Trading is instituted by carrying a quantity of merchandise ashore, the safety of which is assured by the king. Those people are found to have weights and measures for their trading; and besides their gongs, a flute-like instrument. Their houses are entered by ladders. On Friday begins the trading, gold being given for metals and large articles, and food for the smaller wares. The good bargains obtained by the Europeans, would have been materially less and the trade spoiled forever had it not been for Magalhães’s watchfulness, for so eager are the men at the sight of the gold, that they would have given almost anything for it. On the following Sunday, the king and his chief men, and the queen and many women, are baptized and given European names, and ere the week closes all the Cebuans have become Christians, as well as some from neighboring islands. The queen at her earnest request, is given a small image of the Christ child, the same afterward recovered by Legazpi, and still held in the greatest of reverence at Cebú. The opposition of certain chiefs to the king of Cebú is satisfactorily ended by the inducements and threats of Magalhães. The latter swears to be faithful in his friendship with the natives, who likewise swear allegiance to the king of Spain. However, the natives are loath to destroy their idols, according to their promise, and Magalhães finds them still sacrificing to them for the cure of sickness. Substituting therefore the assurance that the new faith will work a cure, in lieu of which he offers his head, the sick man (who is the prince’s brother and the bravest and wisest man in the island) is miraculously cured. Thereupon many idols are burned amid great demonstrations. Vivid descriptions are given of the people and their customs and ceremonies, especially those of sacrifice and mourning.
April 20, a chief from the neighboring island of Mactan sends a small present to Magalhães, with the request to aid him with a boat load of men against the chief Cilapulapu, who refuses allegiance to Spain. Magalhães in his ardor, and notwithstanding the remonstrances of his friends, leads three boat loads of men (sixty in all) to the island, where having ordered the king of Cebú to be a witness of the battle only, he engages the natives. Disastrous indeed does that day prove, for beset by multitudes of foes, the Europeans are compelled to retreat, and the retreat becomes a rout, the personal bravery of Magalhães and a few of his closest friends only saving the men from almost complete massacre. Recognizing the leader, the natives make their greatest efforts against him, and finally he is killed while knee deep in the water, but after all the others are saved. Pigafetta’s lament is tragic and sorrowful; they “killed our mirror, our light, our comfort, and our true guide.” Insolent in their victory, the natives refuse to give up the body of the slain leader at the request of the king of Cebú. The Europeans stunned by the loss of their leader, withdraw their merchandise and guards to the ship, and make preparations for departure. Duarte Barbosa and João de Serrão are chosen leaders. The second act in the drama follows speedily. The slave Enrique, enraged at a severe reprimand and threats by Barbosa, conspires with the king of Cebú; with the result that twenty-six men, including both of the leaders, are murdered at a banquet on May 1, to which the king invites them. João Carvalho, deaf to the entreaties of João Serrão, his comrade, and anxious to become leader, sails away leaving him to his death. Pigafetta names the products of Cebú, and gives a valuable vocabulary of Visayan words, most of which are still in use by those people.
By mutual consent, the three vessels proceed to Bohol, where the “Concepcion” is burned, as there are too few men left to work all three ships; although its supplies and all else possible are transferred to the “Victoria” and “Trinidad.” Then, cruising along, they put in at Mindanao where Pigafetta goes ashore alone, after the king has made blood friendship at the ships. There they hear of Luzón, where the Chinese trade annually. Departing from Mindanao, they anchor at Cagayan Sulu, a penal settlement for Borneo, where the blowpipe and poisoned arrows are used, and the daggers adorned with gold. The next anchorage is at Paragua, although before reaching that island, the men have been tempted to abandon the ships because of hunger. There the rice is cooked under the fire in bamboos and is better than that cooked in earthen pots. Those people raise fighting cocks and bet on their favorite birds. Ten leagues from Paragua is the great island of Borneo, whither the ships next go, and anchor at the city of Brunei, which is built over the water, and contains twenty-five thousand fires. Hospitably received by eight chiefs who visit the ships, they enter into relations with the Borneans. Seven men go as ambassadors to visit the king, and bear presents to him and the chief men. Here some of the grandeurs of an oriental court are spread before their eyes, which Pigafetta briefly describes. The strangers are graciously given permission to take on fresh supplies of food, water, and wood, and to trade at pleasure. Later actions of the Borneans cause the men of the ships to fear treachery, and forestalling any action by that people, they attack a number of junks near them, and capture four. Among the captives is the son of the king of Luzón, who is the chief captain in Borneo, and whom Carvalho allows to escape, without consulting the others, for a large sum of gold. His action in so doing reacts on himself, for the king refuses to allow two men who were ashore and Carvalho’s own son (born of a native woman in Brazil) to return to the ships, and they are left behind. The Borneans and their junks are described. They use porcelain dishes which are made from a fine white clay that is buried under ground for fifty years in order to refine it, and inherited from father to son. Camphor is obtained there, and the island is so large that it can be circumnavigated by a prau only in three months’ time.
On leaving Borneo, a number of prisoners from the captured junks are kept, among them three women whom Carvalho ostensibly retains as presents for the queen of Spain, but in reality for himself. Happily escaping from the point on which one of the ships has become grounded, and the fear of explosion from a candle which is snuffed into a barrel of powder, the ships anchor at a point of Borneo, where for forty-two days, the men are busied in repairing, calking, and furnishing the vessels. The journey is resumed back toward Paragua, the governor of a district of that island being captured on the way; with whom, however, they enter into friendly relations. Thence the ships cruise along between Cagayan, Joló, and Mindanao, capturing a native boat from Maingdanao of the latter island, from the captive occupants of which they learn news of the Moluccas. Pushing on amid stormy weather, they anchor at the island of Sarangani, just south of Mindanao; and thence proceed in a generally southerly direction amid many islands until the Moluccas are reached, and they enter the harbor of Tidore on Friday, November 8, 1521, after twenty-seven months, less two days, since their departure from Spain.
At Tidore a warm welcome awaits them from the king, who is a powerful astrologer and has been expecting their arrival. He promises them as many cloves as they wish, even offering to go outside his island, contrary to the practice of kings, to provide them the sooner; in return for his services hoping for their aid in his designs for power in the Moluccas, especially against the king of Ternate. There they learn that Francisco Serrão, the great friend of Magalhães, has perished some eight months previously from poison administered by the king of Tidore, whom he had visited, because he had aided the king of Ternate against Tidore. This Serrão, says Pigafetta, was the cause of Magalhães undertaking his expedition, and he had been in the Moluccas for ten years, for so long ago had Portugal discovered those islands. The efforts of the Ternatans to gain the new strangers fail, for they are already pledged to the king of Tidore. On November 12, a house is built ashore and on the thirteenth the merchandise is carried there, among it being that captured with the various junks at and near Borneo. The sailors are somewhat careless of their bargains for they are in haste to return to Spain. The king continues his kindness, and to humor him, as he is a Mahometan, all the swine in the boats are killed. This relation will be concluded in Vol. XXXIV.
The Editors
PRIMO VIAGGIO INTORNO AL MONDO
By Antonio Pigafetta. MS. composed ca. 1525, of events of 1519–1522
Source: Our transcript is made from the original document which exists in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan, Italy.