[41] MS. 5,650 adds: “and of those persons who have sailed there often.”
[42] MS. 5,650 reads: “And in order that our ships might not be wrecked or broach to (which often happens when the squalls come together).”
[43] This last phrase, as well as the two following sentences are missing in MS. 5,650. The third sentence following begins: “During the calm weather, large fish called tiburoni,” etc. The word tiburoni, “sharks” is from the Spanish tiburon, which comes from the French tibéron (tiburin, tiburon).—Echagaray’s Diccionario Etimológico (Madrid, 1889).
[44] MS. 5,650 reads: “The said fish are caught by means of a contrivance which sailors call ‘hame’ which is an iron fishhook.” Hame (ain) is the French form of the Italian Amo, meaning “fishhook.”
[45] MS. 5,650 adds: “because of the bad weather.”
[46] MS. 5,650 reads “a quarter of an hour,” and the same duration of time is given by Eden (p. 250).
[47] MS. 5,650 adds: “It is to be noted that whenever that fire that represents the said Saint Anselme ascends and descends the mast of a ship while in a storm at sea, that the said ship is never wrecked.” Herrera (cited by Mosto, p. 54, note 5) says that St. Elmo appeared on the masthead with a lighted candle and sometimes two during the storms encountered along the coasts of Guinea, and that the sailors were greatly comforted thereby, and saluted the saint as is the custom of seamen. When he appeared, he remained a quarter of an hour; and at his departure a great flash of light occurred which blinded all the men. Eden (p. 250) calls it the fire of St. Helen. Continuing, Eden injects into his abridgment of the first circumnavigation a description of St. Elmo’s fire by Hieronimus Cardanus in the second book of De Subtilitate. He says: “Of the kynde of trewe fyer, is the fyer baule or ſtarre commonly cauled ſaynt Helen which is ſumtyme ſeene abowt the maſtes of ſhyppes, beinge of ſuche fyery nature that it ſumetyme melteth braſen veſſels, and is a token of drownyng, foraſmuch as this chaunceth only in great tempeſtes. For the vapoure or exhalation whereof this fyre is engendered, can not bee dryven togyther or compacte in forme of fyre, but of a groſe vapoure and by a great poure of wynde, and is therfore a token of imminent perell.” The fires called after St. Peter and St. Nicholas are on the contrary, he says, good omens, and are generally to be seen on the cables, after a storm. Being little and swift moving they can do no damage as they could do if massed and of slow movement. St. Elmo’s fire is the popular name for the atmospheric electricity that gathers in the form of a star or brush about the masthead of ships and on the rigging. It was sometimes accompanied by a hissing noise and was considered as a good omen by sailors. The Greeks who observed this phenomenon wove it into the Castor and Pollux myth; and the French edition of Pigafetta’s relation published by Simon de Colines has the passage (see Mosto, p. 54): “They saw the fires called Sainct Eline and Sainct Nicolas like blazing torches (whom the ancients called Castor and Pollux).” “Elmo” is said by some to be a corruption of “Helena,” the sister of Castor and Pollux, and the name “Hellene” or “Helen” was often given to the fire when only one light was visible. It is, however, more probably derived from St. Elmo, bishop of Formine who died about 304, and who is invoked by sailors on the Mediterranean. The phenomenon is also called fire of “St. Elias,” “St. Clara,” “St. Nicolas,” and “composite,” “composant,” and “corposant (i.e., corpus sanctum).”
[48] The second bird mentioned is the stormy petrel (of the family Laridæ and genus Thalassidroma), which is found along all the Atlantic coasts and on some of the Pacific. The tale of the text was current among sailors (see Wilkes, U. S. Exploring Expedition, viii, pp. 402, 403). The cagassela (“cagaselo” in MS. 5,650) is the Stercorarius parasiticus, called also the jaeger, and by sailors “boatswain,” “teaser,” and “dung-hunter.” The last name arose from the belief, long held even by scientists, that this bird fed on the dung of gulls and terns. In reality it pursues the latter birds and compels them to disgorge the fish that they have swallowed. The flying-fish is either a species of Exocœtus, or the Scomberesox saurus of Europe and America, both of which feed in large schools and jump from the water to escape their enemies. See Riverside Natural History (Boston and New York).
[49] MS. 5,650 adds: “which is the collateral wind between the south and the west;” and below reads: “twenty-four and one-half degrees;” while Eden (p. 250) reads: “xxii degrees and a halfe.”
[50] Verzino, the etymology of which is unknown (see Varthema’s Travels, Hakluyt Society edition, p. lxxviii, note, and 205 note), is the Italian name for brazil-wood, from which Brazil, which was first visited by Vicente Pinzon, Diego Lope, Pedro Alvares Cabral, and Amerigo Vespucci, was named. The first names of the country were Vera Cruz and Santa Cruz. Cape Santo Agostinho, mentioned below, lies in 8° 21´ south latitude, and is the most eastern headland of South America. It was the first land of that continent to be discovered, being sighted at least as early as 1500 by Pinzon. Before sighting the above cape, Magalhães arrested Juan de Cartagena for insubordination and gave the command of the “San Antonio” to Antonio de Coca (see Guillemard’s Magellan, p. 153). Albo’s log begins slightly before the sighting of the point, his first entry being November 29. See Burton’s “Introduction” in his Captivity of Hans Stade (Hakluyt Society publications, London, 1874).