"But as our men had no money, they offered, sailor fashion, cloves for the slaves. This matter having come to the ears of the Portuguese who were in command of the island, thirteen of our men were thrown into prison. The rest were eighteen in number.
"Frightened by the strangeness of this behavior, they started straight for Spain, leaving their shipmates behind them. And so, in the sixteenth month after leaving Thedori, they arrived safe and sound on the 6th of September, at the port near Hispalis (Seville). Worthier, indeed, are our sailors of eternal fame than the Argonauts who sailed with Jason to Colchis. And much more worthy was their ship of being placed among the stars than that old Argo; for that only sailed from Greece through Pontus, but ours from Hispalis to the South; and after that, through the whole West and the Southern hemisphere, penetrating into the East, and again returned to the West."
His subscription is interesting:
"I commend myself most humbly to your reverence. Given at Vallisoleti, on the 23d of October, 1522.
"Your most reverend and illustrious lordship's
"Most humble and constant servant,
"Maximilianus Transylvanus."
When the spice ship began to fill with water, the officers sent for native divers. But these, although very skillful, could not find the place or the cause of the leak.
Let us change our view to a different scene, across the wide tropical world.