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But if all goes well, a vessel may pass through Magellan's Straits without discerning any sign of human life, the savages and their canoes lying hidden beneath the leafy screen of overhanging boughs. But most of them are quite naked.
It seems that after its conversion to Catholicism, on Magellan's arrival in Cebu, it was sent to Spain at the request of that pious king, Charles the Fifth, where many extraordinary performances were accredited to it, perhaps the most miraculous and unaccountable thing of all being that on its return to Cebu, the people found it had changed itself en route from gold to wood, a reversal of alchemy strangely defective in wisdom on the part of the Santo Niño.
Let us add with our enthusiastic narrator, "The glory of Magellan will survive his death." Duarte Barbosa, Magellan's brother-in-law, and Juan Serrano were elected commanders by the Spaniards, who were destined to meet with further catastrophes. The slave who had acted as interpreter up to this time had been slightly wounded during the battle.
But one of the sailors having had the imprudence to say that the Victoria was the only vessel of Magellan's squadron which had returned to Europe, the Portuguese immediately seized the crew of a long-boat, and prepared to attack the Spanish vessel.
For this great purpose, and in full expectancy of success in it, the whole coast of the New World on each side, from Newfoundland on the northeast, curving westward on the south, around the whole sweep of the Gulf of Mexico, thence to Magellan's Straits, and thence through them up the Pacific to the Straits of Behring, was searched and researched with diligence.
It was April before the rest of the fleet entered Magellan's Straits, and the passage was tedious and dismal, several of the sailors dying from the extreme cold. At last, on the 25th of May, 1526, they entered the Pacific Ocean, where they were met by another storm, which dispersed the fleet right and left.
Why did the Spaniards have one name and the other Europeans another name for a long time? How did Balboa come to find the Pacific Ocean? Why did men search for a passage between the Atlantic and the Pacific more vigorously after Balboa's expedition? Why has Magellan's voyage been called the greatest one in history? What three things had Magellan shown the European world?
It was while searching for this route that Columbus discovered the new world, and when the news of his success was brought back to Europe there was great rejoicing, because it was thought that he had reached some part of India. Magellan's voyage, however, destroyed these hopes.
In 1521, within a hundred years of that event, Pigafetta, the chronicler of Magellan's great exploit, was calling on the "Moorish" king of Bruni, in the course of the first voyage round the world. The change had come. Of the two new influences, so potent for good and evil, Mohammedanism made its appearance first.
Pigafetta tells us of the abundance of foodstuffs in Paragua and of its inhabitants, who nearly all tilled their own fields. At this island the survivors of Magellan's expedition were well received and provisioned.
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