Madurese, still speaking their own language and following their own customs. In
this manner it is probable that the Madurese in Java are at least three times as
numerous as those of the parent country, and thus the whole Madurese people will,
m reality, exceed a million. There have been emigrations within the Archipelago
on many occasions, but they have originated in general from the roving habits and
love of adventure of the maritime tribes, and this Madurese emigration is the only
nown one which can be traced to the pressure of the means of subsistence, and it
could only have taken place under the peculiarly favourable circumstances which presented
themselves, and especially under the auspices of an European government, for
under a rude and fickle native one, the migrating population would not have sprung
up nor the settlers, in their new country, received protection had it done so.
MAGELLAN (F erdinand), or, correctly, in his native tongue, Fernando Magal-
es, the first circumnavigator of the globe, and the discoverer of the Philippines, was
a native of the province of Alemtejo, in Portugal, and born about the year 1470. He
served five years in India, and was with Alfonso Alboquerque when he captured
. Malacca and sent Antonio d’Abreu to discover the Moluccas. He was at this time
above 30 years of age, but among the many officers whose names are recorded with
approbation by He Barros, his is not mentioned. This author, however, afterwards
mentions his death, and has a passage respecting his companions worth transcribing.
When, says he, “ Antonio de Brito was preparing to return from Banda to Malacca,
Don Garcia Hennques arrived at that place with four vessels, his own and three junks.
Don Garcia had come to seek for a cargo of spices, as the commanders from Malacca
were wont yearly to do. These came along with a junk from Java, also in search of
spices. From this, he received intelligence that a white people like ourselves had
lately come into the country, and that they had furnished the junk with a letter of
safe conduct in case it should meet at sea with any of their countrymen. Antonio de
Brito havmg seen the letter found it was in Castilian, and given by Castilians in the
name of the King of CaBtile, and that it was as pompous and abundant of words as
that nation is wont to be in its writings when treating matters they are fond of
expatiating on. Decade 3, book iii., chapter 6. I t was at this time that he acquired
his knowledge of the Moluccas, although it is not asserted that he visited them
What moved him to offer his services to Charles the Fifth is not known, but most
probably disappomtment of promotion and distinction in the service of his own
country. The project of sailing round the world is said to have been rejected bv
0n ke proceeded to Spain and presented himself before Charles
the Fifth, who was at the time at Valladolid. He was accompanied on his journey bv
the great cosmographer Ruiz de Tallero, and patronised by Fonseca, bishop of Burgos
minister for the Indies. Pigafetta expressly states that the project of reaching the
Moluccas by sailing westward was suggested to Magellan by his relation and intimate
friend Francesco Serano. This person employed at the time in the Moluccas, Pigafetta
says, was in the habit of corresponding with Magellan when the latter was at Malacca
and he adds that Don Emanuel, King of Portugal, having refused to increase his salary*
even by a single “ testone,” he applied to his sacred majesty Charles the Fifth, and
got whatever he asked for. The proffered service being accepted, he was placed
in command of a squadron of five small vessels of from 60 to 130 tons, with crews
amounting in all to 234 persons, soldiers and mariners included. The squadron left
Seville on the 10th of August, 1519, and San Lucar on the 20th of September. It
cleared the straits which go under the great navigator’s name, and entered the Pacific
on the 28th of November 1520. On the 6th of March, 1521, it reached the Ladrone
or Marian Islands; on the 18th of the same month sighted Samar, the first seen of
the Philippine Islands reached the little island of Massana, correctly Limasagua on
the coast of the large island of Leyte, on the 28th of March, holding a friendly intercourse
with its inhabitants. On the 7th of April Magellan entered the harbour of
yebu, called by Pigafetta Zubu, and on the 27th of the same month he was killed in
a wanton and fool-hardy affray with the rude natives of an islet close to the eastern
shore of £ebu, called in the narrative Matan, but correctly, Mactan. See Mactan
Magellan, as a navigator and discoverer, ranks next to Columbus, but surely
whether as to their achievements or the merits of the men themselves, at a long
interval. Magellan was but following up the original notion of Columbus, that of
getting to the East Indies by sailing westward. He had also the advantage of all
the discoveries of seven-and-twenty years over his predecessor, during which even
the Spice Islands, the mam object of research, had been reached. He himself had
either seen these islands or .was not far from them when they were discovered, and
Barbosa, who had described with surprising accuracy all the maritime countries of
the East, except Japan, was his relative, his friend and the companion of his voyage.
The object of Columbus’ adventure was to get at the rich countries of the East, and
especially . at China and . Japan,- r of . j ? which V he ,a b had o n r read o o H i in n n his i a m guide,n H p IV1 Marco Polo
r i l l n . . L l i a i
of Magellan was confined to getting to the Moluccas by a route that should
enable
the Spaniards to wrest them from his countrymen, the Portuguese, for even he, like
Like
the rest of his cotemporaries, attached the highest importance to the spice trade one
one
which in our times is of far less importance than the traffic m rags, in oranges in pullets
" or the dung of certain sea-fowl. Notwithstanding these drawbacks, it must stiff
be admitted that in some respects the adventure of Magellan was a more arduous
one than even that of Columbus. The voyage of the latter from Spain to the nearest
American land was but of 70 days’ duration, and from the Canaries, already long
discovered, it was but 36 days. That of Magellan from Spain to the Ladrone Islands
lasted 533 days, and was performed in ruder climates, and through a more perilous
navigation The very voyage across the Pacific lasted 116 days, or more than three
times as long as that of Columbus, counting the latter from the Canaries. The hardships
which M a g e l l a n and his companion underwent m this last portion of the voyage
are well described by Pigafetta. “ On Wednesday, the 28th day of November, 1521,
we issued from the strait, ingulfing ourselves in the ocean, in which, without
comfort or consolation of any kind, we sailed for three months and twenty days.
We eat biscuit which was biscuit no longer, but a wormy powder, for the worms had
eaten its substance, what remained being fetid with the urine of rats and mice.
The dearth was such that we were compelled to eat the leather with which the yards
of the ship were protected from the friction of the ropes. This leather, too, having been
long exposed to the sun, rain, and wind, had become so hard that it was necessary to
soften it by immersion in the sea for four or five days, after which it was broiled on
the embers and eaten. We had to sustain ourselves by eating sawdust, and a rat
was in such request that one was sold for half a ducat.” Primo Viaggio, page 43.
Nineteen of the crew of the admiral’s ship died of the scurvy, and twenty-five more
were ill with it when they arrived in the Ladrone Islands.
Magellan’s Italian companion Pigafetta, who was present in the action in which he
had lost his life, calls him, after describing that event, “ the mirror, the light, and
the true guide” of the expedition. His narrative is addressed to Philip de Villiers
Lisle Adam, Grand Master of the Knights of Rhodes, and it is curious to see the
writer entreating this person, whose own name is hardly known to posterity, to see
that the memory of the great navigator shall not be forgotten : “ I see reproduced
in him,” says Pigafetta, “ the virtues of a great captain. Among these was his constancy
in the most adverse fortune. In the midst of the ocean, he endured hunger
better than any of us. Skilled in the knowledge of nautical charts, he understood
the true art of navigation better than any one else : the sure proof of this is, that by
his own genius and courage, and without any precedent to guide him, he attempted
and nearly accomplished the circumnavigation of the globe.”
Magellan was beyond all doubt a great man, and possessed many of the qualities
necessary for the direction and government of mankind. Yet his firmness had in
it a taint of ferocity, even beyond the measure of his own times, while his courage
amounted to rashness, and his religion to intolerance and fanaticism. Of all this,
there is abundant evidence in the narrative of his friend and companion. The four
other commanders of his squadron were Spaniards, and Pigafetta says, they hated
him for no other reason than that they were Spaniards and he a Portuguese. They
entered, as is alleged, into a conspiracy to take his life in the Port of St. Julian, on the
coast of Patagonia. They were apprehended and three of them put to death. Their
execution might have been indispensable to the success of the expedition, but the
manner of it in two of the cases could not have been so. The inspector of the squadron
was quartered (fu squartato il veador), and the treasurer stabbed to death (trucidato
a pugnalate il tesoriere). One of the commanders was pardoned because his
appointment was made directly by the emperor, but he being charged in a few days
after with conspiring afresh, was, along with a priest his accomplice, turned out of
the ship and abandoned to the tender mercies of the savages of Patagonia.
The inhabitants of the first land that Magellan made after crossing the Pacific
Ocean committed thefts on board his squadron, as did those of the Society Islands
on the ships of Cooke. He burnt their dwellings, and named their country the
“ Robber Islands” (Islas de los ladrones). On his arrival in Qebu, the only large
island with which he held any considerable intercourse, he began the work of a
conversion andjsubjugation which were equally nominal. In eight days’ time, (from