Over the Edge of the World: Magellen's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe (35 page)

A
fter the solemn observance, it was time to celebrate. To amuse and impress his hosts, Magellan organized a fencing tournament, “at which the kings were greatly pleased.” Next, Magellan ordered his men to display the cross, complete with “nails and the crown,” and explained to the kings that his own sovereign, King Charles, had given these objects to him, “so that wherever he might go he might set up those tokens.” Now he wished to set up the cross on their island, “for whenever any of our ships came from Spain, they would know we had been there by that cross, and would do nothing to displease them or harm their property.” Magellan wanted to place the cross “on the summit of the highest mountain,” and he explained the many benefits of displaying it as he proposed. For one thing, “Neither thunder, nor lightning, nor storms would harm them in the least,” and for another, “If any of their men were captured, they would be set free immediately on that sign being shown.” The kings gratefully accepted the cross as a totem, without having any idea of what it actually meant.

Magellan inquired about the islanders’ religious beliefs. “They replied that they worshiped nothing, but that they raised their clasped hands and their faces to the sky; and that they called their god ‘Abba.’> ” Magellan indicated that their god sounded reassuringly familiar, “And, seeing that, the first king raised his hands to the sky, and said that he wished it were possible for him to make the Captain General see his love for him.”

The discussion turned to politics. Magellan asked if the king had any enemies; if so, Magellan would “go with his ships to destroy them and render them obedient.” By doing so, he hoped to strengthen their bond, and establish a permanent Spanish presence in the newly discovered archipelago. As it happened, the king said there were “two islands hostile to him, but . . . it was not the season to go there.” Hearing this, Magellan turned warlike: “The Captain General told him that if God would again allow him to return to those districts, he would bring so many men that he would make the king’s enemies subject to him by force.” This was a curious offer because nothing in Magellan’s charter from King Charles mentioned fighting tribal wars or mass conversions to Christianity; he was supposed to “go in search of the Strait,” demonstrate that the Spice Islands belonged to Spain, and return in ships laden with spices. Now he put aside his commercial goals in favor of conversions and conquest. Magellan ordered his men back into formation; they fired their guns into the silent sky as a farewell gesture, “and the captain having embraced the two kings, we took our leave.” Magellan and the crew members returned briefly to their ships to retrieve the cross, and then made an exhausting ascent to the summit of the highest mountain in the area. “After the cross was erected in position, each of us repeated a Pater Noster and an Ave Maria, and adored the cross; and the kings did the same. Then we descended through their cultivated fields, and went to the place where the
balanghai
was. The kings had some coconuts brought in so that we might refresh ourselves.”

C
onsidering his work done, Magellan announced his intention to in the morning. Despite all the pigs and rice and wine the kings had bestowed on them, the Captain General declared he needed even more food, and the kings recommended the island of Cebu as a convenient place to forage. Magellan’s decision to sail on to Cebu troubled Pigafetta, who described it as “ill-fated.” But Cebu itself did not pose any danger to Magellan; rather, it was his determination to form an alliance with friendly local rulers by making war on their enemies. Looking for trouble, he was sure to find it eventually.

Magellan asked the king for local pilots to escort the fleet to Cebu, and the king happily complied, but in the morning, he asked “for love of him to wait two days until he should have his rice harvested and other trifles attended to. He asked the Captain General to send him some men to help him, so that it might be done sooner; and said that he intended to act as our pilot himself.” Magellan agreed, “But the kings ate and drank so much that they slept all day. Some said to excuse them that they were slightly sick.”

Their departure delayed for forty-eight hours, Magellan fell to trading with the islanders, but he immediately ran into obstacles. “One of those people brought us . . . rice and also eight or ten bananas fastened together to barter them for a knife which at the most was worth three
catrini
”—a Venetian coin of little value. “The Captain General, seeing that the native cared for nothing but a knife, called him to look at other things. He put his hand in his purse and wished to give him one real.” The native refused the valuable coin. “The Captain General showed him a ducado, but he would not accept that, either.” Magellan kept offering coins of increasing value, but met with the same reaction; the native “would take nothing but a knife.” Finally, Magellan relented and gave it to him. Later, when a crew member went ashore to fetch water, he was offered a large crown made of gold in exchange for “six strings of glass beads,” but Magellan blocked the trade, “so that the natives should learn that at the very beginning that we prized our merchandise more than their gold.” The gold was far more valuable than the glass beads, but Magellan did not want the islanders to know how precious the Europeans considered gold. He instructed his men to treat it as just another metal. The ruse worked, and the armada, trading iron for gold, pound for pound, acquired vast riches. The gold they had acquired so easily would be worth a fortune in Spain, but the spices Magellan expected to find were even more valuable than the gold.

T
he armada resumed its wanderings through the Philippine archipelago, dodging reefs so treacherous that even their native pilots hesitated. Along the way—it is impossible to know precisely where—they called at an island Pigafetta named Gatigan. Ashore, the crew members were fascinated by the profusion of bats; “flying foxes,” they called the creatures as they swooped low over the ships and darted into the dense jungle in search of their main nourishment, fruit. The flying foxes reached astonishing proportions; Pigafetta claimed that they were as large as eagles. The fearless sailors even captured one of the creatures and ate it. The bat flesh, he claimed, tasted like that of a fowl.

Leaving Gatigan unscathed, the fleet continued on to Cebu. In his log, Francisco Albo traced their course as they threaded their way through the enchanted island realms: “We left Limasawa and went north toward the island of Seilani, after which we ran along the said island to the northwest as far as 10 degrees. There we saw three rocky islands, and turned our course west for about 10 leagues where we came upon two islets. We stayed there that night and in the morning went toward the south southwest for about 12 leagues, as far as 10 and one-third degrees. At that point we entered a channel between two islands, one of which is called Mactan and the other Cebu. Cebu, as well as the islands of Limasawa and Suluan, extend north by east and south by west. Between Cebu and Seilani we spied a very lofty land lying to the north, which is called Baibai. It is said to contain considerable gold and to be well stocked with food, and so great an extent of land that its limits are unknown.”

Albo warned that the route, for all its lovely scenery, concealed hazards. “From Limasawa, Seilani, and Cebu, from the course followed to the south, look out for the many shoals, which are very bad. On that account a canoe which was guiding us along that course refused to go ahead. From the beginning of the channel of Cebu and Mactan, we turned west by a middle channel and reached the city of Cebu.”

As a succession of warm, humid days and passionate nights in the Philippines passed, discontent among the crew subsided. For once, there was no talk of mutiny. All the crew members were aware of the armada’s achievements. They had conquered an immense ocean and dispelled a thousand years of accumulated misconceptions about the world. They had sailed all the way from the West to the East, demonstrating that the earth was a globe. And they were beginning to savor the available women, exotic food, and tantalizing hints of the Spice Islands of which they had dreamed for so long. Yet a shadow hung over Magellan. Even if the rest of the expedition went flawlessly, and he did not lose another ship or sailor in his quest for spices, there would be hell to pay when he returned to Spain for marooning Cartagena and the priest. He could never return home with honor, and so he pressed on, a fugitive from society and a captive to the winds of fate.

C H A P T E R   X
The Final Battle

Are those
her
ribs through which the Sun
Did peer, as through a grate?
And is that Woman all her crew?
Is that a DEATH? and are there two?
Is DEATH that woman’s mate?

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s the Armada de Molucca approached the sandy, palmshaded shores of Cebu, the crew members could see that the island was home to the most prosperous people they had encountered so far on the voyage. They watched village after village emerge as if by magic from the obscurity of the jungle; the inhabitants looked placid and well fed and not particularly startled by the strange ships. Their huts, rising on stilts in groups of five or six, resembled homesteads or even small estates. Overhead, tall palm trees blotted out the sky and cast wide swaths of shade. In front, extending from the water’s edge, fishing lines crisscrossed the shallow water, and, a little farther from land, speedy
proas,
some powered by brightly colored sails, others by paddle, traveled out to greet the arriving fleet. No longer did the men of the armada have to contend with nomadic giants or wandering tribes living at the end of the world. Here was civilization, or at least a semblance thereof. “At noon on Sunday, April 7,” Pigafetta recorded, “we entered the port of Cebu, passing by many villages, where we saw many houses built upon logs. On approaching the city, the Captain General ordered the ships to unfurl their banners. The sails were lowered and arranged as if for battle, and all the artillery was fired, an action which caused a great deal of fear to those people.”

Once the ships dropped anchor, Magellan dispatched his illegitimate son, Cristóvão Rebêlo, “as ambassador to the King of Cebu,” along with the slave Enrique to serve as an interpreter. Arriving on land, Rebêlo and Enrique “found a vast crowd of people together with the king, all of whom had been frightened by the mortars.” To reassure the distraught inhabitants, Enrique explained that it was the fleet’s custom to discharge their weapons “when entering such places, as a sign of peace and friendship.” His words had their intended effect, and soon the local chieftain was asking what he could do for them.

Enrique stepped forward again and announced that his captain owed allegiance to the “greatest king and prince in the world, and that he was going to discover the Moluccas.” His captain had decided to pass this way “because of the good report which he had of him from the king of Limasawa and to buy food.” Impressed, the king welcomed the visitors, but he advised, “It was their custom for all ships that entered their ports to pay tribute.” Only four days before, a junk from Siam “laden with gold and slaves” had called on the island and paid its tribute. To back up his story, the king produced an Arab merchant from Siam who had remained behind. The merchant explained that it was necessary to pay tribute to the local rulers in exchange for safe passage, and he urged Magellan to follow his example.

Magellan scorned the Arabs’ live-and-let-live approach to the islanders and refused to pay anyone. He saw the local populace as prey, as helpers, and as heathen, not as equals, and he intended to claim their territory for Spain and their souls for the Church. Negotiations between Magellan and the king of Cebu broke down when Magellan—through Enrique—insisted that his in all the world, and the Armada de Molucca would never pay tribute to a lesser ruler. He ended by declaring, “If the king wished peace he would have peace, but if war instead, [then he would have] war.”

At this point, the merchant from Siam uttered a few words that Pigafetta took to mean, “Have good care, O king, what you do, for these men are of those who have conquered Calicut, Malacca, and all India the Greater. If you give them good reception and treat them well, it will be well for you, but if you treat them ill, so much the worse it will be for you.” Enrique seconded the merchant’s advice; if the king refused to yield, the Captain General “would send so many men that they would destroy him.”

The king shrewdly replied that he would confer with his chieftains and return the next day. As a sign of his peaceful intentions, he offered the landing party “refreshments of many dishes, all made from meat and contained in porcelain platters, besides many jars of wine” and sent them happily stumbling back to their waiting ships, where they told Magellan (and the ever-present Pigafetta) the details of the exchange. Despite his belligerent words, Magellan possessed one diplomatic asset, the king of Limasawa, who had come along on this leg of the journey, and was pleased to “speak to the king of the great courtesy of our Captain General.”

The local king’s soothing words had the desired effect, and on Monday morning, the armada’s notary, accompanied by Enrique, held a formal meeting with the king of Cebu—“Rajah,” or King Humabon, in Pigafetta’s transcription. This time, Humabon offered to pay tribute to the most powerful king in the world, rather than demanding it for himself. The impasse was broken. Magellan acknowledged Humabon’s generous offer and announced he would “trade with him and no others.” Prompted by the king of Limasawa, the Cebuan ruler offered to become blood brothers with Magellan; the Captain General had only to send “a drop of his blood from his right arm, and he would do the same as a sign of the most sincere friendship.” Almost despite himself, Magellan had found a home in Cebu.

The next day, Tuesday, Magellan had more good news: The Limasawan king announced that Humabon was preparing a great feast to send to the ships “and that after dinner he would send two of his nephews with other notable men to make peace with him.” After gratefully receiving the food, Magellan decided to make another show of force and trotted out an armor-clad seaman, whose demonstration of European-style combat predictably alarmed the Cebuan emissary, “who seemed more intelligent than the others.” Once again, Magellan turned the situation to his advantage: “The Captain General told him not to be frightened, for our arms were soft toward our friends and harsh toward our enemies; and as handkerchiefs wipe off sweat so did our arms overthrow and destroy all our adversaries and the enemies of our faith.” The lesson had its intended effect.