Afterwards Magellan claimed the country for King Charles I. of Spain, and raised the Spanish flag. The chief looked on during this act, and consented to it; but it is not likely that he knew what Magellan was doing. Then Magellan named the country the San Lazarus (sän lāth´är ůs) Isles.
MAGELLAN’S ROUTE.
The Map shows the World as known about 1500.
Magellan learned from the Butuan people that a rich and fertile island called Cebu (sā´bö) lay to the north, and to this island he wished to go. The chief of Butuan then offered to go with him and show him the way; so, with the chief and some of his people, the fleet sailed to Cebu. They reached harbor there April 7, 1521.
At first the Cebuans (sā´bö äns) were very unfriendly toward the strangers, and, but for the chief of Butuan, would have driven them away. He answered for the Spaniards, however. He told the king of Cebu that they wished to be friends, and at last the Spaniards were allowed to land.
Magellan must have had the good gift of making friends, for he soon won over the king of Cebu just as he had won over the chief of Butuan. He and the king swore friendship, and each drank blood drawn from the breast of the other. This they did for a sign that thereafter they were to be brothers. Magellan also made a treaty with the king in the name of King Charles I. of Spain.
There were a number of Spanish friars with the fleet. These at once began to teach the people, and before long the king was baptized as King Charles I. of Cebu. Many of his people were baptized also. Magellan then promised the Cebuans to help them in a war which they were having with the people of Mactan (mäk´tän), an island near Cebu. To keep this promise, Magellan crossed to Mactan with forty of his men in the evening of April 25th. He would not let any of the Cebuans go with him, as he wished to show them how quickly Spanish soldiers would defeat such a foe.
From a Painting in the Municipal School, Manila.
THE LANDING OF MAGELLAN.
The Spanish landed at night, and as soon as it was light the people of Mactan came down to the beach in great numbers. A fierce battle was fought, in which the Europeans, being greatly outnumbered, were defeated. One old Spanish account says that the Spanish soldiers sprang into the water and swam to the ships, leaving their leader on shore. Magellan was a skillful swordsman, and killed many of the enemy. At last, however, a savage, who fought with a huge club, struck him a blow that crushed both his helmet and his skull. He died, there by the sea, on the island of Mactan, and a monument to his memory now stands on the spot where it is supposed that he fell.