The Story of Magellan and The Discovery of the Philippines

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took his place at the pilot house of the Antonio to follow the lantern of Magellan, but the hurt in his heart at being superseded never healed.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 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.

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 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 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 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.

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. You have a true heart. If I should fall see that this farol goes back to Spain!"

Del Cano bowed.

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 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.

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 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 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-seven4 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 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 the night, and especially in the night of cloud and storm!

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1

Vasco da Gama.

2

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.

3

This statement there is every reason to believe was a pure fiction of Da Costa.

4

The number was larger, about 270.