands to the sky and said that he wished it were possible for him to be able to show the affection which he felt toward him."
The elevation of the Cross followed.
"After dinner we all returned in our dress coats, and we went together with the two Kings to the middle of the highest mountain we could find, and there the Cross was planted."
Important information followed.
"After the two Kings and the Captain rested themselves, and, while conversing, I asked where was the best port for obtaining victuals. They replied that there were three; that is to say, Ceylon, Zubu, and Calaghan; but that Zubu was the largest and of the most traffic. Then the Kings [126] offered to give him pilots to go to those ports, for which he thanked them, and deliberated to go there, for his ill-fortune would have it so. After the cross had been planted on the mountain, each one said the Paternoster and Ave Maria, and adored it, and the Kings did the like. Then he went down below to where their boats were. There the kings had brought some of the fruit called cocos and other things to make a collation and to refresh us."
The fleet sailed away soon after Easter Monday, the Captain having secured native pilots from the Kings. One of the Kings volunteered to act himself as pilot, and this service was accepted.
Pigafetta describes the use of betel:
"This kind of people are gentle, and go naked, and are painted. They wear a piece of cloth made from a tree, like a linen cloth, round their body to cover their natural parts; they are great drinkers. The women are dressed in tree cloth from their waists downward; their hair is black, and reaches down to the ground; they wear certain gold rings in their ears. These people chew most of their time a fruit which they call areca (betel), which is something of the shape of a pear; they cut it in four quarters, and after they have chewed it for a long time they spit it out, from which afterward they have their mouths very red. They find themselves the better from the use of this fruit because it refreshes [127] them much, for this country is very hot, so that they could not live without it."
The use of the areca, or betel nut, is still common in all the Philippine Islands.
The fleet next went to Maestral, "passing through five islands—Ceylon, Bohol, Canighan, Baibai, and Satighan. In the Island of Satighan was a kind of bird called barbarstigly, which was as large as an eagle. Of these we killed only one," says our narrator, "because it was late. We ate it, and it had the taste of a fowl. There were also in this island doves, tortoises, parrots, and certain black birds as large as a fowl, with a long tail. They lay eggs as large as those of a goose. These they put a good length under the sand in the sun, where they were hatched by the great heat, which the heated sand gives out; and when these birds were hatched they pushed up the sand and came out. These eggs are good to eat.
"From this island of Mazzubua to that of Satighan there are twenty leagues, and on leaving Satighan we went by the west; but the King of Mazzubua could not follow us; therefore we waited for him near three islands; that is to say, Polo, Ticobon, and Pozzon. When the King arrived he was much astonished at our navigation; the Captain General bade him come on board his ship with some of his principal people, at which they were much pleased. Thus we [128] went to Zubu, which is fifteen leagues off from Satighan."
The story of the Italian here, which we so freely use, leaves in the mind a picture of the first voyage among the Philippines. The habits of the people in these same islands are not greatly changed, but we hardly find there now as tractable kings as were those to whom Magellan left the Cross.
CHAPTER XVIII.
CHRISTIANITY AND TRADE ESTABLISHED.—THE BAPTISM OF THE QUEEN.
On April 9th they entered the Port of Zubu, on approaching which they saw houses in the trees. The Captain hung out his flags in the clear sunny air. He caused his artillery to be fired, which greatly alarmed the natives. He then sent an interpreter to the King.
The interpreter found the people in terror at the thunder of the guns. He assured the King that the salute had been made in his honor. Then the interpreter said:
"My master is the greatest King in all the world. We are sailing at his command to discover the Spice Islands. But we have heard of your fame, and the fame of your country, and have come to visit you."
"You are welcome," said the King, "but you must pay me tribute."
"My master," said the interpreter, "is the greatest of all Kings, and we can pay tribute to no one."[130]
The King feasted them, and they entered into negotiations of peace with the King of Zubu.
At Zubu Magellan turned missionary with no common zeal.
He told the native princes that his visit was for the sake of peace.
We are told that the "Captain General sat in a chair of red velvet, and near him were the principal men of the ships sitting in leather chairs, and the others sat on the ground on mats.
"The Captain," says the narrative, "spoke at length on the subject of peace, and prayed God to confirm it in Heaven. These people replied that they had never heard such words as these which the Captain had spoken to them, and they took great pleasure in hearing them. The Captain, seeing then that those people listened willingly to what was said to them, and that they gave good answers, began to say a great many good things to induce them to become Christians.
"He told them how God had made Heaven and earth and all other things in the world, and that he had commanded that every one should render honor and obedience to his father and mother, and that whoever did otherwise was condemned to eternal fire."
His teaching bore immediate fruit.
"The people heard these things willingly, and besought the Captain to leave them two men to teach [131] and show them the Christian faith, and they would entertain them well with great honor. To this the Captain answered that for the moment he could not leave any of his people, but that if they wished to be Christians that his priest would baptize them, and that another time he would bring priests and teachers to teach them the faith."
His manner of teaching reveals his heart:
"The people told him that they wished to consult their King in regard to becoming Christians." The friends of the Captain "wept for the joy which they felt at the good-will of these people, and the Captain told them not to become Christians 'from fear of us, or to please us, but that if they wished to become Christian they must do it willingly, and for the love of God, for even though they should not become Christian, no displeasure would be done them, but those who became Christian would be more loved and better treated than the others.' Then they all cried out with one voice that they did not wish to become Christians from fear, nor from complaisance, but of their free will."
Here the true character of the man again appears—few Christian explorers ever made so noble a record. His sincerity won the hearts of the natives:
"At last they said they did not know what more to answer to so many good and beautiful words which he spoke to them, but that they placed themselves [132] in his hands, and that he should do with them as with his own servants."
The next scene is ideal:
"Then the Captain, with tears in his eyes, embraced them, and, taking the hand of the Prince and that of the King, said to him that by the faith he had in God, and to his master the Emperor, and by the habit of St. James which he wore, he promised them to cause them to have perpetual peace with the King of Spain, at which the Prince and the others promised him the same."
It is a pleasure to follow such a narrative as Pigafetta here writes in illustration of the character of a true Christian Knight. Compare this narrative with the history of Pizarro, Cortes, and De Soto. Magellan was a Las Casas, a Marquette, a La Salle.
The next incident told by Pigafetta has as fine a touch as a portrayal of character. It relates to a message which Magellan sent to the King, with a present.
"When we came to the town we found the King of Zubu at his palace, sitting on the ground on a mat made of palm, with many people about him.
"He had a very heavy chain around his neck, and two gold rings hung in his ears with precious stones.
"He was eating tortoise eggs in two china dishes, and he had four vessels full of palm wine, which he drank with a cane pipe. We made our [133] obeisance, and presented to him what the Captain had sent him, and told him, through the interpreter that the present was not as a return for his present which he had sent to the Captain, but for the affection which he bore him. This done, his people told him all the good words and explanations of peace and religion which he had spoken to them."
We now behold Magellan in a new attitude, as a missionary teacher, a John the Baptist in the wilderness. Pigafetta thus describes the scene:
"On Sunday morning, the fourteenth day of April, we went on shore, forty men, of whom two were armed, who marched before us, following the standard of our King Emperor. When we landed the ships discharged all their artillery, and from fear of it the people ran away in all directions.
"Magellan and the King embraced one another, and then joyously we went near the scaffolding, where the Captain General and the King sat on two chairs, one covered with red, the other with violet velvet. The principal men sat on cushions, and others on mats, after the fashion of the country.
"Then the Captain began to speak to the King through the interpreter to incite him to the faith of Jesus Christ, and told him that if he wished to be a good Christian, as he had said the day before, that he must burn all the idols of his country, and, instead of them, place a cross, and that every one should worship it every day on their knees, and their [134] hands joined to Heaven; and he showed him how he ought every day to make the sign of the Cross.
"To that the King and all his people answered that they would obey the commands of the Captain and do all that he told them. The Captain took the King by the hand, and they walked about on the scaffolding, and when he was baptized he said that he would name him Don Charles, as the Emperor his sovereign was named; and he named the Prince Don Fernand, after the brother of the Emperor, and the King of Mazzava, Jehan; to the Moor he gave the name of Christopher, and to the others each a name of his fancy. Thus, before mass, there were fifty men baptized."
The baptism of the Queen followed.
"Our Chaplain and some of us went on shore to baptize the Queen. She came with forty ladies, and we conducted them onto the scaffolding; then made her sit down on a cushion, and her women around her, until the priest was ready. During that time they showed her an image of our Lady, of wood, holding her little child, which was very well made, and a cross. When she saw it, she had a greater desire to be a Christian, and, asking for baptism, she was baptized and named Jehanne, like the mother of the Emperor. The wife of the Prince, daughter of this Queen, had the name of Catherine, the Queen of Mazzava Isabella, and to the others each their name.
"That day we baptised eight hundred persons of [135] men, women, and children. The Queen was young and handsome, covered with a black and white sheet; she had the mouth and nails very red, and wore on her head a large hat made of leaves of palm, with a crown over it made of the same leaves, like that of the Pope. After that she begged us to give her the little wooden boy to put in the place of the idols. This we did, and she went away. In the evening the King and Queen, with several of their people, came to the sea beach, where the Captain had some of the large artillery fired, in which they took great pleasure. The Captain and the King called one another brother."
The "little boy" spoken of was an image of the infant Christ. The figure was preserved until the year 1598, when the Spaniards sent missionaries to the place who gave it a place in a shrine and named a city for it.
The naming of the Queen at her baptism for poor Juana, or "Crazy Jane," the incapable mother of Charles V, who was watching beside her dead husband in Granada, and who had signed the commission of Magellan by proxy, completes a tale of missionary work in a somewhat ideal way. If these people did not maintain their faith, the work reveals the intention of Magellan, and shows the nobility of character of the Christian Knight.
CHAPTER XIX.
HALCYON DAYS.
These were indeed days of joy. The glory of them grew. All the inhabitants of the island came to be baptized. Magellan went on shore daily to hear mass.
It was Pigafetta who gave to the Queen the image of the infant Christ, which became historical.
On one of the occasions that Magellan went on shore to hear mass he met the Queen, who appeared in a veil of silk and gold. He sprinkled over her some rose water and musk, and noticed that she cherished the image of the infant Christ.
"You do well," said he. "Put it in the place where your idols were; it will keep in your mind the Son of God."
"I will cherish it forever," said the veiled Queen.
She seems to have kept her word.
The joy of these scenes reached their height, when the King of Seba swore fealty to the King of Spain.
The scene of the conclusion of this ceremony was [137] knightly indeed, and again reveals the heart of Magellan.
He, seeing a good spirit, of the King of Seba, resolved to swear fealty of eternal friendship to him. Only a Christian Knight would have dreamed of such a thing.
"I swear," he said, "by the image of our Lady, the Virgin, by the love of my Emperor, and by the insignia, on my heart, that I will ever be faithful to you, O King of Seba!"
Here the true character of the statesman as well as teacher appeared. History records few acts more noble. Magellan sought the good of mankind.
There was one officer on the ships whose soul, like that of Pigafetta's, must have been in all these benevolent efforts.
The expedition was tarrying long, seeking the glory of the Cross rather than the gold and spices. There were impatient hearts in Seville.
Mesquita in his still prison, with the world against him, dreamed of Magellan, Del Cano, and the Italian historian. The half world separated them now.
In his dreams Mesquita saw the fleet coming back again, and he heard the shouting of the people and the ringing of the bells. The star of hope in his heart did not fail.
"Padre," he said, "the day of my vindication will come."[138]
But the seasons came and went, and the light changed color in the window of his cell, and the birds sang their notes in the trees in spring and left their empty nests to silence in the retreating summer. The great Cathedral grew, and the achievement of Charles had begun to excite the world.
We now come to the tragedy of this wonderful expedition; to the tempest that rose out of the calm. The transition from these ideal scenes to what is to follow is sudden indeed.
CHAPTER XX.
THE DEATH OF MAGELLAN.
Magellan, as we have shown, had sought not wealth, nor glory, but the good of the world in his life. He was ever ready to put his own interest aside in the service of that which was best for others. He had sought welfare and not wealth, service and not self, and his life was about to end in the unselfish spirit in which it had lived.
On Friday, April 26, 1520, Zula, one of the great chiefs of the Island of Matan, sent to Magellan one of his sons and two goats as a present. He had promised his service to the King of Spain, but this surrender of royalty had been opposed by another chief named Silapalapa. This chief had declared with native spirit that Matan would never submit to the Spanish King.
"But I can overthrow Silapalapa," ran the Matan chief's message, "if I can have your help. Send me a boatload of men. Let them come to-morrow night."
Magellan received the message and the presents [140] in a friendly feeling, and resolved to follow the chief's lead.
"I will not send another on this expedition so full of peril," he thought. "I will lead it myself."
So he set out from Zubu to Matan at midnight, with sixty men, in corselets and helmets. He took with him the Christian King, and the chief men of his new adherents.
The boats moved silently over the tropic waters under the moon and stars. Magellan had become a happy man. He could not doubt that he was on his way to new victories. Pigafetta, the Italian, always true to the Admiral, was with him.
The expedition arrived at Matan just before the dawn of the morning.
The mellow nature of Magellan came back to him on this short night journey. He had no wish to slaughter men.
So he spoke to a Moorish merchant.
"Go to the natives," he said, "and tell them if they will recognize a Christian King as their sovereign I will become their friend. If not, that they must feel our lances."
The Moorish ambassador was landed, and met the chiefs.
"Go tell your master," they said, "that if he has lances, so have we, and our lances are hardened by fire."
At the red dawn of the morning, the Admiral [141] gave the order to disembark, and forty-nine men leaped into the water. They faced a fierce army, some fifteen hundred in number.
Magellan divided his followers into two bands. The musketeers and cross bowmen began the attack. But the firing was not effective. The black army moved down upon them like a cloud, throwing javelins and spears hardened with fire. Some of them singled out Magellan. They threw at him lances pointed with iron.
Magellan, seeing that the odds were against him in such a contest, sought to break their lines by firing their houses. Some thirty houses burst into flame.
The sight of the fire maddened the natives and rendered them furious. They discovered that the legs of the invaders were exposed, and that they could be wounded there with poisoned arrows.
A poisoned arrow was aimed at Magellan. It pierced him in the leg. He felt the wound, and knew its import.
He gave orders to retreat. A panic ensued, and his men took to flight.
The air was filled with arrows, spears, stones, and mud.
The Spaniards tried to escape to the boat. The islanders followed them and directed their fury to Magellan. They struck him twice on his helmet.
Magellan's thought now was not for himself, but for the safety of his men. [142]
He stood at his own post fighting that they might make safe their retreat.
He thus broke the assault for nearly an hour, until he was almost left alone.
An Indian suddenly rushed down toward him having a cane lance. He thrust this into his face. Magellan wounded the Indian, and attempted to draw his sword. But he had received a javelin wound in his arm, and his strength failed.
Seeing him falter, the Indian rushed upon him and brought him down to the earth with a rude sword.
The Indians now fell upon him and ran him through with lances.
He tried to rise up, to see if his men were safe. He did not call for assistance, but to the last sought to secure the safety of his men. In fact, he never seemed to so much as think of himself in the whole contest. It was thus that his life went out, and his heart ceased to beat. He was left dead on the sand, on April 27, 1521. The natives refused to surrender his body. Eight of his own men and four Indians, who had become Christians, perished with him.
The death of Magellan.
There was one man who was true to the Admiral to the end. He was wounded with him, but survived. He it was that saw that the Admiral had forgotten himself at the hour of the final conflict. It was Pigafetta, the Italian, whose narrative we are following.[143]
This hero of the pen says of him to whom he gave his heart:
"One of his principal virtues was constancy in the most adverse fortune."
"It was God who made me the messenger of the new heavens and new earth, and told me where to find them," said Columbus. "Maps, charts, and mathematical knowledge had nothing to do with the case."
As sublime an inspiration is seen in the words of Pigafetta in regard to Magellan:
"No one gave to him the example how to encompass the globe." His sight was the inner eye, the pure vision of a consecrated purpose in life.
No hero of the sea has ever been more noble! His purpose in life was everything; he had the faith of a Christian Knight; he was as nothing to himself, but to others all, and he died giving his own body for a shield to his men. His name will always be associated with what is glorious in the history of the Philippines.
Magellan was dead, but a good purpose lives in others. Magellan dead, Del Cano yet lives, and the Italian historian has other scenes to record.
The farol of Magellan will go on; it will never cease to shine, and the cast-out name of the Christian Knight will become a fixed star amid the lights that have inspired the world.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE SPICE ISLANDS.—WONDERFUL BIRDS.—CLOVES, CINNAMON, NUTMEGS, GINGER.—THE SHIPS OVERLOADED.
The massacre at Matan caused the Spaniards to lose credit in the eyes of the natives. The King of Seba turned against them, thus throwing a shadow on the glory of Magellan's missionary work. The Spaniards were, however, much to blame for the change that took place in the King's heart.
Their ships were becoming unseaworthy.
They were reduced to two ships, the Victoria and the Trinidad, and these shaped their course for the Moluccas, or Spice Islands, by the way of Borneo. Del Cano began to represent the spirit of Magellan among the crews.
They came to the Bornean city, Brunei, "a collection of houses built on piles over the water, where were twenty-five thousand fires or families." On the shore was the palace of a voluptuous Sultan, its walls hung with brocades of silk. Here was also one of the most curious markets in all the world, [145] carried on at high tide, when there gathered a great army of canoes.
On November 8, 1521, the two ships anchored off Tidor on the Spice Islands, saluting the King of the place with a broadside.
They concluded a treaty of peace with the King, and began to load the two ships with spice, and especially with cloves, a kind of spice at that time regarded as a great luxury in Spain.
If Pigafetta had desired above all things to see the wonders of the ocean world, he must again have been gratified here at some of the presents sent to the ships by the natives. Columbus had brought to Spain gorgeous parrots or macaws. But the King of Batchian sent to him a bird whose plumage surpassed anything that he had ever seen.
"It is the bird of Paradise," said the agent of the royal almoner.
The Italian did not doubt it. He wished to learn the history of this superb inhabitant of the air.
He did in a way that excited his wonder beyond measure.
The bird, after the Mohammedan account, was born in Paradise. It came down from Heaven where dwelt departed souls, who had died true to the Moslem faith.
These birds were found dead, and they had no feet. If Pigafetta inquired the cause of this, he doubtless was answered: [146]
"They do not need feet; they never alight on the ground."
But as greatly as the Chevalier must have wondered, he was not induced to accept the Moslem faith.
They overcrowded the ships while receiving the favors of the Sultan of Tidor.
An account of their voyage about the Spice Islands, "most delightful to read," as we are told in the title, was written by one Maximilianus Transylvanus, from which we gather the following incidents (Hakluyt Society) of great pearls and strange men:
"They came to the shores of the Island of Solo, where they heard that there were pearls as big as dove's eggs, and sometimes as hen's eggs, but which can only be fished up from the very deepest sea. Our men brought no large pearl, because the season of the year did not allow of the fishery. But they testify that they had taken an oyster in that region, the flesh of which weighed forty-seven pounds. For which reason I could easily believe that pearls of that great size are found there; for it is clearly proved that pearls are the product of shellfish. And to omit nothing, our men constantly affirm that the islanders of Porne told him that the King wore in his crown two pearls of the size of a goose's egg.
"Hence they went to the Island of Gilo, where they saw men with ears so long and pendulous that [147] they reached to their shoulders. When our men were mightily astonished at this, they learnt from the natives that there was another island not far off where the men had ears not only pendulous, but so long and broad that one of them would cover the whole head if they wanted it (cum exusu esset). But our men, who sought not monsters but spices, neglecting this nonsense, went straight to the Moluccas, and they discovered them eight months after their Admiral, Magellan, had fallen in Matan. The islands are five in number, and are called Tarante, Muthil, Thidore, Mare, and Matthien; some on this side some on the other, and some upon the equinoctial line.
"One produces cloves, another nutmegs, and another cinnamon. All are near to each other, but small and rather narrow."
The world to-day thinks little of spices, for commerce has made common the luxuries of the Indian Ocean. Cloves, nutmegs, allspice, cinnamon, ginger are found in every home in all civilized lands, and even children make few inquiries about them.
This was not so in the early days of the Viceroys of India. Spices which were gathered and sold by Arabian merchants, were held in Europe as a gift of Arabia, and esteemed to be the greatest, or among the greatest of luxuries. A ship laden with spices was hailed in the ports of the Iberian peninsula as next to a ship freighted with gold, as the Golden Hynde [148] was welcomed in the days of Sir Francis Drake. It used to be said that the odors of the spice ships from the East Indies could be breathed through the breezes that wafted them toward the land.
The principal Spice Islands were the Moluccas, or the islands of the East India Archipelago between Celebes on the west and New Guinea on the east, Timor on the south and the open Pacific Sea on the north. They are distributed over a wide ocean area. Of these the Moluccas form the principal group. Here are the paradises of the seas.
It was to these islands where could be procured the products of "Araby the Blessed" that Magellan had hoped to find a new way. There were brighter shores than Spain, and to these he sought the shortest routes over which ships could travel.
The Peruvian adventurers wished to find gold; the voyagers to the Antilles, magical waters and new productions of the earth; but Magellan's dream was of the spiceries of the Indian seas. They all found what they sought, except Ponce de Leon, who hoped to find the Fountain of Eternal Youth.
Transylvanus speaks of another wonderful bird that only alighted at death, and whose feathers were believed to possess magic powers.
"The kings of Marmin began to believe that souls were immortal a few years ago, induced by no other argument than that they saw that a certain most beautiful small bird never rested upon the ground [149] nor upon anything that grew upon it; but they sometimes saw it fall dead upon the ground from the sky. And as the Mohammedans, who traveled to those parts for commercial purposes, told them that this bird was born in Paradise, and that Paradise was the abode of the souls of those who had died, these kings (reguli) embraced the sect of Mohammed, because it promised wonderful things concerning this abode of souls. But they call the bird Mamuco Diata, and they hold it in such reverence and religious esteem that they believe that by it their kings are safe in war, even though they, according to custom, are placed in the forefront of battle."
He continues his narrative:
"But, our men having carefully inspected the position of the Moluccas and of each separate island, and also having inquired about the habits of the kings, went to Thedori, because they learnt, that in that island the supply of cloves was far above that of the others, and that its King also surpassed the other kings in wisdom and humanity. So, having prepared their gifts they land, and salute the King, and they offer the presents as if they had been sent by Cæsar. He, having received the presents kindly, looks up to Heaven, and says:
"'I have known now for two years from the course of the stars, that you were coming to seek these lands, sent by the most mighty King of Kings. Wherefore your coming is the more pleasant and [150] grateful to me, as I had been forewarned of it by the signification of the stars.
"'And, as I know that nothing ever happens to any man which has not been fixed long before by the decree of fate and the stars, I will not be the one to attempt to withstand either the fates or the signification of the stars, but willingly and of good cheer, will henceforth lay aside the royal pomp and will consider myself as managing the administration of this island only in the name of your King. Wherefore draw your ships into port, and order the rest of your comrades to land; so that now at last, after such a long tossing upon the seas, and so many dangers, you may enjoy the pleasures of the land and refresh your bodies. And think not but that you have arrived at your King's kingdom.'
"Having said this, the King, laying aside his crown, embraced them one by one, and ordered whatever food that land afforded to be brought. Our men being overjoyed at this, returned to their comrades, and told them what had happened. They, pleased above measure with the friendly behavior and kindness of the King, take possession of the island. And when their health was completely restored, in a few days, by the King's munificence, they sent envoys to the other kings, to examine the wealth of the islands, and to conciliate the other kings."
His description of the clove trees is very pleasing: [151]
"Tirante was the nearest, and also the smallest, of the islands; for it has a circumference of a little more than six Italian miles. Matthien is next to it, and it, too, is small. These three produce a great quantity of cloves, but more every fourth year than the other three. These trees only grow on steep rocks, and that so thickly as frequently to form a grove. This tree is very like a laurel (or bay tree) in leaf, closeness of growth, and height; and the gariophile, which they call clove from its likeness to a nail (clavus), grows on the tip of each separate twig. First a bud, and then a flower, just like the orange flower is produced.
"The pointed part of the clove is fixed at the extreme end of the branch, and then growing slightly longer, it forms a spike. It is at first red, but soon gets black by the heat of the sun. The natives keep the plantations of these trees separate, as we do our vines. They bury the cloves in pits till they are taken away by the traders."
He also describes the cinnamon tree:
"Muthil, the fourth island, is not larger than the rest, and it produces cinnamon. The tree is full of shoots, and in other respects barren; it delights in dryness, and is very like the tree which bears pomegranates. The bark of this splits under the influence of the sun's heat, and is stripped off the wood; and, after drying a little in the sun, it is cinnamon."
Also the nutmeg tree: [152]
"Near to this is another island, called Bada, larger and more ample than the Moluccas. In this grows the nutmeg, the tree of which is tall and spreading, and is rather like the walnut tree, and its nut, too, grows like the walnut; for it is protected by a double husk, at first like a furry calix, and under this a thin membrane, which embraces the nutlike network. This is called the Muscat flower with us, but by the Spaniards mace, and is a noble and wholesome spice. The other covering is a woody shell, like that of a hazelnut, and in that, as we have already said, is the nutmeg."
And ginger:
"Ginger grows here and there in each of the islands of the archipelago. It sometimes grows by sowing, and sometimes spontaneously; but that which is sown is the more valuable. Its grass is like that of the saffron, and its root is almost the same too, and that is ginger."
While sailing among these bowery ocean gardens, and gathering their odorous products, the poetic Maximilianus was presented with one of the immortal birds that protected a hero in battle, "the bird of God."
He thus speaks of the rare present:
"Our men were kindly treated by the chiefs in turn, and they, too, submitted freely to the rule of Cæsar, like the King of Thidori. But the Spaniards, who had but two ships, resolved to bring some of [153] each (spice) home, but to load the ships with cloves, because the crop of that was the most abundant that year, and our ships could contain a greater quantity of this kind of spice. Having, therefore, loaded the ships with cloves, and having received letters and presents for Cæsar from the Kings, they make ready for their departure. The letters were full of submission and respect. The gifts were Indian swords, and things of that sort. But, best of all, the Mamuco Diata; that is, the bird of God, by which they believe themselves to be safe and invincible in battle. Of which five were sent, and one I obtained from the Captain (congran prieghi), which I send to your reverence, not that your reverence may think yourself safe from treachery and the sword by means of it, as they profess to do, but that you may be pleased with its rareness and beauty. I send also some cinnamon and nutmeg and cloves, to show that our spices are not only not worse, but more valuable than those which the Venetians and Portuguese bring, because they are fresher."
He also relates the disasters which fell to one of the overloaded ships:
"When our men had set sail from Thedori, one of the ships, and that the larger one, having sprung a leak, began to make water, so that it became necessary to put back to Thedori. When the Spaniards saw that this mischief could not be remedied without great labor and much time, they agreed that the [154] other ship should sail to the Cape of Cattigara, and afterward through the deep as far as possible from the coast of India, lest it should be seen by the Portuguese, and until they saw the promontory of Africa which projects beyond the tropic of Capricorn, and to which the Portuguese have given the name of Good Hope; and from that point the passage to Spain would be easy.
"But as soon as the other ship was refitted it should direct its course through the archipelago, and that vast ocean toward the shores of the continent which we mentioned before, till it found that coast which was in the neighborhood of Darien, and where the southern sea was separated from the western, in which are the Spanish Islands, by a very narrow piece of land. So the ship sailed again from Thedori, and, having gone twelve degrees on the other side of the equinoctial line, they did not find the Cape of Cattigara, which Ptolemy supposed to extend even beyond the equinoctial line; and when they had traversed an immense space of sea, they came to the Cape of Good Hope and afterward to the Islands of the Hesperides.
"And, as this ship let in water, being much knocked about by this long voyage, the sailors, many of whom had died by hardships by land and by sea, could not clear the ship of water. Wherefore they landed upon one of the islands, which is named after Saint James, to buy slaves. [155]
"But as our men had no money, they offered, sailor fashion, cloves for the slaves. This matter having come to the ears of the Portuguese who were in command of the island, thirteen of our men were thrown into prison. The rest were eighteen in number.
"Frightened by the strangeness of this behavior, they started straight for Spain, leaving their shipmates behind them. And so, in the sixteenth month after leaving Thedori, they arrived safe and sound on the 6th of September, at the port near Hispalis (Seville). Worthier, indeed, are our sailors of eternal fame than the Argonauts who sailed with Jason to Colchis. And much more worthy was their ship of being placed among the stars than that old Argo; for that only sailed from Greece through Pontus, but ours from Hispalis to the South; and after that, through the whole West and the Southern hemisphere, penetrating into the East, and again returned to the West."
His subscription is interesting:
"I commend myself most humbly to your reverence. Given at Vallisoleti, on the 23d of October, 1522.
"Your most reverend and illustrious lordship's
"Most humble and constant servant,
"Maximilianus Transylvanus." [156]
When the spice ship began to fill with water, the officers sent for native divers. But these, although very skillful, could not find the place or the cause of the leak.
Let us change our view to a different scene, across the wide tropical world.
CHAPTER XXII.
MESQUITA IN PRISON.
While the little ship Victoria, which had sought for Mesquita in vain, was sailing around the world, and was returning laden with spice, Mesquita himself remained shut out from the sun by the shadows of prison walls. His lite became more and more silent and neglected.
We know not by what authority he was held in a dungeon for advising the supposed crimes of his cousin Magellan. It could not have been that of Juana, who was still watching over the tomb from which she expected her husband to rise, nor by good Cardinal Ximenes, and possibly not by Charles V himself, but perhaps by one of his ministers. It may have been by the direction of Charles, for his imprisonment implies doubt; otherwise with such an array of testimony against him, we might expect he would have been executed.
Two years had passed over beautiful Seville, and the India House there must have began to doubt the story of Gormez as not one of the other ships returned. [158] These ships might have been cast away in the wintry seas that Gormez and his crew described, or the flag of Spain that the daring Portuguese had set toward the Spice Islands of the East by the way of the South might be seen again some day, rising over the Guadalquivir.
Mesquita believed in his cousin Magellan; not only in him as a true man, but as one who had a divine calling to fulfill; as one whom destiny had allotted to lead the decisive events of mankind. He still felt that he would prove another Columbus or Vasco da Gama.
The two priests whom Magellan had marooned had honestly thought Magellan mad. But Mesquita had his own confessor, and we can easily fancy how the prisoner must have opened his heart to him.
"Padre, I am misunderstood," we can hear him say. "Time tells the truth about all men. Time vindicates all.
"Padre, some messenger from Magellan will come back again. Time weighs all events, and life is self revealing. The heralds will blow their trumpets then, and the bells will ring.
"Padre, they do well to prolong my life. Some day my prison doors will open wide, and I shall ride through the streets of Seville, and those who doubt me now will hail me as a heart that, was always true to a Knight whose heart will be found true to the Emperor!"[159]
The lamp of his faith burned clear and odorous oil. He had a quiet conscience. But how must the conspirators have felt during these uncertain months? The ships did not return. That seemed to favor one view of the madness of Magellan, and yet it did not leave them at ease. There were some who reasoned: If Magellan were indeed mad on his own ship, why might not one or more of the other ships have returned? If the other ships had been loyal to the lantern of Magellan, and had kept together, might the fleet not return again? Should it return what a stigma would be cast on the characters of the cowardly mutineers! In such a case Mesquita would become a hero, and the latter would have to flee from their own names.
Charles V was in his promise of glory now. In 1519, as we have before stated, he had been elected Emperor of Germany; and in 1520 he had been crowned at Aix la Chapelle, amid great rejoicings, and the Pope had bestowed upon him the title of Cæsar or Emperor of the Roman world. He was called "Cæsar" in the chronicles of the times.
Poor Juana took no interest in any of these pomps of her son, as they shook the world. Her ears were deaf to them, her heart was dead to them all. The mother of "Cæsar" was almost the only person in Spain who hailed not the glory of Cæsar.
Amid all the splendors of his court the dream of Magellan must still have haunted the mind of the [160] new Cæsar. He had accepted the story brought by the returned ship; but Magellan the madman might come back again. Madmen had returned before.
The period was a wonderful one. Printing, the art of which had been but recently developed after the discovery of Gutenberg, was revealing its great possibilities. These were the times of Francis in France, and of Henry VIII in England. The Reformation was overturning Germany. The whole world seemed to be changing.
If the ships of Magellan were to find a new way to the East, and were to sail around the world, what surprising events might follow!
So, night after night, Mesquita could but hope and ask:
"Where is the lantern of Magellan now?"
Seville was full of maritime prosperity. The tuneful bells in her many churches had frequent occasions to ring out for national festivals. The sailors loved these services, and especially those that celebrated the triumphs of the Virgin whose dominion had become, as was supposed, the sea, and who was hailed as the "Star of the Deep."
The happy crowds on their way to the rejoicing churches must have passed the prison walls where Mesquita was detained. Life indeed must have been mysterious to him. The world in which he deserved so much honor and happiness was shut out from him—even the sun and stars.
CHAPTER XXIII.
STRANGE STORIES.—THE WISE OLD WOMEN.—THE WALKING LEAVES.—THE HAUNTED SANDALWOOD TREES.—THE EMPEROR OF CHINA.—THE LITTLE BOY AND THE GIANT BIRD.
Pigafetta was no Munchausen, but he had a love of marvelous stories, and there never was a voyage that offered to a European a greater number of curious events and superstitions. Some of the incidents that excited our Chevalier's wonder were natural events which have been since explained. The superstitious legends of the people were, however, for the most part but the growth of folklore through the imagination.
One of these accounts relates to the wise old women who prepared the sacrifices of the wild boar as offerings to the sun. It shows how small may be the real meaning of pompous and pretentious ceremonies. The rites took place in the Philippines.
Says Pigafetta in his narrative prepared for the Grand Master of the Knight of Rhodes:
"Since I have spoken of the idols, it may please your illustrious Highness to have an account of the [162] ceremony with which, in this island, they bless the pig. They begin by sounding some great drums (tamburi); they then bring three large dishes; two are filled with cakes of rice and cooked millet rolled up in leaves, with roast fish; in the third are Cambay cloths and two strips of palm cloth. A cloth of Cambay is spread out on the ground; then two old women come, each of whom has in her hand a reed trumpet. They step upon the cloth and make an obeisance to the sun; they then clothe themselves with the above-mentioned cloths. The first of these puts on her head a handkerchief which she ties on her forehead so as to make two horns, and taking another handkerchief in her hand, dances and sounds her trumpet and invokes the sun.
"The second old woman takes one of the strips of palm cloth and dances, and also sounds her trumpet; thus they dance and sound their trumpets for a short space of time, saying several things to the sun. The first old woman then drops the handkerchief she has in her hand and takes the other strip of cloth, and both together sounding their trumpets, dance for a long time round the pig which is bound on the ground. The first one always speaks in a low tone to the sun, and the second answers her. So the sun and the two old women had a luminous partnership.
"The second old woman then presents a cup of wine to the first, who, while they both continue their [163] address to the sun, brings the cup four or five times near the mouth as though going to drink, and meanwhile sprinkles the wine on the heart of the pig. She then gives up the cup, and receives a lance which she brandishes, while still dancing and reciting, and four or five times directs the lance at the pig's heart; at last, with a sudden and well-aimed blow, she pierces it through and through. She withdraws the lance from the wound, which is then closed and dressed with herbs.
"During the ceremony a torch is always burning, and the old woman who pierced the pig takes and puts it out with her mouth; the other old woman dips the end of her trumpet in the pig's blood, and with it marks with blood the forehead of her husband and of her companion, and then of the rest of the people. But they did not come and do this to us.
"That done the old women took off their robes and ate what was in the two dishes, inviting only women to join them. After that they get the hair off the pig with fire. Only old women are able to consecrate the boar, and this animal is never eaten unless it is killed in this manner."
Pigafetta saw wonderful things in Borneo, among them a wild boar whose head was two and a half spans long, and oysters as large as turtles. He says that the flesh of one of these oysters weighed forty-five pounds.[164]
But the thing there which probably must have most greatly excited his curiosity was the walking leaves. There were certain trees on the islands that had very animated leaves. When one of these leaves fell from the tree, it did not lie where it fell, to rot or to be shuffled by the winds, but it lifted itself up and walked away.
Here was a sight indeed to make the young Italian fly to his memoranda book, which he did.
Other travelers later saw the same curious thing, but they examined the miracle more closely than the credulous Chevalier. They found that the leaves were moved by an insect that lived inside of them, like the Mexican bean, which is used as a toy, and will jump about a table.
The islands of the Indian Ocean abound in sandalwood. Of the sandal trees Pigafetta heard other curious legends. One of them tells us that when the people of the Timor went out to cut sandalwood, the devil appeared to them, and demanded them to bargain with him for the wood. This they did, for those who cut the wood are otherwise likely to fall sick; a poisonous miasma is exhaled from the wounded wood.
Pigafetta heard also marvelous tales of the Emperor of China, who seemed to live amid human walls. There may be some truths in these incidents; if so, what a remarkable condition must have been that of the Chinese court four hundred years ago! [165]
He says:
"The kingdom of Cocchi lies next; its sovereign is named Raja Seri Bummipala. After that follows Great China, the king of which is the greatest sovereign of the world, and is called Santoa Raja. He has seventy crowned kings under his dependence; and some of these kings have ten or fifteen lesser kings dependent on them. The port of this kingdom is named Guantan, and among the many cities of this Empire, two are the most important, namely, Nankin and Comlaha, where the King usually resides.
"He has four of his principal ministers close to his palace, at the four sides looking to the four cardinal winds; that is, one to the west, one to the east, to the south, and to the north. Each of these gives audience to those that come from his quarter. All the kings and lords of India major and superior obey this King, and in token of their vassalage, each is obliged to have in the middle of the principal palace of his city the marble figure of a certain animal named Chinga, an animal more valuable than the lion; the figure of this animal is also engraved on the King's seal, and all who wish to enter his port must carry the same emblem in wax or ivory.
"If any lord is disobedient to him, he is flayed, and his skin, dried in the sun, salted, and stuffed, is placed in an eminent part of the public place, with the head inclined and the hands on the head in the [166] attitude of doing zongu; that is obeisance to the King.
"He is never visible to anybody; and if he wishes to see his people he is carried about the palace on a peacock most skillfully manufactured and very richly adorned, with six ladies dressed exactly like himself, so that he can not be distinguished from them. He afterward passes into a richly adorned figure of a serpent called Naga, which has a large glass in the breast, through which he and the ladies are seen, but it is not possible to distinguish which is the King. He marries his sisters in order that his blood should not mix with that of others.
"His palace has seven walls around it, and in each circle there are daily ten thousand men on guard, who are changed every twelve hours at the sound of a bell. Each wall has its gate, with a guard at each gate. At the first stands a man with a great scourge in his hand, named Satuhoran with satubagan; at the second, a dog called Satuhain; at the third, a man with an iron mace, called Satuhoran with pocumbecin; at the fourth, a man with a bow in his hand, called Saturhoran with anatpanan; at the fifth, a man with a lance, called Satuhoran with tumach; at the sixth, a lion, called Saturhorimau; at the seventh, two white elephants, called Gagiapute.
"The palace contains seventy-nine halls, in which dwell only the ladies destined to serve the King; [167] there are always torches burning there. It is not possible to go round the palace in less than a day. In the upper part of it are four halls where the ministers go to speak to the King; one is ornamented with metal, both the pavement and the walls; another is all of silver, another all of gold, and the other is set with pearls and precious stones. The gold and other valuable things which are brought as tribute to the King are placed in these rooms; and when they are there deposited, they say, 'Let this be for the honor and glory of our Santoa Raja.' All these things and many others relating to this King, were narrated to us by a Moor, who said that he had seen them."
A palace of seven walls, seventy-nine halls, and ten thousand men on guard! A hall of silver, another of gold, and one of precious stones! It took a day to encompass it. We may well wonder how much of truth there was in this brief Oriental story!
When the adventurers came to Java they heard some tales that were marvelous, and that quite equaled those which Queen Scheherezade of the Arabian Nights told of Sinbad the Sailor.
One of these fabulous stories, told them by a pilot, had an Oriental charm and coloring. It was of a giant bird, like the roc of the Arabian Nights.
According to this fanciful legend which we give with some freedom, there was a land called Java Major on the north of the Gulf of China, where grew [168] an enormous tree, seemingly as big as a mountain—one of the greatest trees in all the world. In this tree, which might have shaded a hill, lived a colony of birds, with wings like clouds, so broad and powerful that they could lift an elephant or a buffalo into the air and bear him away to the mountainous tree. The fruit of this tree was larger than the largest melons.
There were Moors on the ship where this story of the great tree and the great bird was told. One of them said:
"I have seen the great bird with my own eyes!"
Another Moor said:
"One of the birds was once captured, and sent as a present to the King of Siam!"
An account of the capture of such a bird would have been very interesting!
There were great whirlpools around the mountainous tree. So that no ship could approach within three or four leagues of it.
But once, according to the legend, some adventurous sailors sailed near the great tree. They had a little boy on board their boat, and he must have surveyed the giant of the forest with wonder.
They sailed too near, for presently their boat began to go round and round, and they found themselves in the power of the whirlpool.
Round and round went the junk until it struck [169] against a rock, and all on board perished, except the little boy, who was supple.
This child caught a plank and held on to it. He was carried hither and thither among the eddies and breakers, but he found himself drawing nearer and nearer the great tree. At last he was cast on shore at the foot of the tree.
"Here must be my home," said he, for he thought he never could get away again. No boat could come to him, and he could not fly.
The tree had great masses of bark, so that he could climb up into it. He mounted up to its high limbs. He could not starve, for the fruit of such a tree must have been sufficient to have supplied a colony.
So cast away on the tree, he here expected to live and to die.
Toward sunset great wings like clouds darkened the shining air. The birds were coming home to-night in the tree. Their nests were there as big as houses.
They settled down, causing a great wind, and put their great heads under their wings and went to sleep.
The boy was bright, and a plan of getting away from the tree came to him. He reasoned that if he could not fly the bird could, and what would be the weight of a little boy to a bird who could carry away an elephant? [170]
So he marked the largest and most powerful bird with his eye, and crept up to it and got under his wing, and into his great feathers.
The bird was asleep and did not wake!
Morning came, and with the first red dawn, as we may fancy, the bird threw up his head and begun to stir. He lifted himself up and shook himself, but he did not shake off the boy, who was safely nestled among the little forest of its feathers.
The sun was brightening the islands, and the bird mounted up and flew away in search of food, carrying the little boy under his wing.
After traversing the sunrise air for a long time, the bird flew over a land of buffaloes.
He here descended to capture a buffalo, to bear him away to the mountainous tree for food. As he alighted on the back of the buffalo with a wild scream of delight, the little boy dropped out from under his wing, and so found his way to his own island.
It was the little boy that told this large story, quite like Sinbad's.
There were found mysterious fruits floating on the sea, which were supposed to have fallen from the tree.
"I have seen the bird myself," said a third Moorish pilot, and with the testimony of the little boy, and the three pilots and the floating fruit, this story [171] ought to be as trustworthy as the one of Sinbad the Sailor.
The voyage back to the Cape of Good Hope and thence to the Cape Verde Islands was one for strange reflections. Del Cano now was the leader of the returning mariners. The expedition had gone out from the port of Seville amid shouting quays and towers, with some two hundred and seventy men. Only one ship was returning and she was bringing home hardly as many men as composed her own crew.
We can imagine Del Cano on deck, with the lantern of Magellan still swinging above him, talking with his officers on a tropical night off the African coast.
"Magellan has found an unknown grave," we may hear him say.
"But humanity will mourn for him, and honor him, and the grave matters not," answers a padre.
"We shall never see Mesquita again," continues Del Cano.
"We can not be sure," replies the padre. "We can know nothing that we do not see."
"We surely shall never meet Carthagena again. I can see in my memory those last biscuits and bottles of wine. He needs none of them now."
"He may have them all," answers the padre.
"We are yet rich in spices. We shall surprise the world when we drop anchor at Seville." [172]
"And Seville may have surprises for us," says the hopeful padre.
They drifted on under favoring airs. The soul of Del Cano was lost to common events in the wonderful revelations of the sea. Should he reach Seville, he would be the living hero of the most marvelous voyage ever made by any mariner.
Such were the scenes and tales that crowded upon the mind of Pigafetta, who wished "to see the wonders of the world." The story of the Emperor of China's palace is associated with objects so marvelous that the meaning of their names is lost to-day.
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE LOST DAY.
When they reached the Cape Verde Islands, the sailors found that a very strange thing had happened.
They had lost a day—or, the islanders had gained a day!
They met the ships from Seville there, and doubtless disputed with the traders in regard to what day of the week it was.
"This is the 6th of September," they said; "a day that we shall ever have occasion to celebrate."
"It is the 7th of September," said their joyous friends.
The sailors consulted with each other. All agreed that it was the 6th of September. Nowhere had they failed to make a daily memorandum. The people of Seville must have lost a day.
The solar year consists of three hundred and sixty-five days and six hours, and if one sails West three years one will gain a day, and if one sails East, one will lose a day.[174]
If the reader will note the following dates of this wonderful voyage, he will solve the mystery of the "lost day:"
CHRONOLOGY OF THE FIRST VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD.
| Magellan arrives at Seville | October 20, 1518. |
| Magellan's fleet sails from Seville, Monday[E] | August 10, 1519. |
| Magellan sails from San Lucar de Barrameda, Tuesday |
September 20, 1519. |
| Magellan arrives at Teneriffe | September 26, 1519. |
| Magellan sails from Teneriffe, Monday | October 3, 1519. |
| Magellan arrives at Rio Janeiro | December 13, 1519. |
| Magellan sails from Rio | December 26, 1519. |
| Magellan sails from Rio de la Plata | February 2, 1520. |
| Magellan arrives at Port St. Julian | March 31, 1520. |
| Eclipse of sun | April 17, 1520. |
| Loss of Santiago. | |
| Magellan sails from Port St. Julian | August 24, 1520. |
| Magellan sails from river of Santa Cruz | October 18, 1520. |
| Magellan makes Cape of the Virgins, entrance of straits |
October 21, 1520. |
| Desertion of San Antonio | November, 1520. |
| Magellan issues from straits into the Pacific, Wednesday |
November 28, 1520. |
| Magellan fetches San Pablo Island | January 24, 1521. |
| Magellan fetches Tiburones Island | February 4, 1521. |
| Magellan reaches the Ladrone Islands, Wednesday | March 6, 1521. |
| Magellan reaches Samar Island of the Philippines, Saturday |
March 16, 1521. |
| Magellan reaches Mazzava Island, Thursday | March 28, 1521. |
| Magellan arrives at Zebu Island | April 7, 1521. |
| Death of Magellan at Matan, Saturday | April 27, 1521. |
| Arrival of San Antonio at Seville | May 6, 1521. |
| Arrival of Victoria and Trinity at Tidore, Friday |
November 8, 1521. |
| Victoria sails from Tidore | December 21, 1521. |
| Victoria discovers Amsterdam Island, Tuesday | March 18, 1552. |
| Victoria doubles the Cape of Good Hope | May 18, 1552. |
| Victoria arrives at San Lucar, Wednesday[F] | September 6, 1552. |
They sought provisions of the Portuguese colony at Cape Verde.
The Portuguese persecution of the expedition, which Magellan had made for Spain, did not cease even here. The Victoria sent out boats for rice. One of the sailors could not restrain his joy, and told the Portuguese who he was and whence he came.
The jealousy of the Portuguese was aroused again.
"The expedition carries glory to Spain," said they. "Did not the King tear the arms from Magellan's door?"
One of the boats sent out for rice did not return. The Victoria knew why they were detained, and sailed away while she could, to bear the glorious news of the discovery to Seville.
CHAPTER XXV.
IN THE CHURCH OF OUR LADY OF VICTORY.—PIGAFETTA.
The Victoria cast anchor in the Port of Seville on September 8, 1522. Joy filled the city on that day, and heralds went forth to proclaim the news.
What news it was!
That Magellan had found a new way to the Pacific.
That he had discovered the Pacific to be a mighty ocean.
That he had sailed over it and found a new ocean world.
That he was dead.
That he had made immortal discoveries, and that one of his ships had sailed around the world.
The hero of the day was Del Cano, the commander of the Victoria.
There was a most beautiful church in Seville, called Our Lady of Victory. To that the returning mariners were summoned to give thanks for their [177] discovery on the day after their arrival, September 9, 1522.
Bells rang out on the shining air. The remnant of the happy crews entered the church amid the joyous music to hear the songs of thanksgiving for victory:
"We praise thee, O God!
We believe thee to be
The Father everlasting!"
They had returned in the Victoria, and the service had to them a special significance in the church of that name.
Mesquita must have heard the acclaiming city.
To the prisoner who had waited in hope, the trumpets of the heralds must have been sweet after his release! Juana, the demented Queen, was yet watching by the tomb in view of her window, hoping at each dawn of the morning that she would find that the dust had awakened to life again. Charles was mapping Europe; his fire of ambition was glowing, and the news of the new fields of the ocean that these discoveries had brought to him filled him with pride and exultation.
He resolved on giving Del Cano and his mariners a splendid reception, after the manner that Isabella had received Columbus.
Del Cano was now the living representative of Magellan. In publicly receiving him with heralds, music, and festival he would do honor to Magellan, [178] whose name was now immortal. So Charles spread his tables of silver and gold to those who had lived on the open sea on scraps of leather, and magnanimously welcomed as knights of the sea those who had followed the sun around the world.
Spain opened the prison doors of Mesquita.
How must Del Cano have welcomed Mesquita as he came forth from his prison, vindicated on these festal days!
Mesquita was a hero now, and a hero among heroes, for he had been a martyr to the cause. The people's hearts overflowed toward him.
So the islands of the new ocean world came to be the possessions of Spain, and from Philip, who succeeded Charles, were called the Philippines. They were to be governed, robbed, taxed, and, in part, reduced to slavery for the enrichment of Spain for nearly four hundred years. Then Spain was to vanish from their history in the smoke of Admiral Dewey's guns, and over them was to float the flag of the republic of the West.
It is a strange allotment of events that these islands should introduce the republic of the West into the Asiatic world. A half century ago the subject of Europe in Asia excited the attention of mankind, but no one ever dreamed that a like topic of America in Asia would ever become one of the political problems of the world. [179]
Pigafetta presenting the history of
the voyage to the King of Spain.
The future of these islands must be one of civilization, education, and development, and we may hope that these will be brought about under the divine law of American institutions, that "all governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." Justice alone is the true sword of power, perpetuity, and peace. To lead the natives of these islands to desire to receive all that is best in civilized life, is one of the great missions of the republic of the West; and that republic, governed by the conscience of the people, will be true to the cause of human rights.
Pigafetta? We must let him tell the story of his life on his return. "Leaving Seville I repaired to Valladolid, where I presented his sacred Majesty, Don Carlos, neither gold nor silver, but other things far more precious in the eyes of so great a sovereign. For I brought to him, among other things, a book written in my own hand, giving an account of all the things which had happened day by day on the voyage.
"Then I went to Portugal, where I related to King John the things that I had seen.
"Returning by the way of Spain, I came to France, where I presented treasures that I had brought home to the regent mother of the most Christian King Don Francis.
"Then I turned my face toward Italy, where I gave myself to the service of the illustrious Philip [180] de Villiers l'Isle Adams, the Grand Master of Rhodes."
The scene of the presentation of the parchment story of Magellan to Charles V is most interesting. That manuscript was like the return of Magellan himself; it told what the hero of the sea had been and what he had done. It was in itself a work of genius, and the world has never ceased to read it in the spirit of sympathy in which it was written.
We may fancy the scene: the young King surrounded by his court, in his happiest days; the Italian Knight amid the splendors of the audience room, placing in the hands of the new Cæsar the roll of the narrative of the voyage around the world! Such a story no pen had ever traced before. That must have been one of the proudest moments in the life of Charles as he took from the Knight the map of the round world.
To the last Pigafetta was true to the Admiral; and one of the best things that can be said of any man is, "He is true hearted."
A wooden statue of Del Cano was found at Cavite on the surrender of that port to Commodore Dewey. It was sent to Washington. It should be replaced by some worthy work of art.
The island of Guam, of the Ladrones, which broke the long voyage of Magellan over the Pacific, and which is some fifteen hundred miles from Luzon, was [181] captured by Captain Glass, of the United States cruiser Charleston, July 21, 1898. It is a connecting link between the West and the Orient. A memorial of Magellan, Del Cano, and Pigafetta might be suitably placed there.
The author of the Songs of the Sierras has described the spirit of Columbus in a poem which has been highly commended. The interpretation applies as well to Magellan. We quote two verses: genius must overcome obstacles, and all obstacles, to be made divine.
THE PORT.
Behind him lay the gray Azores,
Behind, the gates of Hercules.
Before him not the ghosts of shores,
Before him only shoreless seas.
The good mate said: "Now must we pray,
For, lo! the very stars are gone.
Brave Admiral, speak—what shall I say?"
"Why say—Sail on, sail on, sail on!"
They sailed, they sailed. Then spoke the mate:
"This mad sea shows her teeth to-night;
She curls her lip and lies in wait
With lifted teeth as if to bite.
Brave Admiral, say but one good word,
What shall we do when hope is gone?"
The words leaped as a leaping sword—
"Sail on, sail on, sail on and on!"
SUPPLEMENTAL.
THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS.—LAGASPI.—THE STRUGGLE OF THE NATIVES WITH SPAIN.—STORY OF THE PATRIOT RIZAL.—AGUINALDO.
The Philippine Islands, which promise to become a republic of the seas, and the first republic in Asiatic waters, were for generations held by Spain. These one thousand and more sea gardens, some eleven thousand miles from New York, number about as few islands of importance as there are American States. The government of the more populous islands has been so restrictive that, before the boom of Dewey's guns in the China Sea, little was known about them to the world.
The archipelago consists of some six hundred islands that might find marking on an ordinary map of the world.
Twenty-five of these have gained a commercial standing, from which are collected products for foreign trade. The chief of these is Luzon, and the principal ports of the larger islands are Iloilo, on the island of Panay; Zebu and Zamboango.
Luzon and the northern islands are inhabited by [183] a partly civilized race, called the Tagals, who are supposed to be descended from immigrants from the Malay peninsula. They have had the reputation of a mild-mannered people, as they have long received, directly or indirectly, European influences. There are two thousand one hundred schools in Luzon and some six millions of the natives of the islands are claimed as Catholics.
A sultanate was formed on the Sulu archipelago nearly eight hundred years ago, and the Mohammedan populations are called Moros or Moors. The Visayas people are a lower race. Colonies of Chinese are to be found in many of the larger islands, and these constitute the centers of thrift and industry.
The official language of the islands is Spanish, but the natives speak in twenty or more dialects. The islands are supposed to contain about ten million people, but there are no correct censuses by which to compute the number. Even the islands themselves seem not to have been correctly counted.
The history of the islands since their discovery has been one of the most silent in the world. They have been governed by Spain in such a manner as to enrich the Crown of Spain. When the Pope apportioned the newly discovered world among the Kings of the Church, the Western Hemisphere was given to Spain, and by an error of division Spain received the Moluccas or Spice Islands. Magellan declared the King of Spain suzerain of the islands, and after [184] many years Spain sent an expedition from one of her colonies to Zebu to begin the occupation of the Spicery. The leader of this expedition, Miguel de Legaspi, caused his men to marry native women, hoping thereby more easily to subdue a wild and untrained race.
In 1571 this colonizer brought Manila under his influence, and induced the native King to accept the suzerainty of the Spanish King. He proclaimed Manila the seat of Government, and made it an episcopal city.
Legaspi came to learn a very strange thing. It was that the Chinese had made themselves masters of navigation by monsoons. They came down from their coasts to Manila Bay on northwest monsoons, and when the monsoons changed they were carried back again. This power was akin to steam. Their boats were junks, but they filled the marts of Manila with silks and other Oriental luxuries.
Legaspi encouraged this trade. He was the founder of trade in the ports of the China Sea. He caused a market place to be built for the Chinese traders in Manila, in the form of a circus, and afterward opened a quarter for them within the walls. The Chinese still hold a large part of the retail trade of the port. Before the late Spanish war, they numbered about sixty thousand, and one hundred thousand in the port and provinces.
The monks came and sought to convert the [185] people; their efforts were partly successful, but sometimes ended in tragedies.
The trade between Spain and the Philippines was for a long time carried on by the way of Mexico. The intercourse between the Crown and her dependencies here was infrequent. The Mohammedans waged frequent wars against the Catholic missionaries, whom they sought to exterminate.
The friars became the real rulers of the civilized parts of the islands. The will of the Spanish priest was absolute. He was independent of State authority. The rule of the Church was so severe that it brought religion into disfavor, and when the power of Aguinaldo arose, that chief insisted upon the expulsion of certain monastic orders, as detrimental to liberty, and demanded the restoration of the estates of the Church to the people.
Such is, in brief, the simple history of the islands discovered by Magellan before the archipelago was ceded by the treaty of Paris to the United States.
MANILA.
Beautiful Manila, shining over the China Sea—so seductive to the white man when seen from a distance, so withering to all his energies when the same white man becomes a resident there!
A two days' voyage from Hong Kong brings the traveler to Luzon to the river Pasig, where the grim old fortresses of Manila, earthquake rent, [186] like a haze of green vegetation, break the view. Palms lift their green cool shadows in the burning air.
Manila is a walled city. The entrance is by drawbridges, which are raised at night.
The mediæval atmosphere does not disappear when one finds one's self within the walls. Exhaustion and decay are everywhere. The large open bay lies in the splendors of the sunlight when the day is calm, and the visitor would never dream of its turbulent condition when it is lashed by the typhoon.
Admiral Dewey.
Across the bay stands Cavite, the naval station, the scene of Dewey's victory over the Spanish fleet.
The city has some two hundred and seventy thousand inhabitants. The merchants, as we have said, are largely Chinese, and their quarters are picturesque with gay bazaars.
In the shadow land of trees and open dry marshes outside of the city are beautiful estates, and along the roadsides people go waving their fans slowly and listlessly. Here are the parks, the bull ring, and the lovely botanical gardens.
Commercial Manila is a city of coolies, who bare [187] their backs to the sun, though little work can be done here in the noonday heat.
Some years ago a terrible cold came to Manila. It was on a late December night, near morning. The thermometer went down to 74°. Think of that, and of the poor coolies, and of the negritos, or the little black dwarfs, and of those who lived in the thousands of huts of bamboo or reeds! True, 74° would indicate a hot day in our American June or July, but in Manila it was a cold morning, and the people came shivering into the streets, to tell each other of their sufferings.
PHILIPPINE ISLANDS
The best description of Manila before the war that we have seen was written by Crozet, and is contained in an English translated book entitled Crozet's Voyage to Tasmania, New Zealand, the Ladrone Islands, and the Philippines. From this beautifully illustrated work we present a view of the city and the surrounding island as it appeared seven years or more ago:
"The city of Manila is one of the most beautiful that Europeans have built in the East Indies; its houses are all of stone, with tile roofs and they are big, comfortable and well ventilated. The streets of Manila are broad and perfectly straight; there are five principal streets, which divide the city lengthwise, and about ten which divide it broadways. The form of the city is that of an oblong, surrounded by walls and ditches, and defended on [188] the side of the river by a badly planned citadel, which is about to be pulled down and rebuilt. The city walls are flanked by a bastion at every one of the four angles. There are at Manila eight principal churches, with an open place in front of every one; they are all beautiful, large and very richly decorated. The Cathedral is a building which would grace any of our European cities, and has just been rebuilt by an Italian Theatin,[G] who is an able architect. The two rows of columns which support the vaults of the nave and of the aisles are of magnificent marble; so also are the columns of the portal, the altars, the steps, and the pavement. These marbles are obtained from local quarries, are of great variety, and are of the greatest beauty. The space in front of the Cathedral is very large, and is the finest in the city.
"On one side the palace of the Governor is flanked by the Cathedral, on the other by the Town Hall. The Town Hall is very beautiful. At the extremity of the place in front of the Cathedral a large barracks is being constructed, which is to be capable of lodging eight thousand troops.
"Private houses, as well as public buildings, are all one story high. Spaniards never live on the ground floor, on account of the dampness, but they occupy the first floor instead. The heat of the climate [189]has induced them to build very large apartments, with verandas running right round the outside, so as to keep out of the sun; the windows form part of the verandas, and the daylight only enters the rooms by means of the doors which open out on to these verandas. The ground floor serves as a storehouse, and to prevent the rising of moisture from the soil its surface is raised a foot, by means of a bed of charcoal; then sand or gravel is placed on top of this bed, which is finally paved with stone or brick laid with mortar.
"As the country is very subject to earthquakes, the houses, although built of stone, are strengthened with large posts of wood or iron fixed perpendicularly in the ground, rising to the top of the wall-plates, and built within the walls, so that they can not be seen, and then crossed on every floor by master girders, strongly bound together and bolted by wooden keys, which so consolidate the whole building.
"Manila is built on the mouth of a beautiful river, which flows from a lake, called by the Spaniards Lagonne-de-bay, and which is situated five leagues inland. Forty streams flow into this lake, which is twenty leagues in circumference, and around which there are as many villages as streams. The Manila River is the only one which flows out of the lake. It is covered with boats, bringing to the city every sort of provision from the forty agricultural tribes established on the lake shores. [190]
"The suburbs are bigger and more thickly populated than the city itself; they are separated from it by a river, across which a beautiful bridge has been thrown. The Minondo suburb is more especially inhabited by half-breeds, Chinese, and Indians, who are for the most part goldsmiths and silversmiths, and all of them work people.
"The Saint Croix suburb is inhabited by Spanish merchants, by foreigners of all nations, and by Chinese half-breeds. This quarter is the most agreeable one in the country, because the houses, which are quite as fine as those of the city, are built on the river bank, and thereby they enjoy all the conveniences and pleasantness due to such a position.
"In spite of such advantages, the city is badly situated, being placed between two intercommunicating volcanoes, and of which the interiors, being always active, are evidently preparing its ruin. The two volcanoes are those of the Lagonne-ed-Taal and of Monte Albay. When one burns, the other smokes. I shall speak later on of the former of these volcanoes, which, to me at least, appeared a most singular one.
Native houses in Manila
"Until the shocks of the volcanoes shall decide its fate, Manila remains the capital of the Spanish establishments in the Philippines. Here reside the Governor, who is called the Captain General and President of the Royal Audience. Don Simon de Auda filled this office when I arrived at Manila. [191] This Governor had previously been a member of the Royal Audience, and when the English, at the end of the last war, took Manila, he escaped from the city before the surrender, placed himself at the head of the Indians of the province of Pampague, and, without regard to the capitulation of the city, he is said to have succeeded in confining the English within their conquest, starving equally the conquerors and the conquered. Noticing that the Chinese established outside the city walls were furnishing provisions to English and Spaniards alike, he butchered them, putting more than ten thousand to the sword. It seemed to me, however, that the Spaniards in general considered the efforts of this councillor to be more harmful than advantageous to the welfare of the Spanish colony. The English, harassed by the Indians under Don Simon de Auda, had on their part armed and raised other provinces of Luzon, so as to oppose Indian to Indian, and this sort of civil war did more harm to the colony than even the capture of Manila by the English.
"However this may be, Don Simon de Auda returned to Spain after the peace, was rewarded for his zeal by being made Privy Councillor of Castile, and was sent back to Manila as Governor General of the Philippines. Since his arrival in his province he has started a number of important projects, but difficult to be carried out at one and the same time. He has started considerable fortifications in various [192] parts of the city, very large barracks, dykes at the mouth of the river, a powder-mill, smelting furnaces and forges to work the iron mines, and a number of other useful works, which might have succeeded better had they been started in due succession.
"The Philippine Archipelago contains fourteen principal islands, the Government of which is divided into twenty-seven provinces, which are governed by alcaldes under the orders of the Governor Captain General. All these islands are thickly populated, being about three million. These islands extend from the tenth to the twenty-third degree north latitude, and vary in breadth from about forty leagues at the north end of Luzon up to two hundred leagues from the south of the southeast point of Mindanao to the southwest point of Paragoa.
"They are all fertile and rich in natural products. But although the Spaniards have been established here for more than two hundred years, they have not yet succeeded in making themselves masters of the islands. They have no foothold on Paragoa, which is almost eighty leagues long, nor on the adjacent small islands; they only possess a few acres on the big island of Mindanao, which is two hundred leagues in circumference, nor are they yet fully acquainted with the interior of the island of Luzon, where they have their chief settlement, namely, the city of Manila. Luzon is the largest of these islands, [193] being a hundred and forty leagues long from Cape Bojador to Bulusan Point, which is the most northerly point, and about forty leagues broad. In the northern part of Luzon, near the province of Ilocos, there are some aborigines with whom the Spaniards have never been able to establish communication. It is believed that these people are the descendants of Chinese, who, having been shipwrecked on these shores, have established themselves in the mountains of this part of the island. It is said that some Indians know the routes by which access is gained to this people, and that they have been well received by them; but it is in the interest of these Indians to withhold the knowledge from the Spaniards, on account of their great trade profits with those people, who lack many things and have only provisions and gold."
THE STORY OF THE PATRIOT RIZAL.
Dr. José Rizal, a virtuous Catholic reformer, was the Samuel Adams of the awakening of moral feeling against the tyranny of Spain. He sought to reform the Government and to correct corruption in the Church.
He belonged to the province of Cavite. He was a small man, of a clear, sensitive conscience, and great intellectual penetration and force. It became the one purpose of his life to free his countrymen. "He organized the Revolution," says a monument to Samuel Adams, and Dr. Rizal sought to organize a [194] revolution in a like manner as the "last of the Puritans" in New England, by the collecting of facts for correspondence with patriots at Manila and Hong Kong.
In his school life he beheld the universal corruption going on around him. His heart was moved to pity the people.
He wrote a letter in which he urged reform by the expulsion of corrupt officers of the Government and of certain immoral priests. This awakened the Government and made him secret enemies. He was accused by the Government of treason and by the decadent priests of the Church of blasphemy. He held to his convictions against all opposition, knowing that right was right and truth was truth.
He sought to unite the worthy representatives of the State and Church in an effort to bring about a change which should honor morals and give justice to the people. Among men of conscience his influence secretly grew. He hoped to gain such force as to make an appeal to the court at Madrid.
He organized a moral revolution.
Conscience is power, but its progress is slow.
In 1890 Dr. Rizal published a pamphlet that stirred the island world. He pictured the sufferings of the natives under the Spanish rule. He appealed to the enlightened Church, conscience and humanity.
The patriot's friends saw that the reform movement was about to be crushed, and said to Rizal: [195]
"Escape to Hong Kong!"
There was a patriotic club in Hong Kong that sought the emancipation of the natives of Luzon and the Philippines from the extortions of Spain. It would be well for him now to go there.
"How shall I leave the city?" was the one question that suddenly haunted his mind.
He must go by sea. He could not go on board a ship without being detected and detained.
"Get into a perforated box," said a fellow patriot, "and I will ship you with the merchandise."
Dr. Rizal secreted himself in the perforated box, and was shipped from Luzon to Hong Kong.
He was received with great enthusiasm by the Philippine patriots in Hong Kong.
But he was more dangerous to the officials of Luzon in Hong Kong than at Cavite. It became a problem with the latter how to get him once more in their power.
The Governor General Weyler caused a dispatch to be sent to him which stated that he "was too valuable a man for the State to lose his services," that his past conduct would be overlooked, and that he could safely return to his own island.
Honest himself, he could not believe that the dispatch was insincere.
He went back to Manila. His foes were bent on his destruction.
He was one day absent from his rooms attending [196] probably to his medical duties, when some soldiers led by a spy entered his apartments and searched his trunks and pretended to find there seditious books.
Dr. Rizal was arrested. His enemies formed the court to try him for treason.
The books were put out as evidence against him.
"I imported no books," said he.
"But the books are here."
"The customhouse officers found no books in my trunks," said Dr. Rizal.
"But here are the books that witness against you."
"There were no books in my room when I left it," said he.
"But we found them there."
"Let me call the customhouse officers."
The court refused the request.
"Let me summon the owner of my room."
The court refused the request.
"The witness against me is a convict, a spy, and a perjurer."
The court found him guilty.
He was sent into exile. The injustice of the trial was a flame of liberty; the British consul protested against it, and riots broke out in Cavite against the officials that countenanced such a mockery of justice. [197]
He went again to Hong Kong. Weyler had left Luzon, and had been succeeded by Despajol.
His case aroused the Patriot Club. The patriots resolved to go to Spain and lay their cause before the throne. They were mobbed in Spain and sent to Manila for trial.
The trial was a farce; Dr. Rizal was again condemned.
On December 6, 1896, he was led out of the Manila prison into the courtyard. A file of soldiers awaited the coming. A sharp volley of shots broke the stillness of the air; and that heart, so true to liberty, was broken and lay bleeding on the earth. So perished one of the noblest patriots of the islands of the China Sea.
AGUINALDO.
Aguinaldo, called "the greatest of the Malays," in that he rose against Spanish tyranny, is one of the interesting characters of the closing century. His true character can hardly be determined at the present time. Future events must reveal it. He is of mixed blood, and is said to more resemble a European than a Malay.
He was born in the province of Cavite, and is supposed to have European blood in his veins. He was brought up as a house boy in the apartments of a Jesuit priest—a house boy being an errand boy; a boy handy for all common work. [198]
It has been the policy of Spain for centuries to keep her subjects on the Pacific islands in partial ignorance; but this bright boy had an impulse to learn, to acquire knowledge, to grasp the truth of life. He had a remarkable memory, and he became such an apt scholar as to excite wonder. When he was fourteen years old he entered the medical school at Manila. He lost the favor of the Church by joining the Masonic order.
Aguinaldo.
In 1888 he went to Hong Kong, where was a Philippine colony. Here he sought and obtained a military education, and studied military works, and the historical campaigns of the world's greatest heroes. He learned Latin, English, French, and Chinese.
At the breaking out of the insurrection of the Philippines against Spain in 1896, Aguinaldo espoused the cause of liberty, and was made an officer and became a leader. The revolution grew and affected the native troops, and its spirit filled the archipelago. It became the purpose of the more fiery patriots to "drive the Spaniards into the sea."
Aguinaldo advocated the acceptance of concessions [199] by the Spanish Government, by which the rights of the native races should be recognized and protected. His policy was accepted, and the insurgents disbanded. He received Spanish gold to abandon the war for independence, and fell under the suspicion that his patriotism was purchasable. This suspicion has shadowed his fame. He went to Hong Kong.
The island Hong Kong, which is English, is a school of good government. Here Aguinaldo seems to have conceived an ambition to free the native races of the archipelago, and form a republic of the confederated islands. The Spanish-American War revealed to him an opportunity to strike for liberty. He said to the Filipinos: "The hour has come."
The Filipinos looked upon him as the man for the crisis.
An article in the Review of Reviews represents the chief as saying to an American naval officer:
"There will be war between your country and Spain, and in that war you can do the greatest deed in history by putting an end to Castilian tyranny in my native land. We are not ferocious savages. On the contrary, we are unspeakably patient and docile. That we have risen from time to time is no sign of bloodthirstiness on our part, but merely of manhood resenting wrongs which it is no longer able to endure. You Americans revolted for nothing at all compared with what we have suffered. Mexico and [200] the Spanish republics rose in rebellion and swept the Spaniard into the sea, and all their sufferings together would not equal that which occurs every day in the Philippines. We are supposed to be living under the laws and civilization of the nineteenth century, but we are really living under the practices of the Middle Ages.
"A man can be arrested in Manila, plunged into jail, and kept there twenty years without ever having a hearing or even knowing the complaint upon which he was arrested. There is no means in the legal system there of having a prompt hearing or of finding out what the charge is. The right to obtain evidence by torture is exercised by military, civil, and ecclesiastical tribunals. To this right there is no limitation, nor is the luckless witness or defendant permitted to have a surgeon, a counsel, a friend, or even a bystander to be present during the operation. As administered in the Philippines one man in every ten dies under the torture, and nothing is ever heard of him again. Everything is taxed, so that it is impossible for the thriftiest peasant farmer or shopkeeper to ever get ahead in life.
"The Spanish policy is to keep all trade in the hands of the Spanish merchants, who come out here from the peninsula and return with a fortune. The Government budget for education is no larger than the sum paid by the Hong Kong authorities for the support of Victoria College here. [201] What little education is had in the Philippines is obtained from the good Jesuits, who, in spite of their being forbidden to practice their priestly calling in Luzon, nevertheless devote their lives to teaching their fellow-countrymen. They carry the same principle into the Church, and no matter how devout, able, or learned a Filipino or even a half-breed may be, he is not permitted to enter a religious order or ever to be more than an acolyte, sexton, or an insignificant assistant priest. The State taxes the people for the lands which it says they own, and which as a matter of fact they have owned from time immemorial, and the Church collects rent for the same land upon the pretext that it belongs to them under an ancient charter of which there is no record. Neither life nor limb, liberty nor property have any security whatever under the Spanish administration."
Such was his indictment of Spain.
He began a war for independence from Spain in the provinces of Luzon. He was an inspiring general and practically made prisoners of some fifteen thousand of the Spanish forces. He organized a Government at least nominally Republican, although it has been called a dictatorship. The purchase of the Philippines by the United States, in accordance with the Treaty of Paris, has been opposed by Aguinaldo and his followers in a most distressing war. He has claimed the absolute independence of all the Philippines, although, so far as our knowledge goes, [202] his authority does not extend far beyond certain districts of the Island of Luzon. Without anticipating the verdict of history upon our relations to the Philippines, it is enough to add that the bloodshed and suffering caused by this war are most deplorable.
HONG KONG.
Hong Kong and the China Sea have come to stand not only for Europe in Asia, but for America in Asia, though of the latter, Manila is the port. The center of the world's forces changes, and it is a strange current of events that has made the China Sea, with its English port of Hong Kong, and the Luzon port of Manila, facing each other across the blue ocean way, the pivotal point of not only England in China, but of America in the East. The Anglo-Chinese community in Hong Kong represents the union of Europe and Asia in the family of nations, and America joins the world of the higher civilization at Manila, the scene of Dewey's victory.
The civilizing history of Hong Kong is largely associated with Sir John Bowring, whom a large part of the world recalls merely as a writer of popular hymns; as, "In the Cross of Christ I Glory."
The British free traders secured Hong Kong as a market for the East, and added it to the British Empire in the middle of the century. The Suez Canal increased the importance of Hong Kong.
Hong Kong
Hong Kong, not being an integral part of Asia, became a place of refugees before its union with the British Empire. It lay in the route of the British possessions in Africa, India, and North America. Its Urasian destiny was seen in the alliance between Europe and Asia concluded at Canton (1634) between the East India Company and the Chinese Government. It then became the vantage ground of the Anglo-Saxon race. The early English Governors of Hong Kong made the port the cradle of liberty and free trade, and a civilizing influence in the East.
The island is some nine miles long and from two to six miles broad, with a population of more than one hundred and twenty thousand, most of whom are Chinese. It was ceded in perpetuity to the British by the treaty of Nankin in 1843, when its Government began to be administered by Colonial Governors, under whom it grew commercially.
The East India Trade Company had prepared the way for this little Britain in the East. The United States in the middle of the century began to trade at Canton from the ports of Boston and Salem. It is a very curious and almost forgotten fact that the first cargoes from New England to Canton consisted largely of ginseng, a plant now little esteemed, but which at that time had acquired such a medical reputation in China as to be almost worth its weight in gold. The plant was held to be a magical cure for nearly all diseases and to possess the gift of immortal youth.[205]
Boston and Salem are still adorned with the tall and stately mansions of these old merchants, whose wooden vessels went to the China Sea, at first carrying ginseng and returning with tea. A writer in a Boston paper thus pictures this period:
"The generation that would not have had to look at a map to find out where Manila was when George Dewey arrived there, is almost passed away. These were the great sailors of their time; men who met emergencies with nerve and overcame tempest and adversity with equal complacency, who knew the merchants of Canton and Calcutta as well as the merchants of Salem and Boston, and whose tempers were never ruffled if even stress of circumstance compelled them to put up with a paltry profit of one hundred per cent. They lived at a time when there might easily be a fortune in a single freight, and when one turn round the world might represent more than a million of money. Most of them lived before the day of the bill of exchange, and when the solid old method of carrying specie in the hold was the familiar business practice. They knew the pirate of the China Sea and he of Barbary, too, for it was this old-fashioned system of carrying your capital with you that made the pirates' life worth living. They lived before the cable as well, and from the moment that a ship cleared from Canton or Manila or Singapore there was no way in the world for the consignee or the merchant in Boston [206] to know what she had on board until she arrived here to speak for herself. Be it silks or teas or what-not, the merchant must move quickly to bid or buy, for the nature and value of the cargo could not have been discounted in advance, while the ship was skimming the oceans. Each vessel made her own market, and the wharf was the market place. It was good news, indeed, when a captain with a cargo of teas was informed by his owners, who may have met him upon the completion of a two years' cruise, that the price of tea had advanced the day before his arrival. It was pretty apt to be something in the captain's own pocket, too, for in those days he was allowed to carry twenty-five tons of freight for his own private speculation, and a salary of three hundred dollars a month in addition was not uncommon. There are retired captains on Cape Cod and in Salem and in the suburbs of Boston to-day who earned a competence in those times of Boston's water-front prosperity. They became masters sometimes before they were of age, and occasionally there would be one, like the late R. B. Forbes, who would become a great merchant, the head of a famous, wealthy house, known the world over, almost before he realized how great was the fortune that had overtaken him. And there was another very nice thing about those old days of plenty. If a man came home from China rich, invested his wealth in a railroad or some manufacturing or mining project that would be pretty apt to ruin him, all he would have to do would be to exile himself, under the right auspices, for another year or two in China, and then return to his home and friends with his fortunes quite mended."
Iloilo.
The great merchant at Canton at the time of the Boston commercial period was Honqua. He was as noble as he was rich, and Mr. Forbes, the famous old Boston merchant, relates the following story of him:
"A New England trader had gone to Canton, and had been unsuccessful, and owed Honqua one hundred thousand dollars. He desired to return home, but could not do so if he discharged the debt. Honqua heard of his condition, pitied him, and sent for him.
"'I shall be sorry to part from you,' he said, 'but I wish you to return as you so desire, happy and free. Here are all your notes canceled.'"
Here was superb commercialism.
The American sovereignty over the Philippine Islands opens the way to China by the China Sea. In the progress of events the achievements of Magellan have led the ships of the West to the East again, and it is possible that there may yet be great Mongol emigrations to the western shores of the southern continent. The lantern or farol of Magellan was never more prophetic than now. So suggestion lives.[209]
TRAVELERS' TALES OF THE PHILIPPINES.
Hong Kong is the market place of the Eastern world. Here the East and West meet in the airy bazaars, and from it, it is easy to find one's way to Luzon, over the bright sea mirrors, the sleepy, dreamy splendors of the China Sea.
But few travelers have written books on Luzon, and those have usually published them in French or in Spanish. Travelers from the East have, as a rule, not remained long on the island, where earthquakes, typhoons, malarial fevers, and the plague itself have been not unfrequent visitors, and where one welcomes gratefully the shadows of the night in the seasons of fervid heat. The rain storms are downpours and deluges that are blinding, but they leave behind their inky tracts a paradise of beauty and bloom.
The morning on the China Sea in serene weather is a royal glory. It has the odors of Araby and the freshness of an Eden. The earth seems waiting. The sails hang listlessly on the glassy, breathless straits, and the sun sheds its splendor through the pale blue air as powerfully as the clouded heavens poured down the rain.
The Filipinos are a sensitive race, and many of them have a keen sense of injustice. Great numbers of them have a church education, and their views of the world are bounded by what they have learned [210] of India, China, and Malaysia and Iberian peninsula from the priests of Spain.
A recent traveler from Manila said to me:
"The Filipinos have hot blood and are revengeful, but they are quick to discern justice. A boy who attended me at the hotel came to me one day bleeding.
"'My master has beaten me,' he said, 'with a rawhide.'
"'He has abused you,' I said. 'Why?'
"'He took me into the storeroom and lashed me, and the rawhide cut me. I bleed.'
"'Why did he punish you?'
"'The porter told him he found me neglecting my work by hiding away and fighting cocks. It was not true. The porter lied; he hates me.'
"'Go to the marshal and make a complaint against the landlord. Go now, before the blood dries. A master has no right to beat one like that. It is inhuman. Justice ought to be done.'
"'But I do not blame him; he is not to blame. The porter is to blame. The porter lied.'
"'But the marshal would hardly take up your case against the porter; he would hold him to be a person of slight consequence.'
"'But wrong is wrong whether it be done by a landlord or his porter. The porter should go to prison for twenty years!'"
The case then dropped, but the boy carried a case [211] for revenge against the porter in his heart. He was quick to discern justice.
Cockfighting is a favorite diversion among the Filipinos. A traveler says that he has seen Filipinos going to mass carrying gamecocks under their arms to set fighting in the cemetery after the service.
The brutal sport is a passion, and is to be seen going on almost everywhere on festal days, and in the evenings in the cool shadows of awnings and palms.
Alfred Marché published a book in Paris in 1887 entitled Luxon and Palaveran; Six Annes de Voyages aux Philippines. It contains some vivid pictures of the natives, of the habits and customs of the country, of the earthquakes and storms. He describes the earthquake seasons when the earth trembled, and the people rushed wildly into the open courts at the first tremor. As great as the terror was the Chinese did not leave their merchandise unprotected for fear of thieves, showing that the trembling earth did not overcome the nature of the merchant or the native thief. The one would face death for his goods and the other for his chance of getting plunder.
Monsieur Marché gives some views of the tropic jungles, one of which is illustrated by a very curious anecdote and pictorial illustration.
One day one of his native servants told him that [212] he had seen in the woods an immense python, which seemed to have been gorged with some animal that he had swallowed, and so rendered sluggish and resistless.
"I should like to see so large a serpent," said the traveler.
An hour afterward, while he was sitting in the shadow of his bungalow, an extraordinary sight met his eyes. The native had gone into the wood and had put a cord about the neck of the great serpent and attached it to the horns of a buffalo, and the buffalo was dragging the python toward the bungalow. The python was seven meters long (thirty-nine inches to a meter), a distended mass of folds and flesh (page 356, Alfred Marché's Luzon).
What had he swallowed? What creature was there inside of him that was about to be digested, and that so distorted his folds?
The serpent was harmless in the noose and from the weight of his meal.
The traveler severed the python's vertebræ, rendering it inoffensive, and then made an incision into its abdomen.
A surprise followed. Out of the abdomen came a calf of some months' growth. The animal's legs were so doubled under its body as to make the latter horizontal. The serpent was prepared for the museum of the traveler.
The same traveler describes earthquakes, after [213] which victims were fed by tubes let down under the ponderous débris.
One of the most interesting books of travel in Luzon that we have ever read is entitled Aventures d'un Gentilhomme Breton aux iles Philippines, par P. de la Gironière (Paris, 1855). A part of the work has been translated into English by Frederick Hardman, and from this translation in part we select material for a view of the life of the French savant in Jala-Jala, a very interesting district of the island. The original French work is very vividly illustrated. The English abridgment is without illustrations. (French edition, Boston Public Library, No. 3040a, 182. English abridgment, 5049a, 69.)
THE ADVENTURES OF DR. DE LA GIRONIÈRE IN LUZON.
(After Hardman.)
CHANGING THE HEART OF A BRIGAND.
"Jala-Jala is a long peninsula, stretching from north to south into the middle of Bay Lake. The peninsula is divided longitudinally by a chain of mountains, which gradually diminish in elevation, until, for the last three leagues, they dwindle into mere hills. These mountains, of easy access, are covered partly with wood and partly with beautiful pastures, where the grass attains a height of between one and two yards, and, when waving in the wind, resembles the waves of the ocean. Finer vegetation can nowhere be found; it is refreshed by limpid [214] springs, flowing from the higher slopes of the mountain down into the lake. Owing to these pastures, Jala-Jala is richer in game than any other part of the island of Luzon. Deer, wild boar, and buffalo, quails, hens, snipes, pigeons of fifteen or twenty kinds, parrots; in short, all manner of birds, there abound. The lake teems with water-fowl, and especially with wild ducks. Notwithstanding its extent, the island contains no dangerous or carnivorous beasts; the worst things to be feared in that way is the civet, a little animal about the size of a cat, which attacks only birds; and the monkeys, which issue from the forest by troops, and lay waste the maize and sugar fields.
"The lake, which yields excellent fish, is less favored than the land; for it contains a great many caymans, a creature of such enormous size that in a few minutes it divides a horse piecemeal and absorbs it into its huge stomach. The accidents occasioned by these caymans are frequent and terrible, and I have seen more than one Indian fall victims to them.
"At the period of my purchase the only human inhabitants of Jala-Jala were a few Indians, of Malay extraction, who lived in the woods and tilled some nooks of land. At night they were pirates upon the lake, and they afforded shelter to all the banditti of the surrounding provinces. The people at Manila had given me the most dismal account of [215] the district; according to them, I should soon be murdered: my turn for adventure was such, that all their stories, instead of alarming me, only increased my desire to visit men who were living almost in a savage state.
"As soon as I had bought Jala-Jala, I traced for myself a plan of conduct, having for its object to attract the banditti to me; to this end, I felt that I must not appear among them in the character of an exacting and sordid owner, but in that of a father. All depended upon the first impressions I should make upon these Indians, now my vassals. On landing, I went straight to a little hamlet, composed of a few cabins.
"My faithful coachman was with me; we were each of us armed with a good double-barreled gun, a brace of pistols, and a saber. I had already ascertained, from some fishermen, to which Indian I ought to address myself. This man, who was much respected by his countrymen, was called, in the Tagal tongue, Mabutin-Tajo, translatable as The brave and valiant.
"He was quite capable of committing, without the slightest remorse, five or six murders in the course of a single expedition; but he was brave; and courage is a virtue before which all primitive races respectfully bow. My conversation with Mabutin-Tajo was not long; a few words sufficed to win his good will, and to convert him into a faithful servant [216] for the whole time I dwelt at Jala-Jala. This is how I spoke to him:
"'You are a great rascal,' I said; 'I am the lord of Jala-Jala; it is my will that you amend your conduct; if you refuse, you shall expiate all your misdeeds. I want a guard; give me your word of honor to turn honest man, and I will make you my lieutenant.'
"When I completed this brief harangue, Alila (that was the brigand's name) remained for a moment silent, his countenance indicating deep reflection. I waited for him to speak; not without a certain degree of anxiety as to what his answer would be.
"'Master!' he at last exclaimed, offering me his hand and putting one knee to the ground, 'I will be faithful to you until death!'
"I was very well pleased with this reply, but I concealed my satisfaction.
"''Tis good,' I said; 'to show you that I have confidence in you, take this weapon, and use it only against enemies.'
"I presented him with a Tagal sabre, on which was inscribed in Spanish: 'Draw me not without cause, nor sheath me without honor.'
"This legend I translated into Tagal; Alila thought it sublime, and swore ever to observe it.
"'When I go to Manila,' I added, 'I will bring you epaulets and a handsome uniform; but you must [217] lose no time in getting together the soldiers you are to command, and who will compose my guard. Take me at once to him among your comrades whom you think most capable of acting as sergeant.'
"We walked a short distance to the habitation of a friend of Alila's, who usually accompanied him on his piratical expeditions. A few words, in the same strain as those I had spoken to my future lieutenant, produced the same effect on his comrade, and decided him to accept the rank I offered him. We passed the day recruiting in the various huts, and before night we had got together, in cavalry, a guard of ten men, a number I did not wish to exceed. I took the command as captain.
"The next day I mustered the population of the peninsula, and, surrounded by my new guards, I selected a site for a village, and one for a house for myself. I gave orders to the fathers of families to build their cabins upon a line which I marked out, and I desired my lieutenant to employ all the hands he could procure in extracting stone, cutting timber, and preparing everything for my dwelling. My orders given, I set out for Manila, promising soon to return. On reaching home, I found my friends uneasy on my account; for, not having heard from me, they feared I had fallen victim to the caymans or the pirates. The narrative of my voyage, my description of Jala-Jala, far from making my wife averse to my project of living there, rendered her [218] on the contrary impatient to visit our property, and to settle upon it."
Dr. de la Gironière lived many years at Jala-Jala in the peninsula country. He relates many adventures in the primitive forests, one of which is as follows:
A BUFFALO HUNT IN JALA-JALA.
"The Indians consider the pursuit of the buffalo the most dangerous of all hunts; and my guards told me they would rather place their naked breast at twenty paces from a rifle's muzzle than find themselves at the same distance from a wild buffalo. The difference is, they say, that a rifle bullet may only wound, whereas a buffalo's horn is sure to kill.
"Taking advantage of their fear of the buffalo, I one day informed them, with all the coolness I could assume, of my intention to hunt that animal. Thereupon they exerted all their eloquence to dissuade me from my project; they drew a most picturesque and intimidating sketch of the dangers and difficulties I should encounter; I, especially, as one unaccustomed to that sort of fight—for such a chase is in fact a life or death contest. I would not listen to them. I had declared my will; I would not discuss the subject, or attend to their advice.
Boats on the River Pasig.
"It was fortunate that I did not; for these affectionate counsels, these alarming pictures of the [219] dangers I was about to run, were given and drawn by way of snare; they had agreed among themselves to estimate my courage accordingly as I accepted or avoided the combat. My only reply was an order to get everything in readiness for the hunt. I took care that my wife should know nothing of the expedition, and I set out, accompanied by a dozen Indians, almost all armed with guns.
"The buffalo is hunted differently in the plain and in the mountains. In the plain, all that is needed is a good horse, agility, and skill in throwing the lasso. In the mountains, an extraordinary degree of coolness is requisite. This is how the thing is done: The hunter takes a gun, upon which he is sure he can depend, and so places himself that the buffalo, on issuing from the forest, must perceive him. The very instant the brute sees you, he rushes upon you with his very utmost speed, breaking, crushing, trampling under foot, everything that impedes his progress. He thunders down upon you as though he would annihilate you; at a few paces distance, he pauses for a moment, and presents his sharp and menacing horns.
"It is during that brief pause that the hunter must take his shot, and send a bullet into the center of his enemy's brow. If unfortunately the gun misses fire, or if his hand trembles and his ball goes askew, he is lost—Providence alone can save him! Such, perhaps, was the fate that awaited me; [220] but I was determined to run the chance. We reached the edge of a large wood, in which we felt sure that buffaloes were; and there we halted. I was sure of my gun; I thought myself tolerably sure of my coolness, and I desired that the hunt should take place as if I had been a common Indian. I stationed myself on a spot over which everything made it probable that the animal would pass, and I suffered no one to remain near me. I sent every man to his post, and remained alone on the open ground, two hundred paces from the edge of the forest, awaiting a foe who would assuredly show me no mercy if I missed him.
"That is certainly a solemn moment in which one finds himself placed thus between life and death, all depending on the goodness of a gun, and on the steadiness of the hand that grasps it. I quietly waited. When all had taken up their positions, two men entered the forest, having previously stripped off a part of their clothes, the better to climb the trees in case of need. They were armed only with cutlasses, and accompanied by dogs. For more than half an hour a mournful silence reigned. We listened with all our ears, but no sound was heard.
"The buffalo is often very long before giving sign of life. At last the reiterated barking of the dogs, and the cries of the prickers, warned us that the beast was afoot. Soon I heard the cracking of [221] the branches and young trees, which broke before him as he threaded the forest with frightful rapidity. The noise of his headlong career was to be compared only to the gallop of several horses, or to the rush of some monstrous and fantastical creature; it was like the approach of an avalanche. At that moment, I confess, my emotion was so great that my heart beat with extraordinary rapidity. Was it death, a terrible death, that thus approached me? Suddenly the buffalo appeared. He stood for a moment, glared wildly about him, snuffed the air of the plain, and then, his nostrils elevated, his horns thrown back upon his shoulders, charged down upon me with terrible fury.
"The decisive moment had come. A victim there must be—either the buffalo or myself—and we were both disposed to defend ourselves stoutly. I should be puzzled to describe what passed within me during the short time the animal took to traverse the interval between us. My heart, which had beat so violently when I heard him tearing through the forest, no longer throbbed. My eyes were fixed upon his forehead with such intensity that I saw nothing else. There was a sort of deep silence within me. I was too much absorbed to hear anything—even the baying of the dogs as they followed their prey at a short distance.
"At last the buffalo stopped, lowered his head, and presented his horns; just as he gave a spring I [222] fired. My bullet pierced his skull—I was half saved. He fell to the ground, just a pace in front of me, with the ponderous noise of a mass of rock. I put my foot between his horns and was about to fire my second barrel, when a hollow and prolonged roar informed me that my victory was complete. The buffalo was dead. My Indians came up. Their joy turned to admiration; they were delighted; I was all that they wished me to be.
"Their doubts had been dissipated with the smoke of my gun; I was brave, I had proved it, and they had now entire confidence in me. My victim was cut up, and carried in triumph to the village. In right of conquest I took his horns; they were six feet in length; I have since deposited them in the Nantes museum. The Indians, those lovers of metaphor, those givers of surnames, thenceforward called me Malamit Oulou—Tagal words, signifying 'cool head.'"
The traveler describes the cayman, which is of enormous size—the whale of the oozy lagoon. He relates the following adventure with a boa:
THE BOA OF LUZON.
"The other monster of which I have promised a description, the boa, is common in the Philippines, but it is rare to meet with a very large [223] specimen. It is possible, even probable, that centuries (?) are necessary for this reptile to attain its largest size; and to such an age the various accidents to which animals are exposed rarely suffer it to attain. Full-sized boas are met with only in the gloomiest, most remote, and most solitary forests.
A boa
"I have seen many boas of ordinary size, such as are found in our European collections. There were some, indeed, that inhabited my house; and one night I found one, two yards long, in possession of my bed.
"Several times, passing through the woods with my Indians, I heard the piercing cries of a wild boar. On approaching the spot whence they proceeded we almost invariably found a wild boar, about whose body a boa had twisted its folds, and was gradually hoisting him up into the tree round which it had coiled itself. (See book for illustration.)
"When the wild boar had reached a certain height the snake pressed him against the tree with [224] a force that crushed his bones and stifled him. Then the boa let its prey fall, descended the tree, and prepared to swallow what it had slain. This last operation was much too lengthy for us to await its end.
"To simplify matters, I sent a ball into the boa's head. Then my Indian took the flesh to dry (bucanier) it, and the skin for dagger sheaths. It is unnecessary to say that the wild boar was not forgotten. It was a prey that had cost us little pains.
"One day an Indian surprised one of these reptiles asleep, after it had swallowed an enormous doe deer. Its size was such that a buffalo cart would have been required to transport it to the village.
"The Indian cut it in pieces, and contented himself with as much as he could carry off. I sent for the remainder. They brought me a piece about eight feet long, and so large that the skin, when dried, enveloped the tallest man like a cloak. I gave it to my friend Lindsay.
"I had not yet seen one of the full-grown reptiles, of which the Indians spoke to me so much (always with some exaggeration), when one afternoon, crossing the mountains with two shepherds, our attention was attracted by the sustained barking of my dogs, who seemed assailing some animal that stood upon its defense. We at first thought [225] it was a buffalo which they had brought to bay, and approached the spot with precaution.
"My dogs were dispersed along the brink of a deep ravine, in which was an enormous boa. The monster raised his head to a height, of five or six feet, directing it from one edge to the other of the ravine, and menacing his assailants with his forked tongue; but the dogs, more active than he was, easily avoided his attacks. My first impulse was to shoot him, but then it occurred to me to take him alive and send him to France. Assuredly he would have been the most monstrous boa that had ever been seen there. To carry out my design, we manufactured nooses of cane, strong enough to resist the most powerful wild buffalo. With great precaution we succeeded in passing one of our nooses round the boa's neck; then we tied him tightly to a tree, in such a manner as to keep its head at its usual height—about six feet from the ground.
"This done, we crossed to the other side of the ravine and threw another noose over him, which we secured like the first. When he felt himself thus fixed at both ends, he coiled and writhed, and grappled several little trees which grew within his reach along the edge of the ravine. Unluckily for him, everything yielded to his efforts; he tore up the young trees by the roots, broke off the branches, and dislodged enormous stones, round which he sought in vain to obtain the hold or point of resistance [226] he needed. The nooses were strong, and withstood his most furious efforts. To convey an animal like this several buffaloes and a whole system of cordage was necessary. Night approached; confident in our nooses we left the place, proposing to return next morning and complete the capture—but we reckoned without our host. In the night the boa changed his tactics, got his body round some huge blocks of basalt, and finally succeeded in breaking his bonds and getting clear off. I was greatly disappointed, for I doubted whether I should ever have another chance.
"Human beings rarely fall victims to these huge reptiles. I was able to verify but one instance. A criminal hid from justice in a cavern. His father, who alone knew of his hiding place, went sometimes to see him and to take him rice. One day he found, instead of his son, an enormous boa asleep. He killed it, and found his son's body in its stomach. The priest of the village, who went to give the body Christian burial, and who saw the remains of the boa, described it to me as of almost incredible size."
AN ADVENTURE WITH A MONSTER CAYMAN.
"At the period at which I first occupied my habitation and began to colonize the village of Jala-Jala, caymans abounded upon that side of the lake. From my windows I daily saw them gamboling in [227] the water, and waylaying and snapping at the dogs that ventured too near the brink. One day a female servant of my wife's having been so imprudent as to bathe at the edge of the lake was surprised by one of them, a monster of enormous size. One of my guards came up at the very moment she was being carried off; he fired his carbine at the brute and hit it under the fore-leg (the armpit), which is the only vulnerable place. But the wound was insufficient to check the cayman's progress, and it disappeared with its prey. Nevertheless, this little bullet-hole was the cause of its death; and here it is to be noted that the slightest wound received by the cayman is incurable. The shrimps, which abound in the lake, get into the hurt; little by little their number increases, until at last they penetrate deep into the solid flesh and into the very interior of the body. This is what happened to the one which devoured my wife's maid. A month after the accident the monster was found dead upon the bank five or six leagues from my house. Indians brought me back the unfortunate woman's earrings, which they had found in its stomach.
"Upon another occasion a Chinese was riding with me. We reached a river, and I let him go on alone in order to ascertain whether the river was very deep or not. On a sudden three or four caymans, which lay in waiting under the water, threw themselves upon him; horse and Chinese disappeared, [228] and for some minutes the water was tinged with blood.
"I was very curious to obtain a near sight of one of these voracious monsters. At the time that they frequented the vicinity of my house I made several attempts to attain that end. One night I baited a huge hook, secured by a chain and strong cord, with an entire sheep. Next morning sheep and chain had disappeared. I lay in wait for the creatures with my gun, but the bullets rebounded from their scales. A large dog, of a race peculiar to the Philippines and exceeding any European dog in size, happening to die, I had his carcase dragged to the shore of the lake; I then hid myself in a little thicket and waited, with my gun in readiness, the coming of a cayman. But presently I fell asleep, and when I awoke the dog had disappeared. It was fortunate the cayman had not taken the wrong prey.
"When the colony of Jala-Jala had been a few years founded, the caymans disappeared from its neighborhood. I was out one morning with my shepherds, at a few leagues from my house, when we came to a river which must be swum across. One of them advised me to ascend it to a narrower place, for that it was full of caymans, and I was about to do so when another Indian, more imprudent than his companions, spurred his horse into the stream. 'I do not fear the caymans!' he exclaimed. But he was scarcely halfway cross when [229] we saw a cayman of monstrous size advancing toward him. We uttered a shout of warning; he at once perceived the danger, and, to avoid it, got off his horse at the opposite side to that upon which the cayman was approaching, and swam with all his strength toward the bank. On reaching it, he paused behind a fallen tree trunk, where he had water to his knees, and where, believing himself in perfect safety, he drew his cutlass and waited. Meanwhile the cayman reared his enormous head out of the water, threw himself upon the horse, and seized him by the saddle. The horse made an effort, the girths broke, and, while the cayman crunched the leather, the steed reached dry land. Perceiving that the saddle was not what he wanted, the cayman dropped it and advanced upon the Indian. We shouted to him to run. The poor fellow would not stir, but waited calmly, cutlass in hand, and, on the alligator's near approach, dealt him a blow upon the head. He might as well have tapped upon an anvil. The next instant he was writhing in the monster's jaws. For more than a minute we beheld him dragged in the direction of the lake, his body erect above the surface of the water (the cayman had seized him by the thigh), his hands joined, his eyes turned to heaven, in the attitude of a man imploring divine mercy. Soon he disappeared. The drama was over, the cayman's stomach was his tomb.[230]
"During this agonizing moment we had all remained silent, but no sooner had my poor shepherd disappeared than we vowed we would avenge his death.
"I had three nets made of strong cord, each net large enough to form a complete barrier across the river. I also had a hut built, and put an Indian to live in it, whose duty was to keep constant watch and to let me know as soon as the cayman returned to the river. He watched in vain for upward of two months; but at the end of that time he came and told me that the monster had seized a horse and dragged it into the river to devour it at leisure. I immediately repaired to the spot, accompanied by my guards, by my priest, who positively would see a cayman hunt, and by an American friend of mine, Mr. Russell, of the house of Russell and Sturgis, who was then staying with me. I had the nets spread at intervals, so that the cayman could not escape back into the lake. This operation was not effected without some acts of imprudence; thus, for instance, when the nets were arranged, an Indian dived to make sure that they reached the bottom, and that our enemy could not escape by passing below them. But it might very well have happened that the cayman was in the interval between the nets, and so have gobbled up my Indian. Fortunately everything passed as we wished. When all was ready, I launched three pirogues, strongly fastened [231] together side by side, with some Indians in the center, armed with lances, and with tall bamboos with which they could touch bottom. At last, all measures having been taken to attain my end without any risk or accident, my Indians began to explore the river with their long bamboos.
"An animal of such formidable size as the one we sought can not very easily hide himself, and soon we beheld him upon the surface of the river, lashing the water with his long tail, snapping and clattering with his jaws, and endeavoring to get at those who dared disturb him in his retreat. A universal shout of joy greeted his appearance; the Indians in the pirogues hurled their lances at him, while we, upon either shore of the river, fired a volley. The bullets rebounded from the monster's scales, which they were unable to penetrate; the keener lances made their way between the scales and entered the cayman's body some eight or ten inches. Thereupon he disappeared, swimming with incredible rapidity, and reached the first net.
"The resistance it opposed turned him; he reascended the river, and again appeared on the top of the water. This violent movement broke the staves of the lances which the Indians had stuck into him, and the iron alone remained in the wounds. Each time that he reappeared the firing recommenced, and fresh lances were plunged into his enormous body. Perceiving, however, how ineffectual [232] firearms were to pierce his cuirass of invulnerable scales, I excited him by my shouts and gestures; and when he came to the edge of the water, opening his enormous jaws all ready to devour me, I approached the muzzle of my gun to within a few inches and fired both barrels, in the hope that the bullets would find something softer than scales in the interior of that formidable cavern, and that they would penetrate to his brain. All was in vain. The jaws closed with a terrible noise, seizing only the fire and smoke that issued from my gun, and the balls flattened against his bones without injuring them. The animal, which had now become furious, made inconceivable efforts to seize one of his enemies; his strength seemed to increase instead of diminishing, while our resources were nearly exhausted. Almost all our lances were sticking in his body, and our ammunition drew to an end. The fight had lasted more than six hours, without any result that could make us hope its speedy termination, when an Indian struck the cayman, while at the bottom of the water, with a lance of unusual strength and size.
"Another Indian struck two vigorous blows with a mace upon the butt end of the lance; the iron entered deep into the animal's body, and immediately, with a movement as swift as lightning, he darted toward the nets and disappeared. The lance-pole, detached from the iron head, returned [233] to the surface of the water; for some minutes we waited in vain for the monster's reappearance; we thought that his last effort had enabled him to reach the lake, and that our chase was perfectly fruitless. We hauled in the first net, a large hole in which convinced us that our supposition was correct. The second net was in the same condition as the first. Disheartened by our failure, we were hauling in the third when we felt a strong resistance. Several Indians began to drag it toward the bank, and presently, to our great joy, we saw the cayman upon the surface of the water, expiring.
"We threw over him several lassos of strong cords, and when he was well secured we drew him to land. It was no easy matter to haul him up on the bank; the strength of forty Indians hardly sufficed. When at last we had got him completely out of the water, and had him before our eyes, we stood stupefied with astonishment; for a very different thing was it to see his body thus, and to see him swimming when he was fighting against us. Mr. Russell, a very competent person, was charged with his measurement. From the extremity of the nostrils to the tip of the tail he was found to be twenty-seven feet long, and his circumference was eleven feet, measured under the armpits. His belly was much more voluminous, but we thought it useless to measure him there, judging that the horse upon which [234] he had breakfasted must considerably have increased his bulk."
SWIFTS.
The edible swallows' nests are found in most of the islands of the Eastern archipelago.
A traveler, Mr. H. Pryer, who made a visit to one of the swifts' caves in Borneo, thus describes the coming and the going of the dusky birds:
"At a quarter past six in the evening the swifts began to return to the caves of their nests; a few had been flying in and out all day long, but now they began to pour in, at first in tens and then in hundreds, until the sound of their wings was like a strong gale of wind whistling through the rigging of a ship.
"They continued flying until after midnight. As long as it remained light I found it impossible to catch any with my butterfly net, but after dark I found it only necessary to wave my net to secure as many as I wanted.
"They must possess wonderful powers of sight to fly about in the dark of the recesses of their caves and to return to their nests, which are often built in places where no light penetrates."
The edible nests are a luxury in China, where they are used in soups. The bird makes her nest of saliva, and plasters it on to the rocks inside of caves. The nests are collected by means of boats, [235] ropes, and ladders, and bring in the Chinese market from £2 to £7 per pound. There have been imported to Canton more than eight million nests in a single year.
Such are some views of life inside of the vast possession of the sea which Magellan discovered for Spain, but which has fallen under the folds of the flag of the Republic of the West.
THE END.
FOOTNOTES
[A] Vasco da Gama.(Return)
[B] Donna Juana and Don Carlos, her son, by the grace of God, Queen and King of Castile, Leon, Aragon, the two Sicilies, and Jerusalem, of Navarra, Granada, Toledo, Valencia, Galicia, the Mallorcas, Seville, Sardinia, Cordova, Corsica, Murcia, Jaen, the Algarves, of Aljazira, Gibraltar, of the Canary Isles, of the Indies, isles and mainland of the Ocean-sea, Counts of Barcelona, Lords of Biscay and Molina, Dukes of Athens and Neopatria, Counts of Roussillon and Cerdana, Marquises of Euristan and Gociano, Archdukes of Austria, Dukes of Bergona and Brabant, Counts of Flanders and Tirol, etc.(Return)
[C] This statement there is every reason to believe was a pure fiction of Da Costa.(Return)
[D] The number was larger, about 270.(Return)
[E] The 10th of August was Wednesday, and Monday was the 8th of
August: all the other dates of the week and month agree and are
consistent with each other.(Return)
[F] According to ship's time.(Return)
[G] A regular order of clergy established at Rome in 1524, but which does not appear to have spread much beyond Italy and France.(Return)
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