The Story of Magellan and The Discovery of the Philippines Part 14

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."

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 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 sh.o.r.es 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 sh.o.r.es. The women were dressed in bark.

The ships moved on into unknown seas.

On Sat.u.r.day, 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 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.

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.