Over the Edge of the World: Magellen's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe

by Laurence Bergreen

  Gines de Mafra recalled that first encounter with the Indians of the region quite differently. In de Mafra’s unsentimental account, no friendly giant danced on the shore and pointed heavenward, no religious conversion occurred, and no banquet for the Indians took place aboard the flagship.

  After two months in Port Saint Julian, he wrote, “One night the night watchman said there were fires on shore.” On hearing the news, Magellan sent a party ashore to find them and, if they were fortunate, a new source of food beyond their steady diet of salted sea elephant and shellfish. He forbade his men to harm the Indians, if they found any. When the men reached the fires, de Mafra recalled, they “found a hut that was like the small lean-to of a wine grower, covered with animal skins. Our men surrounded the lean-to so carefully that none of the seven people inside left.” The Europeans saw that the lean-to was divided into two sections, one for men, the other for women and children. Just outside the lean-to were “five sheep of a very good size and shape never seen before.” These were guanacos. The landing party camped near the lean-to, the sailors shivering under the borrowed skins and maintaining a vigil over the Indians in case they attacked in the dead of night, but the precaution was unnecessary because the Indians slept deeply and snored loudly until the morning.

  The next day, the Europeans feasted on tough, stringy, and relatively tasteless guanaco meat with the Indians. Only drink was missing; the thirsty sailors craved wine, or even water, to chase the sinewy guanaco meat.

  When the landing party returned to the flagship and told Magellan of their find, the Captain General sent them back ashore with orders to return with an Indian, but the crew members found the huts deserted, apparently on short notice. “Our men spotted the tracks in the abundant snows and followed them,” said de Mafra. “It was late when they found them in another hut erected in a different valley.” The Indians fled, the Europeans gave chase, and a skirmish ensued. “Our men tried to capture them, and when they rushed at them, the Indians wounded a certain Barassa”—an apprentice seaman aboard Victoria— “in his groin, as a result of which he later died. The Indians escaped, and our men could do nothing to prevent them.”

  The crew members spent the night ashore, “Where they made a fire and roasted some of the meat that they had taken and drank melted snow from bowls, and with no protection other than their spears, they passed the night, even though it was very cold.” In the morning, they broke camp and returned to the waiting ships, where they made their report. Magellan “ordered thirty men to go ashore and kill whomever they found to avenge for the dead one, and since the first men had not buried him, to bury him.” As ordered, the war party went ashore and buried their fallen comrade, but they failed to find “anybody on whom to avenge their anger and rage.” After a fruitless search lasting eight days, they returned to the ships, exhausted and frustrated.

  Joyner (p. 150) describes the plight of Cartagena and Pero Sanchez de la Reina, as does Morison (p. 375).

  C H A P T E R V I I: D R A G O N ’ S T A I L

  The original details concerning the eclipse most likely came from the fleet’s astronomer, San Martin, whose records are described by Guillemard (p. 187). He draws on Herrera, who had access to the actual papers, which are lost.

  Gallego’s remarks are from the Leiden Narrative, translated by the indefatigable Morison (p. 12) and Albo’s entry about the strait appears in Stanley (pp. 218–219). The “later explorer” is quoted by Morison (p. 380). For an analysis of Pigafetta’s use of the word carta, see Morison (p. 382), and for early misconceptions of the strait, see Parry, The Discovery of the Sea (p. 248) and Morison (pp. 382–383). Guillemard cites “terra ulterior incog.” on p. 192.

  Although Magellan staked the success of the expedition on navigating the strait, he reluctantly revealed that he had an alternate plan. “Had we not discovered the Strait,” Pigafetta informs us, “the Captain General had determined to go as far as seventy-five degrees toward the Atlantic Pole. There in that latitude, during the summer season, there is no night, or if there is any night it is but short, and so in the winter with the day.”

  Albo is quoted in Stanley (p. 219), and Francis Pretty in Charles William Eliot, ed., Voyages and Travels. Other descriptions of the strait are drawn from Morison (pp. 390–391), Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle (pp. 196–197, 203), and Herrera (chap. 14). Parr (pp. 317–318) relates a dramatic encounter between “a half dozen naked Indians” paddling a canoe and Magellan’s fleet. But none of the diarists mention it (Pigafetta, fascinated by indigenous tribes, surely would have); nor do other historians. In the absence of sources, this incident lacks a basis in fact.

  Magellan’s desire to persist in the voyage is related by Denuce (p. 288) and by Herrera (chap. 15). Joyner (p. 276) discusses Gomes’s resentment. Denuce (pp. 287–288) provides details concerning the supposed placement of papers in the strait. Herrera says the mutineers killed Mesquita, but as numerous other accounts demonstrate, that was not the case.

  Magellan’s and San Martin’s important missives appear in Joao de Barros’s Da Asia: Decada Terceira, translated for this book by Victor Ubeda. See also Stanley (pp. 177–178). Barros retrieved the documents from the papers of San Martin, later seized by the Portuguese. In Barros’s words, “We do not deem it unfitting to include here the contents of such orders, as well as San Martin’s reply, so that it can be seen, not by our words, but by their own, the condition in which they found themselves, and also Magellan’s purpose with regard to the route that he planned to follow in case the way he wished to find should fail him.”

  Pigafetta and Albo disagree on the precise date the armada sailed from the western mouth of the strait. Pigafetta gives the date as November 28, and Albo the twenty-sixth. The discrepancy could be explained in various ways; for example, Pigafetta and Albo could have selected different landmarks to mark the strait’s end. See Morison (pp. 400–401).

  C H A P T E R V I I I: A R A C E A G A I N S T D E A T H

  For more on Setebos in the English literary tradition, see Robert Browning’s long poem “Caliban upon Setebos or, Natural Theology in the Island” (1864), a philosophical rumination by Caliban on his plight.

  Magellan’s failure to make a landfall in the Pacific before Guam has long prompted questions. One school of thought holds that he was actually farther north than his chroniclers indicated, and distant from all islands. Although all the eyewitnesses—Albo, Pigafetta, and de Mafra—agree that the armada headed west into the Pacific at the approximate latitude of Valparaiso, Chile, others have suggested that the diarists falsified their accounts to conceal the true location of the Spice Islands, in case they were found in the Portuguese part of the world rather than the Spanish. The assumption makes little sense because they wrote their accounts for different purposes; Pigafetta wrote to glorify Magellan and ingratiate himself with European nobility, Albo to keep track of their whereabouts, and de Mafra dictated his account years later, when the location of the Spice Islands was no longer controversial.

  Information on little San Pablo is drawn from Samuel Eliot Morison’s unpublished Life article (February 24, 1972).

  C H A P T E R I X: A V A N I S H E D E M P I R E

  Much of the information in this chapter is drawn directly from Pigafetta’s account, which eloquently describes the armada’s Pacific passage.

  For an extended and valuable discussion of Magellan’s first landfall in the Pacific, see Robert F. Rogers and Dirk Anthony Ballendorf, “Magellan’s Landfall in the Mariana Islands,” in the Journal of Pacific History (vol. 24, October 1989). The authors re-created the landfall to be precise about the fleet’s movements; however, alterations wrought by erosion can compromise the value of such exercises. Also worth consulting is Rogers’s book Destiny’s Landfall for details of Chamorran culture. Guillemard (p. 226) and Joyner (p. 269) discuss Master Andrew.

  For a fascinating account of island navigation systems in theory and practice, see Ben Finney, Voyage of Rediscovery, especially pp. 56–64.
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  Louise Levathes’s When China Ruled the Seas (1996) is the one reliable guide to the subject written in English. Also eminently worthwhile is Ma Huan’s diary of one expedition, The Overall Survey of the Ocean’s Shores (1433). Gavin Menzies’s recent book 1421 suggests that the Treasure Fleet reached the Caribbean and perhaps completed a circumnavigation one hundred years before Magellan. However, hard evidence to prove these tantalizing assertions is still lacking.

  As his candidate for the first person to complete a circumnavigation, Morison (p. 435) nominates Magellan’s slave Enrique. Morison argues that Magellan’s voyage brought Enrique back to his point of origin. Even if this assumption is correct, Enrique traveled around the world only because Magellan took him along.

  For a discussion of the armada’s weaponry, see Charles Boutell, Arms and Armour (p. 243) and Parr (p. 383). Roger Craig Smith’s 1989 thesis, Vanguard of Empire: 15th- and 16th-Century Iberian Ship Technology in the Age of Discovery: offers more specialized information on the subject. Also recommended are Courtlandt Canby’s A History of Weaponry (vol. 4) and John Hewitt’s Ancient Armour and Weapons in Europe (vol. 3), as well as The Penguin Encyclopedia of Weapons and Military Technology.

  Guillemard (p. 235) mentions the bats seen by the sailors. Albo’s description of Cebu comes from Navarrete (vol. 4, pp. 219–221).

  C H A P T E R X: T H E F I N A L B A T T L E

  Two very different facets of Pigafetta’s wide-ranging interests are on display in his account of Magellan’s visit to Cebu. As a former papal diplomat, he was duty-bound, but also genuinely moved, by the Captain General’s efforts to convert the Filipinos. In addition, Pigafetta is virtually the only source on the subject. See Robertson’s translation of Pigafetta (pp. 133–169) for more details of Magellan’s religious convictions.

  Pigafetta also dwells at length on palang, which fascinated him. The subject frequently appears in accounts of Pacific and Eastern cultures during the Age of Discovery, and even the Chinese sailors with the Treasure Fleet came across a variant of palang, and, like Magellan’s men, were both fascinated and appalled by the practice. In this instance, palang took the form of small sand-filled beads inserted into the scrotum, and when men who were thus adorned moved or walked, they made a faint noise, reminiscent of bells ringing. It was, said Ma Huan, “a most curious thing.”

  In his assessment of palang, Pigafetta was unusually tolerant, at least by European standards. Other European visitors wrote about palang in censorious tones. Andres Urdaneta, the capable Spanish navigator, visited the region several times, beginning in 1525, four years after the Armada de Molucca, and he left an account of palang in which the Indians of Borneo fasten a “few small round stones” to the penis with a leather sleeve, while others are pierced with “a tube of silver or tin . . . and on those tubes, they put thin sticks of silver or gold at the time they want to engage with women in coitus.” In practice, the bearer of palang often inserted a range of objects into the tube; pig’s bristles were employed, as were bamboo shavings, beads, and even shards of glass. Urdaneta was appalled, and missionaries in the Philippines preached against it.

  Antonio de Morga, a Spanish historian who wrote one of the first accounts of the Philippines, was also revolted by the practice, which he considered highly immoral, but he provided a detailed description of palang as practiced elsewhere in the Philippine archipelago. By the time Morga got around to describing palang, in 1609, it was clearly a practice on the way out, thanks to the strenuous efforts of the Catholic clergy to discourage it: “The natives . . . especially the women, are very vicious and sensual, and their wickedness has devised lewd ways of intercourse between men and women, one of which they practice from their youth onwards. The men skillfully make a hole near the head of the penis into which they insert a small serpent’s head of metal or ivory. Then they secure this by passing a small peg of the same material through the hole, so that it may not work loose. With this device they have intercourse with their wives and for long after the copulation they are unable to withdraw. They are so addicted to this, and find such pleasure in it, that although they shed a great deal of blood, and receive other injuries, it is a common practice among them. These devices are known as sagras, and there are very few of them left, because after they become Christians, care is taken to do away with such things and not permit their use.”

  For more on the subject, see Morison (p. 435). The two articles by Tom Harrison listed in the bibliography contain the quoted descriptions.

  Juan Gil, in his recent Mitos y Utopiás del Descubrimiento (1989), is one of the few commentators to consider the possibility that Magellan’s disaffected officers let the Mactanese slaughter him.

  Simon Winchester describes the reenactment of the battle between Magellan and Lapu Lapu in “After Dire Straits, an Agonizing Haul Across the Pacific,” Smithsonian (pp. 84–95).

  C H A P T E R X I: S H I P O F M U T I N E E R S

  In addition to Pigafetta and other accounts mentioned in the text, details concerning Enrique’s treachery are drawn from Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdez’s Historia General y Natural de las Indias (pp. 13ff ). Denuce (pp. 323–326) adds to the picture of the massacre’s aftermath. See also Morison (pp. 438–441) and Navarrete (vol. 4).

  Concerning San Antonio’s return to Spain, Guillemard (p. 215) remarks that Argensola, an early and occasionally inaccurate historian, states that Cartagena and the priest were rescued by San Antonio, but no records support this claim. Although Guillemard (p. 216) believes San Antonio ran low on food during the return journey, that was likely not the case, for she carried the entire fleet’s provisions. It is possible that those aboard San Antonio invented this story to gain sympathy. Skelton provides the date of the ship’s arrival (p.156).

  The official reports and orders concerning the mutiny of San Antonio and her paltry contents can be found in Licuanun and Mira, The Philippines Under Spain (pp. 17, 24–28, 43–44). See also Denuce (p. 293). Joyner (p. 159) says Mesquita had to pay for his trial-related costs.

  Roger Merriman offers much more on King Charles’s astonishing ascent to power in The Rise of the Spanish Empire (vol. 3, 1925).

  For accounts of daily life in sixteenth-century Seville, see Pike’s “Seville in the Sixteenth Century,” The Hispanic American Historical Review, vol. 41, no. 3, August 1961.

  C H A P T E R X I I: S U R V I V O R S

  Elcano’s ascent and the problems facing the Armada de Molucca after Magellan’s death are ably set forth in Mitchell. See especially pp. 42–48 and 63–64.

  Robertson’s translation of Pigafetta carries forward into vol. 2 at this point in the narrative.

  Morison’s description of Palawan appears on p. 442, and Albo’s exasperation while trying to reach Brunei can be found in Stanley (pp. 226–227).

  Jones’s 1928 translation of The Itinerary of Ludovico de Varthema of Bologna has been quoted. Varthema’s description of the Spice Islands (pp. 88–89) offers a fairly exact preview of scenes the armada later encountered. And for more on the Bajau, see Harry Nimmo’s The Sea People of Sulu (1972).

  Argensola’s description of the Moluccas comes from Stevens’s 1708 translation of The Discovery and Conquest of the Molucco and Philippine Islands (p. 7). The quotation of The Lusíads comes from Landeg White’s translation (p. 223).

  C H A P T E R X I I I: E T I N A R C A D I A E G O

  Barros’s harsh view of the inhabitants of the Spice Islands is cited in Charles Corn’s charming and evocative study, The Scents of Eden (p. 58), and in Andaya (p. 16). Given the reputation of the Spice Islands’ inhabitants, it is surprising that the armada treated them with as much civility as they did.

  Antonio Galvao’s useful and vivid description of the Spice Islands’ volcanoes and rainfall can be found in his Treatise on the Moluccas, tr. Hubert Jacobs (1971), and The Discoveries of the World, tr. Richard Hakluyt (1862, originally published in 1601). Barbosa’s descriptions of cloves and Almanzor’s family are drawn from his Descript
ion of the Coasts of East Africa and Malabar, tr. Henry E. J. Stanley, 1866 (pp. 201–202). Andaya discusses the primacy of oral over written agreements (p. 61).

  On the subject of Serrao’s curious odyssey in the Spice Islands, Guillemard offers several unsubstantiated theories. According to one scenario, he was “poisoned by a Malay woman who acted under Portuguese orders.” But Guillemard also cites Argensola’s assertion that Serrao was not poisoned at all; rather, he was sent back to India and he died aboard ship (p. 281).

  Anyone wanting to learn more about cloves should start by consulting Frederic Rosengarten’s Book of Spices (rev. ed., 1973), especially pp. 200–204. Much of the information about spices in this chapter is drawn from this comprehensive and entertaining reference work. Other useful works on the subject include Parry’s The Story of Spices (1953) and Larioux Bruno’s “Spices in the Medieval Diet: A New Approach,” Food and Foodways, vol. 1, no. 1, 1985. Also of interest is M. N. Pearson, ed., Spices in the Indian Ocean World (1996).

  C H A P T E R X I V: G H O S T S H I P

  It is still possible that syphilis in Timor—if that was what the sailors saw—originally came from Portugal, because the Portuguese went to China as early as 1513; the Chinese might then have carried it to Timor.

  Pigafetta’s elaborate account of China relies on stories he gathered in Indonesia from a well-traveled Arab merchant. Pigafetta sketched a convincing description of the emperor’s seat, Peking: “Near his palace are seven encircling walls, and in each of those circular places are stationed ten thousand men for the guard of the place [who remain there] until a bell rings, when ten thousand other men come for each circular space. They are changed in this manner each day and night. Each circle of the wall has a gate. At the first stands a man with a large hook in his hand, called satu horan with satu bagan; in the second, a dog, called satu hain; in the third, a man with an iron mace, called satu horan with pocum becin; in the fourth, a man with a bow in his hand, called satu horan with anat panam; in the fifth, a man with a spear, called satu horan with tumach; in the sixth, a lion, called satu horiman; in the seventh, two white elephants called gagua pute.