The Story of Mankind [87]
the fourth of January of the year 1493, Columbus waved farewell
to the 44 men of the little fortress of La Navidad (none
of whom was ever again seen alive) and returned homeward.
By the middle of February he reached the Azores where the
Portuguese threatened to throw him into gaol. On the fifteenth
of March, 1493, the admiral reached Palos and together with
his Indians (for he was convinced that he had discovered some
outlying islands of the Indies and called the natives red
Indians) he hastened to Barcelona to tell his faithful patrons
that he had been successful and that the road to the gold and
the silver of Cathay and Zipangu was at the disposal of their
most Catholic Majesties.
Alas, Columbus never knew the truth. Towards the end
of his life, on his fourth voyage, when he had touched the mainland
of South America, he may have suspected that all was
not well with his discovery. But he died in the firm belief
that there was no solid continent between Europe and Asia
and that he had found the direct route to China.
Meanwhile, the Portuguese, sticking to their eastern route,
had been more fortunate. In the year 1498, Vasco da Gama
had been able to reach the coast of Malabar and return safely
to Lisbon with a cargo of spice. In the year 1502 he had
repeated the visit. But along the western route, the work of
exploration had been most disappointing. In 1497 and 1498
John and Sebastian Cabot had tried to find a passage to Japan
but they had seen nothing but the snowbound coasts and the
rocks of Newfoundland, which had first been sighted by the
Northmen, five centuries before. Amerigo Vespucci, a Florentine
who became the Pilot Major of Spain, and who gave his
name to our continent, had explored the coast of Brazil, but
had found not a trace of the Indies.
In the year 1513, seven years after the death of Columbus,
the truth at last began to dawn upon the geographers of
Europe. Vasco Nunez de Balboa had crossed the Isthmus of
Panama, had climbed the famous peak in Darien, and had
looked down upon a vast expanse of water which seemed to
suggest the existence of another ocean.
Finally in the year 1519 a fleet of five small Spanish ships
under command of the Portuguese navigator, Ferdinand de
Magellan, sailed westward (and not eastward since that route,
was absolutely in the hands of the Portuguese who allowed no
competition) in search of the Spice Islands. Magellan crossed
the Atlantic between Africa and Brazil and sailed southward.
He reached a narrow channel between the southernmost point
of Patagonia, the ``land of the people with the big feet,'' and
the Fire Island (so named on account of a fire, the only sign of
the existence of natives, which the sailors watched one night).
For almost five weeks the ships of Magellan were at the mercy
of the terrible storms and blizzards which swept through the
straits. A mutiny broke out among the sailors. Magellan
suppressed it with terrible severity and sent two of his men
on shore where they were left to repent of their sins at leisure.
At last the storms quieted down, the channel broadened, and
Magellan entered a new ocean. Its waves were quiet and
placid. He called it the Peaceful Sea, the Mare Pacifico.
Then he continued in a western direction. He sailed for
ninety-eight days without seeing land. His people almost
perished from hunger and thirst and ate the rats that infested
the ships, and when these were all gone they chewed pieces of
sail to still their gnawing hunger.
In March of the year 1521 they saw land. Magellan called
it the land of the Ladrones (which means robbers) because the
natives stole everything they could lay hands on. Then further
westward to the Spice Islands!
Again land was sighted. A group of lonely islands. Magellan
called them the Philippines, after Philip, the son of his
master Charles V, the Philip II of unpleasant historical memory.