Then came the longest trip of all. A Portuguese named Magellan wanted to find a way to India through the New World, for he thought there must be some opening through which he might pass this new land that blocked the way. He tried to get his own country to help him. But again Portugal made the same mistake she had made in the case of Columbus. She would not listen to Magellan. So Magellan went to Spain, and Spain gave him five ships.
With these five ships Magellan sailed off across the sea. When he reached South America he sailed south along the shore trying to find a passage through the land. One place after another seemed to be the passage for which he was looking, but each one turned out to be nothing but a river’s mouth. Then one of his ships was wrecked, and only four were left.
With these four ships he still kept on down the coast until he finally reached what is now Cape Horn. Through the dangerous opening there, since called after him the Straits of Magellan, he worked his way. One ship deserted and went back home the way it had come. Only three were then left.
With these three ships he at last came into the great ocean on the other side, the same ocean that Balboa had called the South Sea. This Magellan named the “Pacific,” which means “calm,” because after all the storms they had had it seemed so calm and quiet. But food and water became scarce and finally gave out. Magellan’s men suffered terribly from thirst and hunger and even ate the rats that are always to be found on shipboard. Many of his men were taken sick and died. Still he kept on, though he had lost most of the crew with which he had set out. At last he reached what are now the Philippine Islands, where the people were savages. Here he and his men got into a battle with the natives, and Magellan was killed. There were now not enough men left to sail three ships, and so one of these was burned, and only two were then left.
Magellan’s Victoria.
(From an old print.)
Two of the ships, however, out of the five with which Magellan had started out, still kept on. Then one of these was lost, disappeared, and was never heard of again, and only a single ship named the Victoria, remained. It seemed as if not one ship, not one man, would be left to tell the tale.
Around Africa the Victoria struggled. Magellan’s men, worn out with hunger and cold and hardships, still battled against wind and storm. At last a leaky and broken ship with only eighteen men sailed into the harbor from which it had set out more than three years before. And so the Victoria—Victory!—Magellan’s ship, but without the heroic Magellan—was the first ship to sail completely round the world. This voyage settled forever the argument that had been going on for ages, whether the earth was round or flat, for a ship had actually sailed around the world! And yet in spite of this proof for many more years thereafter there were people who still would not believe the world was round, and even to-day there are people who say the world is flat, but now we call them cranks.
