CAPTURING A GIANT.--MAGELLAN'S DECISION.
The attempts to capture wild giants greatly interested Pigafetta.
Our historian says that it was "done by gentle and cunning means, for
otherwise they would have done a hurt to some of our men."
One day some sailors saw four giants hidden in some bushes, and they
were unarmed. They brought these into the power of the Captain. Two of
them were young, and such as would excite admiration anywhere for their
noble development.
They gave these two lusty young Herculeses as many knives, mirrors,
bells, and trinkets as they could hold in their hands, and while the
delighted youths were thus abounding in riches, the Captain said:
"Now show them the iron fetters."
The two youths could but wonder at these when they were brought.
The Captain ordered that the fetters be presented to them.
But their hands were already full. What could they do with them? Where
could they put them?
The Captain signified to them that he would ornament their feet with the
fetters. To this they consented.
So the fetters were put on the feet of each of them, like necklaces or
rings, but when the young giants saw a blacksmith bring a hammer and
rivet the fetters, they began to be distrustful and presently greatly
agitated. They tried to walk, but they could not move.
Our historian thus describes their fury when they saw that they were
helplessly bound:
"Nevertheless when they saw the trick which had been played on them they
began to be enraged, and to foam like bulls, crying out to the _devil_
to help them." We do not see why our Knight should have taken this view
of the case; we would think that two human beings who had been so
treacherously deceived, might have been regarded as appealing to the
Deity of justice.
"The hands of the other two giants were bound," says the original
narrative, "but it was with great difficulty; then the Captain sent them
back on shore, with nine of his men to conduct them, and to bring the
wife of one of those who had remained in irons, because he regretted her
greatly." This last touch gives us a very favorable view of this young
giant.
But on being conducted away, one of the two giants who were to be
liberated, untied his hands and escaped. As soon as he found that he was
free, his feet were picked up nimbly indeed. He flew, as it were, his
long strides leaving his late captors far behind him. He had no heart to
trust Europeans again. He rushed to his native town, but he found only
the women there, who must have been greatly alarmed; the men had gone to
hunt.
He rushed after the hunters to tell them how his companions had been
betrayed.
What became of the other giant whose hands were bound? He struggled,
too, to break the cords, seeing which, one of the men struck him on the
head. He became quiet when he saw that he was helpless, and led the men
to the giant's town where the women and children were.
The men concluded to pass the night there, as it was near night and
everything there looked harmless and inviting.
But during the night the other giant who had gone to meet the hunters
returned with his companions. These saw the bruised head of the giant
who had also been bound, and warned the women who began to run. We are
told that the youngest "ran faster than the biggest" and that the men
"ran faster than horses," at which we can not wonder. The fleeing giant
shot one of the men from the ships, and he was buried there on shore.
The poor giant in irons who had lamented for his wife probably never
saw the giantess again.
The methods of treating sickness in the town of the giants were curious.
For an emetic one ran a stick down his throat. For a headache, one cut a
gash on the forehead, not unlike the old method of bleeding. The
philosophy of this latter treatment was interesting--blood did not
remain with pain, and pain departed with blood--quite true; white people
have advanced theories as conclusive.
"When one of them dies," says our Knight, "ten devils appear and dance
around the dead man." One of the poor giants who was forced to remain on
board said he had seen devils with horns, and hair that fell to their
feet, who spouted fire. There seems to be the color of the European
imagination in this statement.
The giants lived on raw meat, thistles, and sweet root, and one of them
drank a "bucket of water" at a time.
The expedition remained at St. Julian five months, and acquired much
information about the country from the captive giants with whom they
learned to talk by sign language.
They here set up a cross on a mountain and took possession of the
country in the name of the King of Spain. They called the signal
elevation where they planted the cross the Mount of Christ.
The primitive people of the shores of Brazil and Patagonia delighted in
exciting the wonder of their visitors. Many of these people who thought
that the Europeans had come down from the sky, where they conceived all
life must be wonderful indeed, liked to show them some of the feats that
the people of the earth could do. The people who came down from the sky
they reasoned had great wisdom in sailing the seas, but they were not
giants. They could trail a lantern along the sea in the night air in
some unaccountable way, but they did not know how to run with flying
feet on the land or how to wing arrows with unerring aim into the sky
and sea.
One day there came from a company of the primitive people, a champion in
an art of which the Europeans could have never heard. They had seen
these people run, leap, and vault with almost magic power, but they had
never seen one who could make a tube of himself.
This new champion approached the men in the usual way, inviting
attention. He carried in his hand an arrow which was a cubit and a half
long.
He tilted it, opened his great mouth to receive it, dropped it into his
throat, when, amid muscular contortions, it began to descend. The
sailors watched him with amazement as it went down. It disappeared at
last, having, as we are told, descended to the "bottom of his stomach."
It seemed to cause him no pain.
Presently the quiver began to appear again. The long arrow slowly rose
out of the human tube which the man had made of himself, and dropped
into his hand at last, the whole being performed by muscular movement.
He must have been delighted at the sensation which this mental control
over the muscles of digestion had produced. It was less strange that the
arrow should have gone down than that it should have come up again.
Such feats as these entertained the sailors from time to time when they
were on shore. Pigafetta was now seeing the "wonders of the world"
indeed.
Magellan's mind was given to the more serious problems of the voyage.
The Antarctic pole star now rose to his view. It was cold. Magellan saw
that the voyage would be likely to last long.
Not only the Portuguese came to distrust him, but some of the Spanish
sailors caught the infection of the deleterious atmosphere. They
reasoned differently from the Portuguese.
"The Admiral is a native of Portugal," said they, "and though the
Portuguese court rejected him, he will be sure in the end to be true to
his own people and King. He will never allow the glory of his
discoveries to go to Spain."
Some of them came to him to say that the wind blew cold, that the sea
was full of perils, that nothing but disaster could come by pushing on
into the sea where they were tending.
"Turn south," said they.
The answer of Magellan was royal and loyal. We give it in what, from
what was reported of it, must be in his own thought, and very nearly his
own words.
"Comrades, my course was laid down by Caesar (the King) himself.
I--will--not--depart--from--it--in--any--degree. I will open to Caesar an
unknown world."