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Updated: June 4, 2025
They would keep it sublimated, aloft, out of vulgar reach or use altogether, intangible as Magellan's clouds.
Verrazano and Gomez, and probably the English captain, John Rut, had all sought for the opening of a strait of salt water like Magellan's Straits in the far south which should lead them through the great North-American continent to the regions of China and Japan.
THE BEGINNING OF MAGELLAN'S VOYAGE. Magellan, himself a Portuguese, tried in vain like Columbus to persuade the king of Portugal to aid him in his project. He succeeded better in Spain, and sailed from there in 1519 with a small fleet given him by the young king Charles. The five ships in his fleet were old and in bad repair, and the crews had been brought together from every nation.
They left Monte Video the 14th November, with a fine breeze from the north, which was favourable for their course to Magellan's Straits. The wind was contrary from the 16th to the 21st, and they had a very high sea, so that they were obliged to keep what advantageous boards they could in tacking under their courses and close-reefed top-sails.
It was entrusted to Garcia Jofre de Loaysa, with del Cano as pilot-major, and other survivors of Magellan's armada. They sailed from Coruna in July, 1525, with an armament of seven ships. Every precaution was taken to ensure the success of the voyage, but the expedition proved a most disastrous one notwithstanding.
I have kept one of them in a box for nine days; when I opened the box, the leaf was walking about in it; I believe they must live upon air." It was while in these parts that the Spanish expedition, which, during Magellan's life had preserved its scientific character, began perceptibly to become piratical.
Magellan's answer, uttered in measured and quiet tones, was simply that he would go on and do his work "if he had to eat the leather off the ship's yards." Upon the San Antonio there had always been a large proportion of the malcontents, and the chief pilot, Estevan Gomez, having been detailed for duty on that ship, lent himself to their purposes.
After making some needed repairs in a small harbor a few miles above the modern San Francisco, Drake set out boldly across the Pacific to return home, as Magellan's men had done before him, by going around the world. He touched at the Philippines, visited the Spice Islands, and slowly worked his way around the Cape of Good Hope.
The Marigold was no more heard of, while the dispirited crew of the Elizabeth returned to England, being the first who ever passed back to the eastward through Magellan's Strait. Drake's ship was driven southward to the fifty-sixth degree, where he ran in among the islands of the extreme south of America.
He therefore stood for the western entrance of Magellan's Straits, sighting Cape Descada on 17th December, following the coast round to Christmas Sound, which they reached on the 20th, the country passed being described as "the most desolate and barren I ever saw."
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