"Our Chaplain and some of us went on shore to baptize the Queen. She came with forty ladies, and we conducted them onto the scaffolding; then made her sit down on a cushion, and her women around her, until the priest was ready. During that time they showed her an image of our Lady, of wood, holding her little child, which was very well made, and a cross. When she saw it, she had a greater desire to be a Christian, and, asking for baptism, she was baptized and named Jehanne, like the mother of the Emperor. The wife of the Prince, daughter of this Queen, had the name of Catherine, the Queen of Mazzava Isabella, and to the others each their name.
"That day we baptised eight hundred persons of men, women, and children. The Queen was young and handsome, covered with a black and white sheet; she had the mouth and nails very red, and wore on her head a large hat made of leaves of palm, with a crown over it made of the same leaves, like that of the Pope. After that she begged us to give her the little wooden boy to put in the place of the idols. This we did, and she went away. In the evening the King and Queen, with several of their people, came to the sea beach, where the Captain had some of the large artillery fired, in which they took great pleasure. The Captain and the King called one another brother."
The "little boy" spoken of was an image of the infant Christ. The figure was preserved until the year 1598, when the Spaniards sent missionaries to the place who gave it a place in a shrine and named a city for it.
The naming of the Queen at her baptism for poor Juana, or "Crazy Jane," the incapable mother of Charles V, who was watching beside her dead husband in Granada, and who had signed the commission of Magellan by proxy, completes a tale of missionary work in a somewhat ideal way. If these people did not maintain their faith, the work reveals the intention of Magellan, and shows the nobility of character of the Christian Knight.
CHAPTER XIX.
HALCYON DAYS.
These were indeed days of joy. The glory of them grew. All the inhabitants of the island came to be baptized. Magellan went on shore daily to hear mass.
It was Pigafetta who gave to the Queen the image of the infant Christ, which became historical.