CHAPTER XXI.
THE SPICE ISLANDS.—WONDERFUL BIRDS.—CLOVES, CINNAMON, NUTMEGS, GINGER.—THE SHIPS OVERLOADED.
The massacre at Matan caused the Spaniards to lose credit in the eyes of the natives. The King of Seba turned against them, thus throwing a shadow on the glory of Magellan's missionary work. The Spaniards were, however, much to blame for the change that took place in the King's heart.
Their ships were becoming unseaworthy.
They were reduced to two ships, the Victoria and the Trinidad, and these shaped their course for the Moluccas, or Spice Islands, by the way of Borneo. Del Cano began to represent the spirit of Magellan among the crews.
They came to the Bornean city, Brunei, "a collection of houses built on piles over the water, where were twenty-five thousand fires or families." On the shore was the palace of a voluptuous Sultan, its walls hung with brocades of silk. Here was also one of the most curious markets in all the world, carried on at high tide, when there gathered a great army of canoes.
On November 8, 1521, the two ships anchored off Tidor on the Spice Islands, saluting the King of the place with a broadside.
They concluded a treaty of peace with the King, and began to load the two ships with spice, and especially with cloves, a kind of spice at that time regarded as a great luxury in Spain.
If Pigafetta had desired above all things to see the wonders of the ocean world, he must again have been gratified here at some of the presents sent to the ships by the natives. Columbus had brought to Spain gorgeous parrots or macaws. But the King of Batchian sent to him a bird whose plumage surpassed anything that he had ever seen.