The Story of Geographical Discovery: How the World Became Known

by Joseph Jacobs

This voyage of Amerigo threw a new light upon the nature of the discovery made by Columbus. Whereas he had thought he had discovered a route to India and had touched upon Farther India, Amerigo and his companions had shown that there was a hitherto unsuspected land intervening between Columbus's discoveries and the long-desired Spice

AMERIGO VESPUCCI. Islands of Farther India. Amerigo, in describing his discoveries, ventured so far as to suggest that they constituted a New World; and a German professor, named Martin Waldseemüller, who wrote an introduction to Cosmography in 1506, which included an account of Amerigo's discoveries, suggested that this New World should be called after him, AMERICA, after the analogy of Asia, Africa, and Europe. For a long time the continent which we now know as South America was called simply the New World, and was supposed to be joined on to the east coast of Asia. The name America was sometimes applied to it—not altogether inappropriately, since it was Amerigo's voyage which definitely settled that really new lands had been discovered by the western route; and when it was further ascertained that this new land was joined, not to Asia, but to another continent as large as itself, the two new lands were distinguished as North and South America.

It was, at any rate, clear from Amerigo's discovery that the westward route to the Spice Islands would have to be through or round this New World discovered by him, and a Portuguese noble, named Fernao Magelhaens, was destined to discover the practicability of this route. He had served his native country under Almeida and Albuquerque in the East Indies, and was present at the capture of Malacca in 1511, and from that port was despatched by Albuquerque with three ships to visit the far-famed Spice Islands. They visited Amboyna and Banda, and learned enough of the abundance and cheapness of the spices of the islands to recognise their importance; but under the direction of Albuquerque, who only sent them out on an exploring expedition, they returned to him, leaving behind them, however, one of Magelhaens' greatest friends, Francisco Serrao, who settled in Ternate and from time to time sent glowing accounts of the Moluccas to his friend Magelhaens. He in the meantime returned to Portugal, and was employed on an expedition to Morocco. He was not, however, well treated by the Portuguese monarch, and determined to leave his service for that of Charles V., though he made it a condition of his entering his service that he should make no discoveries within the boundaries of the King of Portugal, and do nothing prejudicial to his interests.

This was in the year 1517, and two years elapsed before Magelhaens started on his celebrated voyage. He had represented to the Emperor that he was convinced that a strait existed which would lead into the Indian Ocean, past the New World of Amerigo, and that the Spice Islands were beyond the line of demarcation and within the Spanish sphere of influence. There is some evidence that Spanish merchant vessels, trading secretly to obtain Brazil wood, had already caught sight of the strait afterwards named after Magelhaens, and certainly such a strait is represented upon Schoner's globes dated 1515 and 1520—earlier than Magelhaens' discovery. The Portuguese were fully aware of the dangers threatened to their monopoly of the spice trade—which by this time had been firmly established—owing to the presence of Serrao in Ternate, and did all in their power to dissuade Charles from sending out the threatened expedition, pointing out that they would consider it an unfriendly act if such an expedition were permitted to start. Notwithstanding this the Emperor persisted in the project, and on Tuesday, 20th September 1519, a fleet of five vessels, the Trinidad, St. Antonio, Concepcion, Victoria, and St. Jago, manned by a heterogeneous collection of Spaniards, Portuguese, Basques, Genoese, Sicilians, French, Flemings, Germans, Greeks, Neapolitans, Corfiotes, Negroes, Malays, and a single Englishman (Master Andrew of Bristol), started from Seville upon perhaps the most important voyage of discovery ever made. So great was the antipathy between Spanish and Portuguese that disaffection broke out almost from the start, and after the mouth of the La Plata had been carefully explored, to ascertain whether this was not really the beginning of a passage through the New World, a mutiny broke out on the 2nd April 1520, in Port St. Julian, where it had been determined to winter; for of course by this time the sailors had become aware that the time of the seasons was reversed in the Southern Hemisphere. Magelhaens showed great firmness and skill in dealing with the mutiny; its chief leaders were either executed or marooned, and on the 18th October he resumed his voyage. Meanwhile the habits and customs of the natives had been observed—their huge height and uncouth foot-coverings, for which Magelhaens gave them the name of Patagonians. Within three days they had arrived at the entrance of the passage which still bears Magelhaens' name. By this time one of the ships, the St Jago, had been lost, and it was with only four of his vessels—the Trinidad, the Victoria, the Concepcion. and the St. Antonio—that, Magelhaens

FERDINAND MAGELLAN. began his passage. There are many twists and divisions in the strait, and on arriving at one of the partings, Magelhaens despatched the St. Antonio to explore it, while he proceeded with the other three ships along the more direct route. The pilot of the St. Antonio had been one of the mutineers, and persuaded the crew to seize this opportunity to turn back altogether; so that when Magelhaens arrived at the appointed place of junction, no news could be ascertained of the missing vessel; it went straight back to Portugal. Magelhaens determined to continue his search, even, he said, if it came to eating the leather thongs of the sails. It had taken him thirty-eight days to get through the Straits, and for four months afterwards Magelhaens continued his course through the ocean, which, from its calmness, he called Pacific; taking a north-westerly course, and thus, by a curious chance, only hitting upon a couple of small uninhabited islands throughout their whole voyage, through a sea which we now know to be dotted by innumerable inhabited islands. On the 6th March 1520 they had sighted the Ladrones, and obtained much-needed provisions. Scurvy had broken out in its severest form, and the only Englishman on the ships died at the Ladrones. From there they went on to the islands now known as the Philippines, one of the kings of which greeted them very favourably. As a reward Magelhaens undertook one of his local quarrels, and fell in an unequal fight at Mactan, 27th April 1521. The three vessels continued their course for the Moluccas, but the Concepcion proved so unseaworthy that they had to beach and burn her. They reached Borneo, and here Juan Sebastian del Cano was appointed captain of the Victoria.

At last, on the 6th November 1521, they reached the goal of their journey, and anchored at Tidor, one of the Moluccas. They traded on very advantageous terms with the natives, and filled their holds with the spices and nutmegs for which they had journeyed so far; but when they attempted to resume their journey homeward, it was found that the Trinidad was too unseaworthy to proceed at once, and it was decided that the Victoria should start so as to get the east monsoon. This she did, and after the usual journey round the Cape of Good Hope, arrived off the Mole of Seville on Monday the 8th September 1522—three years all but twelve days from the date of their departure from Spain. Of the two hundred and seventy men who had started with the fleet, only eighteen returned in the Victoria. According to the ship's reckoning they had arrived on Sunday the 7th, and for some time it was a puzzle to account for the day thus lost.

Meanwhile the Trinidad, which had been left behind at the Moluccas, had attempted to sail back to Panama, and reached as far north as 43°, somewhere about longitude 175° W. Here provisions failed them, and they had to return to the Moluccas, where they were seized, practically as pirates, by a fleet of Portuguese vessels sent specially to prevent interference by the Spaniards with the Portuguese monopoly of the spice trade. The crew of the Trinidad were seized and made prisoners, and ultimately only four of them reached Spain again, after many adventures. Thirteen others, who had landed at the Cape de Verde Islands from the Victoria, may also be included among the survivors of the fleet, so that a total number of thirty-five out of two hundred and seventy sums up the number of the first circumnavigators of the globe.

The importance of this voyage was unique when regarded from the point of view of geographical discovery. It decisively clinched the matter with regard to the existence of an entirely New World independent from Asia. In particular, the backward voyage of the Trinidad (which has rarely been noticed) had shown that there was a wide expanse of ocean north of the line and east of Asia, whilst the previous voyage had shown the enormous extent of sea south of the line. After the circumnavigation of the Victoria it was clear to cosmographers that the world was much larger than had been imagined by the ancients; or rather, perhaps one may say that Asia was smaller than had been thought by the mediæval writers. The dogged persistence shown by Magelhaens in carrying out his idea, which turned out to be a perfectly justifiable one, raises him from this point of view to a greater height than Columbus, whose month's voyage brought him exactly where he thought he would find land according to Toscanelli's map. After Magelhaens, as will be seen, the whole coast lines of the world were roughly known, except for the Arctic Circle and for Australia.