"But in this rainless land at the hour of midday, every day, there descends a cloud from the sky which envelops a large tree which grows on this island.
"The cloud falls upon the leaves of the tree, when a great abundance of water distills from the leaves. The tree flows, and soon at the foot of it there gathers a fountain.
"The people of the island come to drink of the water. The animals and the birds refresh themselves there."
The story is true so far as relates to the fountain tree. But that a cloud comes down from Heaven at midday to refresh it, is not an exact statement of the manner in which this tree furnishes water to the sterile island. The young Italian writer describes the tree as he saw it, and as it seemed to be. The tree that supplies water as from a natural fountain may still be found.
With such a tree to begin his researches on the sea, Pigafetta must have been impatient to proceed along the marvelous ocean way. All the world was to him as he saw it; he seldom stopped to inquire if appearances were true.
With men like Del Cano on board, who had ears for a marvelous story, his life in the early part of the voyage must have been a very happy one. Wonder followed wonder....
"Monday, the 3d of October," says the interesting Italian, "we set sail making the course auster, which the Levantine mariners call siroc (southeast) entering into the ocean sea. We passed Cape Verde and navigated by the coast of Guinea of Ethiopia, where there is a mountain called Sierra Leona. A rain fell, and the storm lasted sixty days."
They came to waters full of sharks, which had terrible teeth, and which ate all the people whom they found in the sea, alive or dead. These were caught by a hook of iron.
ST. ELMO'S FIRE.
Here good St. Anseline met the ships; in the fancy of the mariners of the time, this airy saint appeared to favored ships in the night, and fair weather always followed the saintly apparition. He came in a robe of fire, and stood and shone on the top of the high masts or on the spars. The sailors hailed him with joy, as one sent from Heaven. Happy was the ship on the tropic sea upon whose rigging the form of good St. Anseline appeared in the night, and especially in the night of cloud and storm!