THE PACIFIC.--THE DEATH OF THE GIANTS.
The four ships glided along the wonderful straits which Magellan named
the "Virgins," but which will always bear his own name. The scenery
continued wild and fierce, and in some places overawing and sublime;
they sailed amid domes of crystal and almost under the roofs of a broken
world. They still moved slowly--the scenery growing more and more
wonderful.
The air grew bright again. The ships were in the sea. They had entered a
sea broad and glorious, but which Magellan could have hardly dreamed to
be nearly ten thousand miles long, and more than that wide! Its waters
were placid--an ocean plain. Columbus had heard of this vast sea, and
Balboa had seen it from the peak of Darien.
All the joy that Magellan had anticipated in his visions of years now
burst upon him.
"The Pacific!"
This was the name that came to him as he surveyed the new ocean world.
He was the discoverer of the South Pacific, which was continuous with
the ocean discovered by Balboa. What did it contain? Whither might he
sail over the new serenity of waters?
His soul had stood against his own country; his name had been cast out
by his countrymen. But in the splendors of the sunset sea he had found
his faith to be reality. It is said that the sailors wept when they
beheld the Pacific.
We may fancy the joy of Del Cano.
We may imagine how the heart of Pigafetta, the young Italian, which had
always been true to the Admiral, must have overflowed with delight when
the Pacific opened before his eyes! There is a strong heart beat in the
happiness of one who has been true to a successful man in the hour of
his need.
He may have sung the song that cheered Columbus and his men--the
mariners' hymn to the Virgin:
"Gentle Star of Ocean!
Portal of the sky!
Ever Virgin Mother
Of the Lord most high!"
"Wednesday, the 20th of November, 1520," says the original narrative,
"we came forth out of the same strait, and entered the Pacific Sea."
The ships sailed on into the calm mystery of the ocean, the soul of
Magellan glowing. But though the Admiral had risen superior to so many
obstacles, there were others to be met. The sea was indeed placid and
full of promise, but starvation now stared him in the face, and after
the spectre of Treason had departed that of Famine appeared.
Day after day the sun arose on the same serenity of sea. One month
passed, and still there spread before the ships the same infinite ocean.
Another month passed, and another, and twenty days more.
How did the crews live on this long voyage of silence and calms?
The narrative says: "We only ate old biscuit reduced to powder, and full
of grubs, and we drank water that had turned yellow and smelled."
But a more perilous diet had to be followed.
They ate the "ox hides that were under the main yard." To eat these
hides they had to soak them for some days in the sea, and then cook them
on embers.
They ate sawdust; then the vermin on the ships.
A worse condition came. The gums of the men swelled from such food, so
that many of them could not eat at all, and nineteen died. Beside those
who died, twenty-five fell ill of "divers sicknesses."
Kind-hearted Pigafetta, who was always true to the Portuguese Admiral,
formed an intimacy with the poor young giant, presumably with the giant
whose wife had been left behind. This giant was imprisoned on the
flagship of Magellan.
One day the giant said to him, helplessly:
"Capac."
Our Italian understood that this must be the Patagonian word for bread.
So he wrote it down, and the giant saw that he was interested in the
meaning of his native words.
So the young giant began to teach the young Italian.
"Her-dem" meant a chief.
"Holi" meant water.
"Ohone," a storm.
"Setebos," the Unseen Power.
They studied together for a time, and shared each other's good will.
One day the Italian drew a cross on paper. The young giant raised it to
his lips and kissed it, as he had seen Pigafetta kiss the sign of the
Cross.
But he said by signs: "Do not make the Cross again, else Setebos will
enter into you and kill you."
The meaning of the cross was explained to him.
The poor giant fell ill at last, amid all the misery.
"Bring me the Cross," he said by signs.
He kissed it again.
He knew that he would soon die.
"Make me a Christian," he said.
They named him "Paul," and baptized him.
One day found him dead, and they cast his great frame into the sea. He
was probably the first convert to the faith among Patagonians, and his
so-called conversion was the heart's cry in helplessness.
The other giant may have lived to see the days of famine, when men
shrank and death threatened all. Then he, too, famished and died, and
found a grave in the sea. Another account, makes this giant die on the
Antonio before that ship went back to St. Julian.
Two islands only appeared in the months of steady sailing. They were
uninhabited except by birds. The sky in all this time brought no storm.
In these days of ocean solitude, hunger, and death, Magellan was sure
always of the faith of two true hearts--the susceptible Italian and Del
Cano.
Magellan dreamed of the fate of Mesquita in these strange experiences,
and Mesquita in his lonely prison thought continually of him. Would
Magellan ever return? the latter must have asked daily.
If so, his prison doors might swing open. He had no other hope, but this
hope was a star. Magellan's wife must have shared this hope with the
prisoner.