He sailed from Seville on the 10th day of August of the said year, and remained at the bar until the 21st day of September, and as soon as he got outside, he steered to the south-west to make the island of Tenerife, and they reached the said island on the day of St. Michael, which was the 29th of September.[28] Thence he made his course to fetch the Cape Verde islands, and they passed between the islands and the Cape without sighting either the one or the other. Having got as far as this neighbourhood, he shaped his course so as to make for Brazil, and as soon as they sighted the other coast of Brazil, he steered to the south-east[29] along the coast as far as Cabo-frio, which is in twenty-three degrees south latitude; and from this cape he steered to the west, a matter of thirty leagues, to make the Rio de Janeiro, which is in the same latitude as Cabo-frio, and they entered the said Rio on the day of St. Lucy, which was the 13th December, in which place they took in wood, and they remained there until the first octave of Christmas, which was the 26th of December of the same year.
They sailed from this Rio de Janeiro on the 26th December, and navigated along the coast to make the Cape of St. Mary, which is in thirty-four degrees and two-thirds; as soon as they sighted it, they made their course west-north-west, thinking they would find a passage for their voyage, and they found that they had got into a great river of fresh water, to which they gave the name of river of St. Christopher, and it is in thirty-four degrees, and they remained in it till the 2nd of February, 1520.[30]
He sailed from this river of St. Christopher on the 2nd of the said month of February; they navigated along the said coast, and further on to the south they discovered a point which is in the same river more to the south, to which they gave the name of Point St. Antony; it is in thirty-six degrees, hence they ran to the south-west, a matter of twenty-five leagues, and made another cape which they named Cape St. Apelonia, which is in thirty-six degrees; thence they navigated to the west-south-west to some shoals,[31] which they named Shoals of the Currents, which are in thirty-nine degrees; and thence they navigated out to sea, and lost sight of land for a matter of two or three days, when they again made for the land, and they came to a bay, which they entered, and ran within it the whole day, thinking that there was an outlet for Maluco, and when night came they found that it was quite closed up, and in the same night they again stood out by the way which they had come in. This bay is in thirty-four degrees;[32] they name it the island[33] of St. Matthew. They navigated from this island of St. Matthew along the coast until they reached another bay, where they caught many sea-wolves and birds; to this they gave the name of “Bay of Labours;”[34] it is in thirty-seven degrees; here they were near losing the flag-ship in a storm. Thence they navigated along the said coast, and arrived on the last day of March of the year 1520 at the Port of St. Julian, which is in forty-nine and one-third degrees,[35] and here they wintered, and found the day a little more or less than seven hours.[36]
In this port three of the ships rose up against the Captain-major, their captains saying that they intended to take him to Castile in arrest, as he was taking them all to destruction. Here, through the exertions of the said Captain-major, and the assistance and favour of the foreigners whom he carried with him, the Captain-major went to the said three ships which were already mentioned, and there the captain of one of them was killed, who was treasurer of the whole fleet, and named Luis de Mendoça; he was killed in his own ship[37] by stabs with a dagger by the chief constable of the fleet, who was sent to do this by Fernando de Magalhāes in a boat with certain men. The said three ships having thus been recovered, five days later Fernando de Magalhāes ordered Gaspar de Queixada to be decapitated and quartered; he was captain of one of the ships,[38] and was one of those who had mutinied.
In this port they refitted the ship. Here the captain-major made Alvaro de Mesquita, a Portuguese,[39] captain of one of the ships the captain of which had been killed. There sailed from this port on the 24th of August four ships, for the smallest of the ships had been already lost;[40] he had sent it to reconnoitre, and the weather had been heavy, and had cast it ashore, where all the crew had been recovered along with the merchandise, artillery and fittings of the ship. They remained in this port, in which they wintered, five months and twenty-four days,[41] and they were seventy degrees less ten minutes to the southward.[42]
They sailed on the 24th day of the month of August of the said year from this port of St. Julian and navigated a matter of twenty leagues along the coast, and so they entered a river which was called Santa Cruz, which is in fifty degrees,[43] where they took in goods and as much as they could obtain: the crew of the lost ship were already distributed among the other ships, for they had returned by land to where Fernando de Magalhāes was, and they continued collecting the goods which had remained there during August and up to the 18th September, and there they took in water and much fish which they caught in this river; and in the other, where they wintered, there were people like savages, and the men are from nine to ten spans in height, very well made; they have not got houses, they only go about from one place to another with their flocks, and eat meat nearly raw: they are all of them archers and kill many animals with arrows, and with the skins they make clothes, that is to say, they make the skins very supple, and fashion them after the shape of the body, as well as they can, then they cover themselves with them, and fasten them by a belt round the waist. When they do not wish to be clothed from the waist upwards, they let that half fall which is above the waist, and the garment remains hanging down from the belt which they have girt round them.[44] They wear shoes which cover them four inches above the ankle, full of straw inside to keep their feet warm. They do not possess any iron, nor any other ingenuity of weapons, only they make the points of their arrows with flints, and so also the knives with which they cut, and the adze and awls with which they cut and stitch their shoes and clothes. They are very agile people, and do no harm, and thus they follow their flocks: wherever night finds them there they sleep; they carry their wives along with them with all the chattels which they possess. The women are very small and carry heavy burdens on their backs; they wear shoes and clothes just like the men. Of these men they obtained three or four and brought them in the ships, and they all died except one, who went to Castile in a ship which went thither.[45]
They sailed from this river of Santa Cruz on the 18th of October:[46] they continued navigating along the coast until the 21st day of the same month, October, when they discovered a cape, to which they gave the name of Cape of the Virgins, because they sighted it on the day of the eleven thousand virgins; it is in fifty-two degrees, a little more or less, and from this cape a matter of two or three leagues distance, we found ourselves at the mouth of a strait.[47] We sailed along the said coast within that strait which they had reached the mouth of: they entered in it a little and anchored. Fernando de Magalhāes sent to discover what there was further in, and they found three channels, that is to say, two more in a southerly direction, and one traversing the country in the direction of Maluco, but at that time this was not yet known, only the three mouths were seen. The boats went thither, and brought back word, and they set sail and anchored at these mouths of the channels, and Fernando de Magalhāes sent two ships to learn what there was within, and these ships went: one returned to the Captain-major, and the other, of which Alvaro de Mesquita was captain, entered into one of the bays which was to the south, and did not return any more. Fernan de Magalhāes seeing that it did not come back, set sail,[48] and the next day he did not choose to make for the bays, and went to the south, and took another which runs north-west and south-east, and a quarter west and east. He left letters in the place from which he sailed, so that if the other ship returned, it might make the course which he left prescribed. After this they entered into the channel, which at some places has a width of three leagues, and two, and one, and in some places half a league, and he went through it as long as it was daylight, and anchored when it was night: and he sent the boats, and the ships went after the boats, and they brought news that there was an outlet, for they already saw the great sea on the other side; on which account Fernando de Magalhāes ordered much artillery to be fired for rejoicing;[49] and before they went forth from this strait they found two islands, the first one larger, and the other nearer towards the outlet is the smaller one: and they went out between these islands and the coast on the southern side, as it was deeper than on the other side. This strait is a hundred leagues in length to the outlet; that outlet and the entrance are in fifty-two degrees latitude.[50] They made a stay in this strait from the 21st October to the 26th of November,[51] which makes thirty-six days of the said year of 1520, and as soon as they went out from the strait to sea, they made their course, for the most part, to west-north-west, when they found that their needles varied to the north-west almost two-fourths, and after they had navigated thus for many days, they found an island in a little more or less than eighteen degrees, or nineteen degrees, and also another, which was in from thirteen to fourteen degrees, and this in south latitude;[52] they are uninhabited. They ran on until they reached the line, when Fernan de Magalhāes said that now they were in the neighbourhood of Maluco, as he had information that there were no provisions at Maluco, he said that he would go in a northerly direction as far as ten or twelve degrees, and they reached to as far as thirteen degrees north, and in this latitude they navigated to the west, and a quarter south-west, a matter of a hundred leagues, where on the 6th of March, 1521, they fetched two islands inhabited by many people, and they anchored at one of them, which is in twelve degrees north; and the inhabitants are people of little truth, and they did not take precautions against them until they saw that they were taking away the skiff of the flagship, and they cut the rope with which it was made fast, and took it ashore without their being able to prevent it. They gave this island the name of Thieves’ Island (dos ladrōes).[53]
Fernando de Magalhāes seeing that the skiff was lost, set sail, as it was already night, tacking about until the next day; as soon as it was morning they anchored at the place where they had seen the skiff carried off to, and he ordered two boats to be got ready with a matter of fifty or sixty men, and he went ashore in person, and burned the whole village, and they killed seven or eight persons, between men and women, and recovered the skiff, and returned to the ships; and while they were there they saw forty or fifty paros[54] come, which came from the same land, and brought much refreshments.[55]
Fernan de Magalhāes would not make any further stay, and at once set sail, and ordered the course to be steered west, and a quarter south-west; and so they made land, which is in barely eleven degrees. This land is an island, but he would not touch at this one, and they went to touch at another further on which appeared first.[56] Fernando de Magalhāes sent a boat ashore to observe the nature of the island; when the boat reached land, they saw from the ships two paráos come out from behind the point; then they called back their boat. The people of the paraos seeing that the boat was returning to the ships, turned back the paraos, and the boat reached the ships, which at once set sail for another island very near to this island, which is in ten degrees, and they gave it the name of the island of Good Signs, because they found some gold in it.[57] Whilst they were thus anchored at this island, there came to them two paráos, and brought them fowls and cocoa nuts, and told them that they had already seen there other men like them, from which they presumed that these might be Lequios or Mogores;[58] a nation of people who have this name, or Chiis;[59] and thence they set sail, and navigated further on amongst many islands, to which they gave the name of the Valley Without Peril, and also St. Lazarus,[60] and they ran on to another island twenty leagues from that[61] from which they sailed, which is in ten degrees,[62] and came to anchor at another island, which is named Macangor,[63] which is in nine degrees; and in this island they were very well received, and they placed a cross in it.[64] This king conducted them thence a matter of thirty leagues to another island named Cabo,[65] which is in ten degrees, and in this island Fernando de Magalhāes did what he pleased with the consent of the country, and in one day eight hundred people became Christian, on which account Fernan de Magalhāes desired that the other kings, neighbours to this one, should become subject to this who had become Christian: and these did not choose to yield such obedience. Fernan de Magalhāes seeing that, got ready one night with his boats, and burned the villages of those who would not yield the said obedience;[66] and a matter of ten or twelve days after this was done he sent to a village about half a league from that which he had burned, which is named Matam, and which is also an island, and ordered them to send him at once three goats, three pigs, three loads of rice, and three loads of millet for provisions for the ships; they replied that of each article which he sent to ask them three of, they would send to him by twos, and if he was satisfied with this they would at once comply, if not, it might be as he pleased, but that they would not give it. Because they did not choose to grant what he demanded of them, Fernan de Magalhāes ordered three boats to be equipped with a matter of fifty or sixty men,[67] and went against the said place, which was on the 28th day of April, in the morning;[68] there they found many people, who might well be as many as three thousand or four thousand men, who fought with such a good will that the said Fernan de Magalhāes was killed there, with six of his men,[69] in the year 1521.
When Fernan de Magalhāes was dead the Christians got back to the ships, where they thought fit to make two captains and governors whom they should obey;[70] and having done this, they took counsel [and decided] that the two captains should go ashore where the people had turned Christians to ask for pilots to take them to Borneo, and this was on the first day of May of the said year; when the two captains went, being agreed upon what had been said, the same people of the country who had become Christians, armed themselves against them, and whilst they reached the shore let them land in security as they had done before. Then they attacked them, and killed the two captains and twenty-six gentlemen,[71] and the other people who remained got back to the boats, and returned to the ships, and finding themselves again without captains they agreed, inasmuch as the principal persons were killed, that one Joam Lopez,[72] who was the chief treasurer, should be captain-major of the fleet, and the chief constable of the fleet should be captain of one of the ships; he was named Gonzalo Vaz Despinosa.[73]