Ferdinand Magellan enters the Spanish service. Commercial rivalry had thus passed from Venice and Genoa to Spain and Portugal. The circumnavigation of the earth originated in a dispute between these kingdoms respecting the Molucca Islands, from which nutmegs, cloves, and mace were obtained. Ferdinand Magellan had been in the service of the King of Portugal; but an application he had made for an increase of half a ducat a month in his stipend having been refused, he passed into the service of the King of Spain along with one Ruy Falero, a friend of his, who, among the vulgar, bore the reputation of a conjurer or magician, but who really possessed considerable astronomical attainments, devoting himself to the discovery of improved means for finding the place of a ship at sea. Magellan persuaded the Spanish government that the Spice Islands [170] could be reached by sailing to the west, the Portuguese having previously reached them by sailing to the east, and, if this were accomplished, Spain would have as good a title to them, under the bull of Alexander VI., as Portugal. His great voyage commenced. Five ships, carrying 237 men, were accordingly equipped, and on August 10, 1519, Magellan sailed from Seville. The Trinitie was the admiral's ship, but the San Vittoria was destined for immortality. He struck boldly for the south-west, not crossing the trough of the Atlantic as Columbus had done, but passing down the length of it, his aim being to find some cleft or passage in the American Continent through which he might sail into the Great South Sea. For seventy days he was becalmed under the line. He then lost sight of the north star, but courageously held on toward the "pole antartike." He nearly foundered in a storm, "which did not abate till the three fires called St. Helen, St. Nicholas, and St. Clare appeared playing in the rigging of the ships." In a new land, to which he gave the name of Patagoni, he found giants "of good corporature" clad in skins; one of them, a very pleasant and tractable giant, was terrified at his own visage in a looking-glass. He penetrates the American continent. Among the sailors, alarmed at the distance they had come, mutiny broke out, requiring the most unflinching resolution in the commander for its suppression. In spite of his watchfulness, one ship deserted him and stole back to Spain. His perseverance and resolution were at last rewarded by the discovery of the strait named by him San Vittoria, in affectionate honour of his ship, but which, with a worthy sentiment, other sailors soon changed to "the Strait of Magellan." Reaches the Pacific Ocean. On November 28, 1520, after a year and a quarter of struggling, he issued forth from its western portals and entered the Great South Sea, shedding tears of joy, as Pigafetti, an eye-witness, relates, when he recognized its infinite expanse—tears of stern joy that it had pleased God to bring him at length where he might grapple with its unknown dangers. Admiring its illimitable but placid surface, and exulting in the meditation of its secret perils soon to be tried, he courteously imposed on it the name [171] it is for ever to bear, "the Pacific Ocean." While baffling for an entry into it, he observed with surprise that in the month of October the nights are only four hours long, and "considered, in this his navigation, that the pole antartike hath no notable star like the pole artike, but that there be two clouds of little stars somewhat dark in the middest, also a cross of fine clear stars, but that here the needle becomes so sluggish that it needs must be moved with a bit of loadstone before it will rightly point."
The Pacific Ocean crossed.And now the great sailor, having burst through the barrier of the American continent, steered for the north-west, attempting to regain the equator. For three months and twenty days he sailed on the Pacific, and never saw inhabited land. He was compelled by famine to strip off the pieces of skin and leather wherewith his rigging was here and there bound, to soak them in the sea and then soften them with warm water, so as to make a wretched food; to eat the sweepings of the ship and other loathsome matter; to drink water that had become putrid by keeping; and yet he resolutely held on his course, though his men were dying daily. As is quaintly observed, "their gums grew over their teeth, and so they could not eat." He estimated that he sailed over this unfathomable sea not less than 12,000 miles.
In the whole history of human undertakings there is nothing that exceeds, if indeed there is anything that equals, this voyage of Magellan's. That of Columbus dwindles away in comparison. It is a display of superhuman courage, superhuman perseverance—a display of resolution not to be diverted from its purpose by any motive or any suffering, but inflexibly persisting to its end. Well might his despairing sailors come to the conclusion that they had entered on a trackless waste of waters, endless before them and hopeless in a return. "But, though the Church hath evermore from Holy Writ affirmed that the earth should be a wide-spread plain bordered by the waters, yet he comforted himself when he considered that in the eclipses of the moon the shadow cast of the earth is round; and as is the shadow, such, in like manner, is the substance." It was a stout heart—a heart of [172] triple brass—which could thus, against such authority, extract unyielding faith from a shadow.
Succeeds in his attempt, and dies.This unparalleled resolution met its reward at last. Magellan reached a group of islands north of the equator—the Ladrones. In a few days more he became aware that his labours had been successful; he met with adventurers from Sumatra. But, though he had thus grandly accomplished his object, it was not given to him to complete the circumnavigation of the globe. At an island called Zebu, or Mutan, he was killed, either, as has been variously related, in a mutiny of his men, or as they declared—in a conflict with the savages, or insidiously by poison. "The general," they said, "was a very brave man, and received his death wound in his front; nor would the savages yield up his body for any ransom." Through treason and revenge it is not unlikely that he fell, for he was a stern man; no one but a very stern man could have accomplished so daring a deed. Hardly was he gone when his crew learned that they were actually in the vicinity of the Moluccas, and that the object of their voyage was accomplished. On the morning of November 8, 1521, having been at sea two years and three months, as the sun was rising they entered Tidore, the chief port of the Spice Islands. The King of Tidore swore upon the Koran alliance to the King of Spain.
Circumnavigation of the earth.I need not allude to the wonderful objects—destined soon to become common to voyagers in the Indian Archipelago—that greeted their eyes: elephants in trappings; vases, and vessels of porcelain; birds of Paradise, "that fly not, but be blown by the wind;" exhaustless stores of the coveted spices, nutmegs, mace, cloves. And now they prepared to bring the news of their success back to Spain. Magellan's lieutenant, Sebastian d'Elcano, directed his course for the Cape of Good Hope, again encountering the most fearful hardships. Out of his slender crew he lost twenty-one men. He doubled the Cape at last; and on September 7, 1522, in the port of St. Lucar, near Seville, under his orders, the good ship San Vittoria came safely to an anchor. She had accomplished the greatest [173] achievement in the history of the human race. She had circumnavigated the earth.
Elcano, the lieutenant of Magellan.Magellan thus lost his life in his enterprise, and yet he made an enviable exchange. Doubly immortal, and thrice happy! for he impressed his name indelibly on the earth and the sky, on the strait that connects the two great oceans, and on those clouds of starry worlds seen in the southern heavens. He also imposed a designation on the largest portion of the surface of the globe. His lieutenant, Sebastian d'Elcano, received such honours as kings can give. Of all armorial bearings ever granted for the accomplishment of a great and daring deed, his were the proudest and noblest—the globe of the earth belted with the inscription, "Primus circumdedisti me!"
Results of the circumnavigation.If the circumnavigation of the earth by Magellan did not lead to such splendid material results as the discovery of America and the doubling of the Cape, its moral effects were far more important. Columbus had been opposed in obtaining means for his expedition because it was suspected to be of an irreligious nature. Unfortunately, the Church, satisfying instincts impressed upon her as far back as the time of Constantine, had asserted herself to be the final arbitress in all philosophical questions, and especially in this of the figure of the earth had committed herself against its being globular. Infallibility can never correct itself—indeed, it can never be wrong. Rome never retracts anything; and, no matter what the consequences, never recedes. It was thus that a theological dogma—infallibility—came to be mixed up with a geographical problem, and that problem liable at any moment to receive a decisive solution. So long as it rested in a speculative position, or could be hedged round with mystification, the real state of the case might be concealed from all except the more intelligent class of men; but after the circumnavigation had actually been accomplished, and was known to every one, there was, of course, nothing more to be said. It had now become altogether useless to bring forward the authority of Lactantius, of St. Augustine, or of other fathers, that the globular form is impious and heretical. Henceforth the fact was strong enough to [174] overpower all authority, an exercise of which could have no other result than to injure itself. It remained only to permit the dispute to pass into oblivion; but even this could not occur without those who were observant being impressed with the fact that physical science was beginning to display a fearful advantage over Patristicism, and presenting unmistakable tokens that ere long she would destroy her ancient antagonist.
Minor voyages and travels.In the midst of these immortal works it is hardly worth while to speak of minor things. Two centuries had wrought a mighty change in the geographical ideas of Western Europe. The travels of Marco Polo, A.D. 1295, had first given some glimmering of the remote East, the interest in which was doubtless enhanced by the irruption of the Moguls. Sir John Mandeville had spent many years in the interior of Asia before the middle of the next century. Conti had travelled in Persia and India, between 1419 and 1444. Cadamosto, a Venetian, in 1455 had explored the west coast of Africa. Sebastian Cabot had re-discovered Newfoundland, and, persisting in the attempt to find a north-west passage to China, had forced his way into the ice to 67° 30' N. By 1525 the American coast-line had been determined from Terra del Fuego to Labrador. New Guinea and part of Australia, had been discovered. The fleet of Cabral, attempting to double the Cape of Good Hope in 1500, was driven to Brazil. A ship was sent back to Portugal with the news. Hence, had not Columbus sailed when he did, the discovery of America could not have been long postponed. Balboa saw the Great South Sea September 25th, 1513. Wading up to his knees in the water, with his sword in one hand and the Spanish flag in the other, he claimed that vast ocean for Castile. Nothing could now prevent the geography of the earth from being completed.
Participation of other nations in these events.I cannot close these descriptions of maritime adventure without observing that they are given from the European point of view. The Western nations have complacently supposed that whatever was unknown to them was therefore altogether unknown. We have seen that the Arabs were practically [175] and perfectly familiar with the fact that Africa might be circumnavigated; the East Indian geography was thoroughly understood by the Buddhist priesthood, who had, on an extensive scale, carried forward their propagandism for twenty-five hundred years in those regions. But doubtless the most perfect geographical knowledge existed among the Jews, those cosmopolite traders who conducted mercantile transactions from the Azores to the interior of China, from the Baltic to the coast of Mozambique. It was actually through them that the existence of the Cape of Good Hope was first made known in Europe. Five hundred years before Columbus, the Scandinavian adventurers had discovered America, but so low was the state of intelligence in Europe that the very memory of these voyages had been altogether lost. The circumnavigation of the earth is, however, strictly the achievement of the West. I have been led to make the remarks in this paragraph, since they apply again on another occasion—the introduction of what is called the Baconian philosophy, the principles of which were not only understood, but carried into practice in the East eighteen hundred years before Bacon was born.