The expedition moved down its western way, over the track of Columbus. It had left poor Ruy Faleiro behind – he who had seen the progress of it all in the fitful light of a disordered vision. He had not relinquished his own high aims. He hoped to follow Magellan with an expedition of his own.

The ships were furnished with "castles," fore and aft; they carried gay pennons and were richly stored. The artillery comprised sixty-two culverins and smaller ordnance. Five thousand or more pounds of powder were shut up in the magazines, and a large provision was made for trading with the natives – looking glasses for women, velvets, knives, and ivory ornaments, and twenty thousand bells.

Magellan's ship bore a lantern, swung high in the air amid the thickly corded rigging, which the other ships were to keep in view in the night. What a history had this lantern! It gleamed out on the night track of a new world, a pillar of fire that encompassed the earth as in the orbit of a star.

The fleet had fifteen days of good weather and passed Cape Verde Islands, running along the African coast.

But the fleet carried with it disloyal hearts. The Portuguese prejudice against Magellan sailed with it. The Spanish sailors distrusted the loyalty of Magellan to Spain.

The commander was a man of great heart, chivalrous, and noble, but he could be firm when there arose an occasion for it.

After leaving Teneriffe Magellan altered his course.

Juan de Carthagena, captain of the San Antonio, "the inspector" and a spy, demanded of Magellan why he had done so.

"Sir," said Magellan, "you are to follow my flag by day and my lantern by night, and to ask me no further questions."

Carthagena demanded that Magellan should report his plans to him. Finding that the Admiral was bent on conducting his own expedition, he began to act sullenly, and to disobey orders.

Again the captain of the San Antonio demanded of Magellan that he should communicate his orders in regard to the course of steerage to him. He did this by virtue of his office as inspector. He showed a very haughty and disloyal spirit, and if this were not to be checked, the success of the expedition would be imperilled. He was abetted by Pedro Sanches, a priest. Magellan saw treason already brewing, and he determined to stamp it out at once.

He went to Carthagena, and laid his hands on him.

"Captain, you are my prisoner."

The astonished captain cried out to his men:

"Unhand me – seize Magellan!"

Carthagena had been a priest, and he had great personal influence, but the men did not obey him.

"Lead him to the stocks and secure him there," ordered Magellan.

The order was obeyed. The fallen inspector was committed to the charge of the Captain of the Victoria, and another officer was given charge of the San Antonio.

"When we reach land Juan de Carthagena shall be marooned," was the sentence imposed upon the inspector. A like sentence was imposed upon Sanches.

It touched the hearts of the crews to hear this sentence. What would become of the two priests, were it to be executed? Would they fall prey to the natives, or perhaps win the hearts of the people and be made chiefs among them?

There was a pilot on board the ship who sympathized with the mutineers, but who had close lips, Esteban Gormez, of whom we have spoken. Were the two mutineers to be marooned he would be glad to rescue them.

He had been discontented since the day that his own plans for an expedition had been superseded by those of Magellan.

His discontentment had grown. He became critical as the fleet sailed on. Every day reminded him of what he might have done, if he could have only secured the opportunity.

A disloyal heart in any enterprise is a very perilous influence. A wooden horse in Troy is more dangerous than an army outside.

Magellan in Gormez had a subtle foe, and that foe was his own countryman.

This man probably could not brook to see his rival add the domains of the sea to the crowns of Juana and of Charles, though he himself had sought to do the same thing. Magnanimous he could not be. Discovery for the sake of discovery had little meaning for him, but only discovery for his own advancement and glory.

He became jealous of Mesquita, Magellan's cousin, now master of the Antonio, who is thought to have advised severe measures to suppress conspiracy.

Night after night he sat down under the moon and stars, and brooded over his fancied neglect, and dreamed. Night after night the ships followed the lantern of Magellan, and the wonders of the sea grew; but to him it were better that no discoveries should be made than that such achievements were to go to the glory of Spain through the pilotage of Magellan.

Discontent grows; jealousy grows as one broods over fancied wrongs, and sees the prospects of a rival's success. So it was with Gormez. In his heart he did not wish the expedition to succeed. He was ambitious to lead such an enterprise himself, which he also did, at last, sailing along Massachusetts Bay and giving it its first name.

When Gormez had heard that the two disloyal men were to be marooned, his feelings rose against Magellan. That they deserved their sentence he well knew, but they were opposed to Magellan, as was his own heart. He would have been glad to have saved them from the execution of their sentence, but he did not know how to do it.

"I will rescue them if ever I can," he thought. "This expedition is not for the glory of Portugal."

The ships sailed on, bearing the two conspirators to some place where they could be marooned.

Let us turn from this dark scene to one of a more hopeful spirit.

One day, as we may picture the scene, the sea lay unruffled like a mirror. The ships drifted near each other, and night came on after a sudden twilight, and the stars seemed like liquid lights shot forth or let down from some ethereal fountain. The Southern Cross shone so clearly as to uplift the eyes of the sailors. The ships were becalmed.

Boats began to ply between the ships, and the officers of the Trinity, Santiago, Victoria, and Concepcion assembled under the awning of the San Antonio, Mesquita's ship, of one hundred and twenty tons.

Mesquita, as we have said, was a cousin of Magellan, and so the Antonio seemed a friendly ship.

Magellan sat down by his cousin. The lantern was going out; its force was spent.

"We must get a new kind of lantern," said Magellan to his cousin, "and a code of signal lights. We need a lantern that is something more steady and durable than a faggot of wood."

"I have here a new farol," he continued, the men listening with intent ears. "Here it is, and I wonder, my sailors, how far your eyes will follow it."

"All loyal hearts will follow it," said Mesquita, "wherever it may go."

Gormez frowned. His heart was bitter.

There rose up an officer named Del Cano, and stood hat in hand. All eyes were fixed upon him.

"May it please you, Admiral," he said, "to receive a word from me. I will follow the new farol wherever it may lead me. I have ceased to count my own life in this cause."

Gormez frowned again.

"Del Cano," said the Admiral, "I believe in you. You have a true heart. If I should fall see that this farol goes back to Spain!"

Del Cano bowed.

Magellan showed the new lantern to the officers. It was made of beaten reeds that had been soaked in water, and dried in the sun. It would hold light long, and carry it strongly and steadily.

"All the ships must have these new farols," said he, "and I must teach you how to signal by them."

He stood up. The moon was rising, and the dusky, purple air became luminous.

He held the farol in his hand.

"Two lights," he said, "shall mean for the ship to tack.

"Three lights that the sails shall be lowered. Four, that they shall stop.

"Five lights, or more, that we have discovered land, when the flagship shall discharge a bombard. Follow my lantern always; you can trust it wherever it may fare. My farol shall be my star!"

The men sat there long. There sprung up a breeze at last, and the sea began to ripple in the moon.

Most expeditions that have made successful achievements have carried men of great hope. Such a man was Del Cano. He was loyal to the heart of Magellan; and happy is any leader who has such a companion, whose steel rings true.

Magellan hung out the farol. The sails were spread, and the fleet passed on over the solitary ocean.

Whither?

CHAPTER VIII
"THE WONDERS OF NEW LANDS." – PIGAFETTA'S TALES OF HIS ADVENTURES WITH MAGELLAN. – THE STORY OF "THE FOUNTAIN TREE." – "ST. ELMO'S FIRE."

The ships moved on, bearing the hopeful Del Cano, the frowning Gormez, the two prisoners, and the happy Italian Pigafetta.

Our next chapters will be a series of wonder tales which reveal the South Temperate Zone and its inhabitants as they appeared to the young and susceptible Italian, Pigafetta, nearly four hundred years ago.

Pigafetta, as we have shown, desired to accompany Magellan that he might "see the wonders of the new lands." He saw them indeed, and he painted them with his pen so vividly that they will always live. We get our first views of the strange inhabitants of the Southern regions of the New World from him. We are to follow his narratives, as printed for the Hakluyt Society, London, making some omissions, and changing its form in part, hoping thereby to render the text more clear. We closely follow the spirit of events. Pigafetta addresses his narrative "To the very illustrious and very excellent Lord Philip de Villiers Lisleaden, Grand Master of Rhodes," of whom we have spoken.

He says, by way of introduction:

"Finding myself in Spain in the year of the nativity of our Lord, 1519, at the court of the most serene King of the Romans (Charles V), and learning there of the great and awful things of the ocean world, I desired to make a voyage to unknown seas, and to see with my own eyes some of the wonderful things of which I had heard.

"I heard that there was in the city of Seville an armada (armade) of five ships, which were ready to perform a long voyage in order to find the shortest way to the Islands of Moluco (Molucca) from whence came the spices. The Captain General of this armada was Ferdinand de Magagleanes (Magellan), a Portuguese gentleman, who had made several voyages on the ocean. He was an honorable man. So I set out from Barcelona, where the Emperor was, and traveled by land to the said city of Seville, and secured a place in the expedition.

"The Captain General published ordinances for the guidance of the voyage.

"He willed that the vessel on which he himself was should go before the other vessels, and that the others should keep in sight of it. Therefore he hung by night over the deck a torch or faggot of burning wood which he called a farol (lantern), which burned all night, so that the ships might not lose sight of his own.

"He arranged to set other lights as signals in the night. When he wished to make a tack on account of a change of weather he set two lights. Three lights signified "faster." Four lights signified to stop and turn. When he discovered a rock or land, it was to be signalled by other lights.

"He ordered that three watches should be kept at night.

"On Monday, St. Lawrence Day, August 10th, the five ships with the crews to the number of two hundred and thirty-seven⁴ set sail from the noble city of Seville, amid the firing of artillery and came to the end of the river Guadalcavir (Guadalquivir). We stopped near the Cape St. Vinconet to make further provisions for the voyage.

"We went to hear mass on shore. There the Captain commanded that all the men should confess before going any further.

"On Tuesday, September 20th, we set sail from St. Lucar.

"We came to Canaria (Canaries)."

This account repeats in a different way a part of the facts we have given.

Here the young Italian relates his first story, which is substantially as follows:

THE FOUNTAIN TREE

"Among the isles of the Canaria there is one which is very wonderful. There is not to be found a single drop of water which flows from any fountain or river.

"But in this rainless land at the hour of midday, every day, there descends a cloud from the sky which envelops a large tree which grows on this island.

"The cloud falls upon the leaves of the tree, when a great abundance of water distills from the leaves. The tree flows, and soon at the foot of it there gathers a fountain.

"The people of the island come to drink of the water. The animals and the birds refresh themselves there."

The story is true so far as relates to the fountain tree. But that a cloud comes down from Heaven at midday to refresh it, is not an exact statement of the manner in which this tree furnishes water to the sterile island. The young Italian writer describes the tree as he saw it, and as it seemed to be. The tree that supplies water as from a natural fountain may still be found.

With such a tree to begin his researches on the sea, Pigafetta must have been impatient to proceed along the marvelous ocean way. All the world was to him as he saw it; he seldom stopped to inquire if appearances were true.

With men like Del Cano on board, who had ears for a marvelous story, his life in the early part of the voyage must have been a very happy one. Wonder followed wonder…

"Monday, the 3d of October," says the interesting Italian, "we set sail making the course auster, which the Levantine mariners call siroc (southeast) entering into the ocean sea. We passed Cape Verde and navigated by the coast of Guinea of Ethiopia, where there is a mountain called Sierra Leona. A rain fell, and the storm lasted sixty days."

They came to waters full of sharks, which had terrible teeth, and which ate all the people whom they found in the sea, alive or dead. These were caught by a hook of iron.

ST. ELMO'S FIRE

Here good St. Anseline met the ships; in the fancy of the mariners of the time, this airy saint appeared to favored ships in the night, and fair weather always followed the saintly apparition. He came in a robe of fire, and stood and shone on the top of the high masts or on the spars. The sailors hailed him with joy, as one sent from Heaven. Happy was the ship on the tropic sea upon whose rigging the form of good St. Anseline appeared in the night, and especially in the night of cloud and storm!

To the joy of all the ships good St. Anseline came down one night to the fleet of Magellan. The poetical Italian tells the story in this way:

"During these storms, the body of St. Anseline appeared to us several times.

"One night among others he came when it was very dark on account of bad weather. He came in the form of a fire lighted at the summit of the main mast, and remained there near two hours and a half.

"This comforted us greatly, for we were in tears, looking for the hour when we should perish.

"When the holy light was going away from us it shed forth so great a brilliancy in our eyes that we were like people blinded for near a quarter of an hour. We called out for mercy.

"Nobody expected to escape from the storm.

"It is to be noted that all and as many times as the light which represents St. Anseline shows itself upon a vessel which is in a storm at sea, that vessel never is lost.

"As soon as this light had departed the sea grew calmer and the wings of divers kinds of birds appeared."

Beneficent St. Anseline who manifested his presence by illuminations in the mast and spars in equatorial waters! The beautiful illusion has long been explained and dispelled. It is but an electric fire at the end of atmospheric disturbances. But it is usually a correct prophecy of fair skies and smooth seas. It is now called St. Elmo's Fire.

If ever there was an expedition that the saint of the mariners might favor it would seem to be this.

One can almost envy the pious Italian his imagination in the clearing tropic night.

His next wonders were the sea birds, of which there were flocks and clouds, and with them appeared flying fish.

The ships were now off the coasts of Brazil and stopped at Verzim.

The people of the Brazilian Verzim were accustomed to paint themselves "by fire." We do not clearly understand how this painting "by fire" was done. The art of scorching has perished with them. But besides these indelible marks, the men had three holes in their lower lips, and hung in them, after the manner of earrings, small round ornamental stones, about a finger in length. The men did not shave, for they plucked out their beard.

Their only clothing was a circle of parrot feathers. How terribly gay they must have looked! And yet such customs were hardly more ridiculous than those of later times, and more civilized countries – earrings, beauty patches, plume, and snuffboxes.

It was the land of parrots. The most beautiful and intelligent parrots still come from Brazil. Columbus saw parrots in "clouds" over the islands of the Antilles.

Parrots were not expensive in these equatorial forests at this time. "The natives," says Pigafetta, "give eight or ten parrots for a looking glass," and as a looking glass would multiply the picture of parrots indefinitely the Verzimans must have thought the exchange a marvelous bargain.

If Brazilian parrots were cheap and so charming as likely to become an embarrassment of riches, so were the little cat monkeys which delighted the men. These little creatures, which looked like miniature lions, still delight the visitors to the coast of Brazil, but they shiver up when brought to the northern atmospheres and piteously cry for the home lands of the sun again.

Very curious birds began to excite the surprise of the voyagers, among such as had a "beak like a spoon," and "no tongue."

The markets of the new land displayed another commodity far more surprising than birds or animals, young slaves, which were offered for sale by their own families. So a family who had many children was rich. It cost a hatchet to buy one of these, and for a hatchet and a knife one might buy two.

The people made bread of the "marrow of trees," and carried victuals in baskets on their heads.

Masses were said for the crews on shore, and the natives knelt down with the men.

The people were so pleased with their visitors that they built a common house for them.

A pleasing illusion had made the sailors most welcome here.

It had not rained in Verzim for two months when the expedition landed. The people were looking to the heavens for mercy day by day. But the copper sun rose as often in a clear sky.

At last Magellan's sails appeared in the burning air. The sight of the sails was followed by that of clouds.

The people thought that the fleet had brought the clouds with them.

"They come from Heaven," said they of the adventurers.

So when they were exhorted to accept Christianity, they at once fell down before the uplifted crosses and believed the teachings of the sea heroes who could command the clouds and bring rain to the parched land.

They thought the ships were gods and the small boats the children of such beings, and when the latter approached the ships they imagined that they were children come home to their fathers or mothers.

The ships remained in this delightful country of Verzim thirteen weeks. Pigafetta and Del Cano must have thought that life here was ideal. What scenes would follow?

CHAPTER IX
PINEAPPLES, POTATOES, VERY OLD PEOPLE

Other things were there on the wonderful Brazilian coast. There the mariners traded in them and were refreshed with a delicious fruit, called pique – pineapples.

They came to the knowledge here of a nutritious ground fruit called battate. "This," says our Italian, "has the taste of a chestnut and is the length of a shuttle." These ground fruits were potatoes.

The people here seem to have been very liberal in trading.

They would give six fowls for a knife – well they might do so, as they used stone implements.

They gave two geese for a comb – here they were both generous and wise.

They gave as great a quantity of fish as ten men could eat for a pair of scissors.

And for a bell, they gave a whole basket full of potatoes (battate).

Marvelous indeed as was this same country of Verzim, it also abounded in the conditions and atmospheres of long life.

"Some of these people," says our Italian chronicler, "live to be a hundred or a hundred and twenty, or a hundred and forty or more. They wear little clothing."

Which speaks well for pineapples, potatoes, and easy dress.

"They sleep on cotton nets, which are fastened on large timbers, and stretch from one end of the house to another."

It is good to sleep in ample ventilation. We do not wonder that many of the people passed a hundred years.

The boats of these people were as simple as their open houses.

"These are not made with iron instruments, for there are none, but with stones."

The canoes were dug out of one long tree – some giant growth of the forest which would convey from thirty to forty men. The paddles for these canoes resembled shovels. The rowers were usually black men.

The people ate human flesh, but only at feasts of triumph. They then served up their enemies.

Pigafetta draws the following grewsome picture:

"They do not eat up the whole body of a man whom they take prisoner; they eat him bit by bit, and for fear that he should be spoiled, they cut him up into pieces, which they set to dry before the chimney. They eat this day by day, so as to keep in mind the memory of their enemy."

This was indeed the sweet food of revenge, and as barbarous as it seems, the spirit of revenge secretly cherished is hardly less unworthy when it finds expression in words that are bitter, if not carnal.

The region abounded with bright birds, yet with all these delights, and pineapples and potatoes, there fell great rains. So there were shadows in the sunlands.

We can fancy Pigafetta relating his discoveries on the shore to a susceptible spirit, like Del Cano, and writing an account of them day by day in his immortal journal.

These strange adventures by sea and on land which so greatly interested the Italian Knight Pigafetta, our historian, do not seem to have greatly impressed the mind of Magellan. The lands had been sighted before. His whole soul was bent on one purpose – not on rediscovery, but on discovery. He was sailing now where other keels had been. It was his purpose to find new ways for the world to follow over unknown seas. His heart could find no full satisfaction but in water courses that sails had never swept; a new way to the Moluccas that no ship had ever broken.

Notwithstanding the friendly spirit and liberal patronage of the Emperor, he still stood against the world. He represented a cast-out name. His own countrymen, on his own ships in the long delays on the voyage to unknown seas, were plotting against him.

Let us recall in fancy a night scene as the ships lay on the waters of the meridional world. Magellan sits alone in one of the castles of the ship and looks out on the phosphorescent sea. The stars above him shine in a clear splendor, and are reflected in the sea. The sky seems to be in the waters; the waters are a mirror of the sky. Among the clear stars the Southern Cross, always vivid, here rises high. Magellan lifts to it his eye, and feels the religious inspiration of the suggestion. He is a son of the Church, and he holds that all discoveries are to be made for the glory of the Cross.

On the distant shores palms rise in armies in the dusky air. The shores are silent. When arose the tall people that inhabited them?

Magellan dreams: he wonders at himself, at his inward commission; at his cast-out name and great opportunity.

One of his trusty friends comes to him; he is a Spaniard and his disquieting words break the serenity of the scene.

"Captain General, it hurts my soul to say it, but there is disloyalty on the ships – it is everywhere."

"I seem to feel the atmospheres of it," said Magellan. "Why should it be? The sea and the sky promise us success. Who are disloyal?"

"Captain General, they are your own countrymen!"

"And why do they plot treason under the Cross of discovery?"

"Captain General, if the ocean open new ways before you, and you should achieve all of which you dream, they will have little share in the glory; you are facing stormy waters and perils unknown, not for Portugal, but for Spain."

"Not for Spain alone, nor for Portugal, but for the glory of the Cross, and the good of all the world. A divine will leads me, and sustains me, and directs me. I am not seeking gold or fame or any personal advantage; my soul goes forth to reveal the wonders and the benevolence of Providence to the heart of the whole world. I go alone, and feel the loneliness of my lot. I left all that I had to make this expedition. It is my purpose to discover unknown seas. Joy, rapture, and recompense would come to me, beyond wealth or fame, could my eyes be the first to see a new ocean world, and to carry back the knowledge of it to all nations. What happiness would it be to me to ride on uncharted tides! My friend, you are loyal to me?"

"Captain General, I am loyal, and the Spanish sailors are loyal; it is your own men who plot in dark corners to bring your plans to naught."

In the shadow of one of the tall castles of another ship sit a band of idle men. They are Portuguese.

One of them, who seems to lead the minds of the others, is whittling, and after a long silence says:

"We do not know where we are going, and wherever we are going, we are Portuguese and are slaves to Spain."

"Ay, ay," returned an old Portuguese sailor, "and when we go back again, should that ever be, the profit to us will be little at the India House."

"Right," answered a number of voices, and one ventured to say:

"Magellan, after all, may be mad, like his old companion, the astronomer. Both came from the same place in Portugal."

Some of the officers had schemes of their own.

But the ships crept on and on, along the Brazilian coast, where the flag of Spain and the farol guided them in the track of the Admiral they followed. Night after night the lantern of the flagship gleamed in the air, moving toward cooler waters under the Southern Cross.

And in Magellan's heart was a single purpose, and he anticipated the joy of a great discovery, as a revelation that would answer the prophetic light that shone like a star in his own spiritual vision. On, and on!

4. The number was larger, about 270.