The people ate human flesh, but only at feasts of triumph. They then served up their enemies.
Pigafetta draws the following grewsome picture:
"They do not eat up the whole body of a man whom they take prisoner; they eat him bit by bit, and for fear that he should be spoiled, they cut him up into pieces, which they set to dry before the chimney. They eat this day by day, so as to keep in mind the memory of their enemy."
This was indeed the sweet food of revenge, and as barbarous as it seems, the spirit of revenge secretly cherished is hardly less unworthy when it finds expression in words that are bitter, if not carnal.
The region abounded with bright birds, yet with all these delights, and pineapples and potatoes, there fell great rains. So there were shadows in the sunlands.
We can fancy Pigafetta relating his discoveries on the shore to a susceptible spirit, like Del Cano, and writing an account of them day by day in his immortal journal.
These strange adventures by sea and on land which so greatly interested the Italian Knight Pigafetta, our historian, do not seem to have greatly impressed the mind of Magellan. The lands had been sighted before. His whole soul was bent on one purpose—not on rediscovery, but on discovery. He was sailing now where other keels had been. It was his purpose to find new ways for the world to follow over unknown seas. His heart could find no full satisfaction but in water courses that sails had never swept; a new way to the Moluccas that no ship had ever broken.
Notwithstanding the friendly spirit and liberal patronage of the Emperor, he still stood against the world. He represented a cast-out name. His own countrymen, on his own ships in the long delays on the voyage to unknown seas, were plotting against him.
Let us recall in fancy a night scene as the ships lay on the waters of the meridional world. Magellan sits alone in one of the castles of the ship and looks out on the phosphorescent sea. The stars above him shine in a clear splendor, and are reflected in the sea. The sky seems to be in the waters; the waters are a mirror of the sky. Among the clear stars the Southern Cross, always vivid, here rises high. Magellan lifts to it his eye, and feels the religious inspiration of the suggestion. He is a son of the Church, and he holds that all discoveries are to be made for the glory of the Cross.
On the distant shores palms rise in armies in the dusky air. The shores are silent. When arose the tall people that inhabited them?