The Story of Magellan and The Discovery of the Philippines Part 9

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 sh.o.r.e 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 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 phosph.o.r.escent 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 sh.o.r.es palms rise in armies in the dusky air. The sh.o.r.es 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. "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."

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 antic.i.p.ated 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 quant.i.ty of goods on the sh.o.r.e. While he was negotiating at the ships, his people on the sh.o.r.e, 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.

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 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The world according to the Ptolemy of 1548.]

The fleet entered the Port of St. Julian. It was winter, and for a long time no human beings appeared.

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 sh.o.r.e 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: