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Sarmiento tells us that he was tall, immensely powerful, a famous ginete or horseman, a more adroit wielder of the lasso and the bolas than even his rival, Rosas, capable of great endurance, and abstinent from intoxicating drinks. His eye and voice were dreaded more by his soldiers than the lances of their antagonists.
On the 23rd of January, 1569, they reached the port of Santiago de Colima, refitted at Realejo, and returned to Callao on September 2, after an absence of 19 months. During the voyage there had been many disagreements, and Mendana intended to bring charges against Sarmiento when he arrived at Lima.
Garcia de Castro willingly accepted Sarmiento's offer, and not only helped him in every way that lay in his power, but also offered him the sole command of the fleet. But, Sarmiento insisted that it should be entrusted to Alvaro de Mendana, a young nephew of Garcia de Castro.
Sarmiento intended to steer W.S.W. until he reached the tropic of Capricorn,* and this direction was kept until the 28th of November. In the charts of the period a port or bay was marked on the coast of Java-Major in that latitude.
"Just three-quarters of an hour and five minutes have I waited for audience to a fellow who would once have thought himself honoured if I had ordered him to call my coach," said Don Diego Sarmiento de Mendo. "Then, if it chafe you so much, gentlemen, why come you here at all? I dare say Don Roderigo can dispense with your attendance."
By some mischance the poet's intention was frustrated; perhaps a leaf was out of place in Sarmiento de Mendoza's copy; perhaps Quevedo is directly responsible for what occurred. This surmise may serve till a better explanation is forthcoming.
But this was common to the age, and to the wisest men in it; and it is too much to demand of a man to be wiser than his generation. It is sufficient praise of Sarmiento, that, in an age when superstition was too often allied with fanaticism, he seems to have had no tincture of bigotry in his nature.
It is strange how all the early navigators, Magellan, Sarmiento, Mendana, Queiroz and many others, always managed to steer clear of the larger islands that spread like a net across the South Pacific Ocean, and either found an open sea, or hit upon some insignificant atoll.
So it happened that, notwithstanding Sarmiento's protests and constant remonstrances, Gallego and Mendana, persisted in this more northerly course for forty days, evidently with the intention of making for the better known seas that surround the Caroline and Philippine Islands. Sarmiento constantly urged that the islands and continent that he was in search of were more to the south.
From this region of romance, Sarmiento passes to the institutions of the Peruvians, describes their ancient polity, their religion, their progress in the arts, especially agriculture; and presents, in short, an elaborate picture of the civilization which they reached under the Inca dynasty.
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