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Page 28
On the 29th of November they reached the Brazilian coast near
Pernambuco; and on the 11th of January they arrived at the mouth of La
Plata, which they investigated sufficiently to convince them that it
was a river's mouth, and not a strait. Three weeks were consumed in
this work. This course through February and March along the coast of
Patagonia was marked by incessant and violent storms; and the cold
became so intense that, finding a sheltered harbor with plenty of fish
at Port St. Julian, they chose it for winter quarters and anchored
there on the last day of March. On the next day, which was Easter
Sunday, the mutiny that so long had smoldered broke out in all its
fury.
The hardships of the voyage had thus far been what stanch seamen
called unusually severe, and it was felt that they had done enough. No
one except Vespucius and Jaques had ever approached so near to the
South Pole; and if they had not yet found a strait, it was doubtless
because there was none to find. The rations of bread and wine were
becoming very short, and common prudence demanded that they should
return to Spain. If their voyage was practically a failure, it was not
their fault; there was ample excuse in the frightful storms they had
suffered and the dangerous strains that had been put upon their
worn-out ships. Such was the general feeling, but when exprest to
Magellan it fell upon deaf ears. No excuses, nothing but performance,
would serve his turn; for him hardships were made only to be despised,
and dangers to be laughed at: and, in short, go on they must, until a
strait was found or the end of that continent reached. Then they would
doubtless find an open way to the Moluccas; and while he held out
hopes of rich rewards for all he appealed to their pride as
Castilians. For the inflexible determination of this man was not
embittered by harshness, and he could wield as well as any one the
language that soothes and persuades.
At length, on the 24th of August, with the earliest symptoms of spring
weather, the ships, which had been carefully overhauled and repaired,
proceeded on their way. Violent storms harassed them, and it was not
until the 21st of October (St. Ursala's day) that they reached the
headland still known as Cape Virgins. Passing beyond Dungeness, they
entered a large open bay, which some hailed as the long-sought strait,
while others averred that no passage would be found there. "It was,"
says Pigafetta, "in Eden's bredth. On both the sydes of this strayght
are Magellanus, beinge in sum place C.x. leaques in length: and in
breadth sumwhere very large and in other places lyttle more than halfe
a leaque in bredth. On both the sydes of this strayght are great and
hygh mountaynes couered with snowe, beyonde the whiche is the
enteraunce into the sea of Sur.... Here one of the shyppes stole away
priuilie and returned into Spayne." More than five weeks were consumed
in passing through the strait, and among its labyrinthine twists and
half-hidden bays there was ample opportunity for desertion. As
advanced reconnoissances kept reporting the water as deep and salt,
the conviction grew that the strait was found, and then the question
once more arose whether it would not be best to go back to Spain,
satisfied with this discovery, since with all these wretched delays
the provisions were again running short. Magellan's answer, uttered in
measured and quiet tones, was simply that he would go on and do his
work "if he had to eat the leather off the ship's yards." Upon the
_San Antonio_ there had always been a large proportion of the
malcontents, and the chief pilot, Estevan Gomez, having been detailed
for duty on that ship, lent himself to their purposes. The captain,
Mesquita, was again seized and put in irons, a new captain was chosen
by the mutineers, and Gomez piloted the ship back to Spain, where they
arrived after a voyage of six months, and screened themselves for a
while by lying about Magellan.
As for that commander, in Richard Eden's words, "when the capitayne
Magalianes was past the strayght and sawe the way open to the other
mayne sea, he was so gladde thereof that for joy the teares fell from
his eyes, and named the point of the lande from whense he fyrst sawe
that sea Capo Desiderato. Supposing that the shyp which stole away had
byn loste, they erected a crosse uppon the top of a hyghe hyll to
direct their course in the straight yf it were theyr chaunce to coome
that way." The broad expanse of waters before him seemed so pleasant
to Magellan, after the heavy storms through which he had passed, that
he called it by the name it still bears, Pacific. But the worst
hardships were still before him. Once more a sea of darkness must be
crossed by brave hearts sickening with hope deferred. If the
mid-Atlantic waters had been strange to Columbus and his men, here
before Magellan's people all was thrice unknown.
"They were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea";
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