THE CAPE HORN ROAD (Continued from page 11.)
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trading with native Americans at Rio, where a city famous for such entertainments was to be founded in coming years. Magellan was convinced, like other European navigators, that a way had to exist through the continent to the ocean Balboa had seen far to the north. When the fleet reached the River Plate, he had his ships' boats row upriver till they encountered fresh water, showing that this was not a passage to the ocean. It was 2 February 1520 when Magellan quitted the Plate, and he pressed on down the coast of Patagonia, anxious to find hi s strait before the Antarctic winter set in , in a few months' time. Here the weather worsened, and the fleet rode out heavy ga les, the notorious pamperos which gather strength over the inland plains and rush out to sea with unparalleled ferocity. No mere squalls , these violent blows could last for days . The battered fleet sought shelter at the end of March in Port Saint Julian to recuperate and await a turn in the savage weather. At this point deputations from all five ships called on Magell an to give up the southward push and return to Spain. He managed to reassure them. But soon after this , on 2 April , the officers of three ships mutinied, refusing to serve under Magellan unless he led them back to Spain. Juan Sebastian de Elcano, who was ultimately to follow Magellan 's plan and sail the surviving ship Victoria home around the world, supported the mutiny on the grounds that Magellan had refused to consult hi s "co-commander" Cartagena. Magellan sent his menat-arms to the Victoria to bring her Captain Mendoza to order, and to kill him ifhe refused. The captain tossed aside Magellan 's written order, and died laughing as the message bearer cut his throat. By a remarkable success ion of stratagems , culminating in Magellan firing a broadside into the Concepcion and then leading a boarding party to take the ship by storm , he regained control of the fleet. Cartagena aboard the San Antonio, ringleader of the plot, surrendered without a fi ght. Magellan clearly had the ships' crews on hi s side, despite their deputation of two days earlier begging him to return to Spain-which of course was the mutinous officers' demand. Magellan treated these gentlemen with leniency. After formal court martial , Quesada of the Concepcion was hanged on a gibbet erected ashore, alongside the body of Mendoza, and the rest of the proud mutineers were put to hard labor, Cartagena alone being excused from this , due to hi s exalted rank. These sombre events opened what turned out to be a fivemonths' stay in the narrow, barren dog hole of Port St. Julian. The men built barracks ashore while catching fi sh and hunting game to make up for a drastic shortage of provisions, which was discovered while cleaning out (or " rummaging") the seaworn ships. The chandlers of Seville had short-changed them , so they now had food for only six months instead of the year and a half Magellan had counted on-grim news for hungry sailors far from any port! At first they met no one in this lonely quarter, but then , after two month s, a band of friendly natives showed up. These were of a race of very tall people, fast runners who lived by hunting the guanacos, or southern llamas, that coursed the endless plain ashore. Magellan attempted to abduct two of these Patagonians ("Big Feet"), as the Spanish named them, but one managed to break free to warn the others, who easily-men, women and children-outran the pursuing Spaniards, and after this they were seen no more. Cartagena, persisting in his plots, was left ashore with a priest he had suborned , crying to be taken off as the fl eet at last departed , in August, to put in at a bay farther south along the shore. Finally, with the coming of dece nt weather, they set sail SEA HISTORY 79, AUTUMN 1996
again and on 21 October 1520 they rai sed Cape Virgins, behind which lies the Strait of Magellan. Typically, on ly Magellan be lieved that they had found the passage to the Pacific Ocean, at last. The men protested that the strait might be a blind alley, with no ex it on the far side; but Magellan sa id he ' d seen a map which showed a through passage (indeed, several such maps were in ex istence). Hi s unshakable reso lution had brought them thi s far in reasonable shape, with only the caravel Santiago mi ss ing-gone ashore in a blow after leaving Port St. Julian-and everyone understood that they were not stopping now. Everyone, that is, except the pil ot of the San Antonio; he got the crew on hi s side and sailed back to Spain-not bothering to stop off to pick up the marooned Cartagena and hi s priest as he hi gh-tailed itfor home. Magellan wasted some time looking for the missing ship until he realized what had happened , and at last broke out into the Pacific on 2lNovember1520, having taken just over a month to traverse the winding 334-mile length of the strait that ever since has been called, how ri ghtl y, the Strait of Magellan. The worst of the voyage lay ahead, however. The Pacific was much wider than Magell an supposed, and as weeks and then months passed without sight of land , scurvy broke out on the three surviving ships as they pursued their way with fa ir winds but nothing to eat. Two months out they passed barren atolls in the Tuamotu Island s, miss ing the Marquesas to the north and Tahiti to the south . It was 98 days before they reached Guam , on 6 March 152 1, by which time the starving peopl e had eaten the ships' rats and were boiling leather chafing gear from the yards to eat. "I truly believe," says Pigafetta fervently , " that no such voyage will ever again be made." In Guam there was food and refreshment for the gaunt, di seased crews. But new and ultimately more dangerous problems arose in relation s with the native peopl es they encountered. The Chamorros of Guam stole from the ships until Mage llan ordered a few of them shot-and then he had to attack the ir village to get the food he needed. Sailing on to Cebu in the Philippines, Magell an made fri ends of the more sophi sticated Filipinos, and after the ceremonial exchange of presents he entered into a military pact to help subdue a rebellious chieftain on the ne ighboring island of Mactanalthough, as Morison observes , the newly bapti zed, pleas ureloving sultan of Cebu showed no enthusiasm for the battle. In an ill -planned assault on 27 April 1521 , with only a handful of men and no artillery support from the ships, Magellan was killed. Pigafetta, seriously wounded in the fi ght on the beach, was desolated; writing of the loss he calls Magell an "our mirror, light, comfort and true guide." Things turned sour thereafter, and Magellan 's loya l captain Se1Tano was killed by natives who believed the Spanish were about to turn on them-as though they were wild dogs willing to bite anyone. And indeed, war dogs the remaining captains soon showed themse lves to be, bashing the ir way through the South China Sea, capturing peaceful Chinese and Malay trading vessels, slaughtering their crews and grabb ing gold and spices, until ultimately the Portuguese caught up with the intruders; aside from the crew of the Victoria , whi ch slipped away under Elcano 's command , only fi ve men ever made their way home to Spain. The Victoria moored in Seville on 8 September 1522 with 18 survivors , including Pi gafetta. The scribe had seen the world; he vowed to return to Yi cenza "forever. " .t For further reading, see "Book Locker, " page 42. 33