Voyage of Circumnavigation Departure and Passage into the Pacific

Departure and crossing of the Atlantic

The Strait of Magellan cuts through the southern tip of South America connecting the Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean.

On 10 August 1519, the five ships under Magellan's command – Trinidad, San Antonio, Concepción, Victoria and Santiago – left Seville and descended the Guadalquivir River to Sanlúcar de Barrameda, at the mouth of the river. There they remained more than five weeks. Finally they set sail on 20 September.

King Manuel I ordered a Portuguese naval detachment to pursue Magellan, but Magellan avoided them. After stopping at the Canary Islands, Magellan arrived at Cape Verde, where he set course for Cape St. Augustine in Brazil. On 27 November the expedition crossed the equator; on 6 December the crew sighted South America.

As Brazil was Portuguese territory, Magellan avoided it and on 13 December anchored near present-day Rio de Janeiro. There the crew was resupplied, but bad conditions caused them to delay. Afterwards, they continued to sail south along South America's east coast, looking for the strait that Magellan believed would lead to the Spice Islands. The fleet reached Río de la Plata on 10 January 1520.

For overwintering Magellan established a temporary settlement called Puerto San Julian on March 30, 1520. On Easter (April 1 and 2) a mutiny broke out involving three of the five ship captains. Magellan took quick and decisive action. Luis de Mendoza, the captain of Victoria, was killed by a party sent by Magellan and the ship was recovered. Then, after Concepcion's anchor cable had been secretly cut, the ship drifted towards the well-armed Trinidad, and Concepcion's captain, de Quesada, and his inner circle surrendered. Juan de Cartagena, the head of the mutineers on the San Antonio subsequently gave up. Antonio Pigafetta reported that Gaspar Quesada, the captain of Concepcion, and other mutineers were executed, while Juan de Cartagena, the captain of San Antonio, and a priest named Padre Sanchez de la Reina were marooned on the coast. Most of the men, including Juan Sebastián Elcano were needed and forgiven.[16] Reportedly those killed were drawn and quartered and impaled on the coast; years later, their bones were found by Sir Francis Drake. There is a replica of the Victoria that can be visited in Puerto San Julian.
The Strait of Magellan cuts through the southern tip of South America connecting the Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean.

Passage into the Pacific

The journey resumed. The help of Duarte Barbosa was crucial to face the riot in Puerto San Julian, becoming since then captain of the Victoria. The Santiago was sent down the coast on a scouting expedition and was wrecked in a sudden storm. All of its crew survived and made it safely to shore. Two of them returned overland to inform Magellan of what had happened, and to bring rescue to their comrades. After this experience, Magellan decided to wait for a few weeks more before again resuming the voyage.

At 52°S latitude on 21 October the fleet reached Cape Virgenes and concluded they had found the passage, because the waters were brine and deep inland. Four ships began an arduous trip through the 373-mile (600 km) long passage that Magellan called the Estrecho (Canal) de Todos los Santos, ("All Saints' Channel"), because the fleet travelled through it on 1 November or All Saints' Day. The strait is now named the Strait of Magellan. Magellan first assigned Concepcion and San Antonio to explore the strait, but the latter, commanded by Gómez, deserted and returned to Spain on 20 November. On 28 November the three remaining ships entered the South Pacific. Magellan named the waters the Mar Pacifico (Pacific Ocean) because of its apparent stillness.[19] Magellan and his crew were the first Europeans to reach Tierra del Fuego just east of the Pacific side of the strait.

Voyage of Circumnavigation: Funding and Preparation

Background: Spanish search for a westward route to Asia

The aim of Christopher Columbus' 1492–1503 voyages to the West had been to reach the Indies and to establish direct commercial relations between Spain and the Asian kingdoms. The Spanish soon realized that the lands of the Americas were not a part of Asia, but a new continent. The 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas reserved for Portugal the eastern routes that went around Africa, and Vasco da Gama and the Portuguese arrived in India in 1498. It became urgent for Spain to find a new commercial route to Asia, and after the Junta de Toro conference of 1505, the Spanish Crown set out to discover a route to the west. Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa reached the Pacific Ocean in 1513 after crossing the Isthmus of Panama, and Juan Díaz de Solís died in Río de la Plata in 1516 while exploring South America in the service of Spain.

 Funding and preparation

In October 1517 in Seville, Magellan contacted Juan de Aranda, Factor of the Casa de Contratación. Then, following the arrival of his partner, Rui Faleiro, and with the support of Aranda, they presented their project to the Spanish king, Charles I, future Holy Roman Emperor Charles V. Magellan's project was particularly interesting, since it would open the "spice route" without damaging relations with the neighbouring Portuguese. The idea was in tune with the times. On 22 March 1518 the king named Magellan and Faleiro captains so that they could travel in search of the Spice Islands in July. He raised them to the rank of Commander of the Order of Santiago. The king granted them:

•    Monopoly of the discovered route for a period of ten years.
•    Their appointment as governors of the lands and islands found, with 5% of the resulting net gains.
•    A fifth of the gains of the travel.
•    The right to levy one thousand ducats on upcoming trips, paying only 5% on the remainder.
•    Granting of an island for each one, apart from the six richest, from which they would receive a fifteenth.

The expedition was funded largely by the Spanish Crown and provided with ships carrying supplies for two years of travel. Expert cartographer Jorge Reinel and Diogo Ribeiro, a Portuguese who had started working for Charles V in 1518 as a cartographer at the Casa de Contratación, took part in the development of the maps to be used in the travel. Several problems arose during the preparation of the trip, including lack of money, the king of Portugal trying to stop them, Magellan and other Portuguese incurring suspicion from the Spanish and the difficult nature of Faleiro. Finally, thanks to the tenacity of Magellan, the expedition was ready. Through the bishop Juan Rodríguez de Fonseca they obtained the participation of merchant Christopher de Haro, who provided a quarter of the funds and goods to barter.

Ancient Navigators: Sir Francis Drake and the Second Circumnavigation of the World

 

Map of Drake's route around the world.

With the success of the Panama isthmus raid, in 1577 Elizabeth I of England sent Drake to start an expedition against the Spanish along the Pacific coast of the Americas. He set out from Plymouth on 15 November 1577, but bad weather threatened him and his fleet. They were forced to take refuge in Falmouth, Cornwall, from where they returned to Plymouth for repair. After this major setback, he set sail again on 13 December, aboard Pelican, with four other ships and 164 men. He soon added a sixth ship, Mary (formerly Santa Maria), a Portuguese merchant ship that had been captured off the coast of Africa near the Cape Verde Islands. He also added its captain, Nuno da Silva, a man with considerable experience navigating in South American waters.

Drake's fleet suffered great attrition; he scuttled both Christopher and the flyboat Swan due to loss of men on the Atlantic crossing. He made landfall at the gloomy bay of San Julian, in what is now Argentina. Ferdinand Magellan had called here half a century earlier, where he put to death some mutineers. Drake's men saw weathered and bleached skeletons on the grim Spanish gibbets. They discovered that Mary had rotting timbers, so they burned the ship. Following Magellan's example, Drake tried and executed his own 'mutineer' Thomas Doughty. Drake decided to remain the winter in San Julian before attempting the Strait of Magellan.

Entering the Pacific

The three remaining ships of his convoy departed for the Magellan Strait at the southern tip of South America. A few weeks later (September 1578) Drake made it to the Pacific, but violent storms destroyed one of the three ships in the strait and caused another to return to England, leaving only the Pelican. After this passage, the Pelican was pushed south and discovered an island which Drake called Elizabeth Island. Drake, like navigators before him, probably reached a latitude of 55°S (according to astronomical data quoted in Hakluyt's The Principall Navigations, Voiages and Discoveries of the English Nation of 1589) along the Chilean coast. Despite popular lore, it seems unlikely that he reached Cape Horn or the eponymous Drake Passage,[15] because his descriptions do not fit the first and his shipmates denied having seen an open sea. The first report of his discovery of an open channel south of Tierra del Fuego was written after the 1618 publication of the voyage of Willem Schouten and Jacob le Maire around Cape Horn in 1616.

He pushed onwards in his lone flagship, now renamed the Golden Hind in honour of Sir Christopher Hatton (after his coat of arms). The Golden Hind sailed north along the Pacific coast of South America, attacking Spanish ports and rifling towns. Some Spanish ships were captured, and Drake used their more accurate charts. Before reaching the coast of Peru, Drake visited Mocha Island, where he was seriously injured by hostile Mapuche. Later he sacked the port of Valparaíso further north in Chile where he also captured a ship full of Chilean wine.

A most consequential action

Near Lima, Drake captured a Spanish ship laden with 25,000 pesos of Peruvian gold, amounting in value to 37,000 ducats of Spanish money (about £7m by modern standards). Drake also discovered news of another ship, Nuestra Señora de la Concepción, which was sailing west towards Manila. It would come to be called the Cacafuego. Drake gave chase and eventually captured the treasure ship, which proved their most profitable capture. Aboard Nuestra Señora de la Concepción, Drake found 80 lb (36 kg) of gold, a golden crucifix, jewels, 13 chests full of royals of plate and 26 tons of silver.

Nova Albion
Main article: New Albion


On 17 June 1579, Drake landed somewhere north of Spain's northern-most claim at Point Loma, in Alta California. He found a good port, landed, repaired and restocked his vessels, then stayed for a time, keeping friendly relations with the natives. He claimed the land in the name of the Holy Trinity for the English Crown as called Nova Albion—Latin for "New Britain". Assertions that he left some of his men behind as an embryo "colony" are founded on the reduced number who were with him in the Moluccas.

The precise location of the port was carefully guarded to keep it secret from the Spaniards, and several of Drake's maps may have been altered to this end. All first-hand records from the voyage, including logs, paintings and charts, were lost when Whitehall Palace burned in 1698. A bronze plaque inscribed with Drake's claim to the new lands – Drake's Plate of Brass – fitting the description in his account, was discovered in Marin County, California but was later declared a hoax. Now a National Historic Landmark, the officially recognized location of Drake's New Albion is Drakes Bay, California.

Drake headed westward across the Pacific, and a few months later reached the Moluccas, a group of islands in the south west Pacific, in eastern modern-day Indonesia. While there, Golden Hind became caught on a reef and was almost lost. After the sailors waited three days for expedient tides and dumped cargo, they freed the barque. Befriending a sultan king of the Moluccas, Drake and his men became involved in some intrigues with the Portuguese there. He made multiple stops on his way toward the tip of Africa, eventually rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and reached Sierra Leone by 22 July 1580.

Return to Plymouth

On 26 September, Golden Hind sailed into Plymouth with Drake and 59 remaining crew

aboard, along with a rich cargo of spices and captured Spanish treasures. The Queen's half-share of the cargo surpassed the rest of the crown's income for that entire year. Drake was hailed as the first Englishman to circumnavigate the Earth (and the second such voyage arriving with at least one ship intact, after Elcano's in 1520). The Queen declared that all written accounts of Drake's voyages were to become the Queen's secrets of the Realm, and Drake and the other participants of his voyages on the pain of death sworn to their secrecy; she intended to keep Drake's activities away from the eyes of rival Spain. Drake presented the Queen with a jewel token commemorating the circumnavigation. Taken as a prize off the Pacific coast of Mexico, it was made of enamelled gold and bore an African diamond and a ship with an ebony hull. For her part, the Queen gave Drake a jewel with her portrait, an unusual gift to bestow upon a commoner, and one that Drake sported proudly in his 1591 portrait by Marcus Gheeraerts now at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. On one side is a state portrait of Elizabeth by the miniaturist Nicholas Hilliard, on the other a sardonyx cameo of double portrait busts, a regal woman and an African male. The "Drake Jewel", as it is known today, is a rare documented survivor among sixteenth-century jewels; it is conserved at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.

Voyage of Circumnavigation: The Return

The Return

 

The casualties suffered in the Philippines left the expedition with too few men to sail all three of the remaining ships. Consequently, on 2 May they abandoned Concepción and burned the ship. The fleet, reduced to Trinidad and Victoria, fled westward to Palawan. 

They left that island on 21 June and were guided to Brunei, Borneo by Moro pilots who could navigate the shallow seas. They anchored off the Brunei breakwater for 35 days, where Pigafetta, an Italian from Vicenza, recorded the splendour of Rajah Siripada's court (gold, two pearls the size of hens' eggs, etc.). In addition, Brunei boasted tame elephants and an armament of 62 cannons, more than 5 times the armament of Magellan's ships; Brunei also disdained the Spaniard's cargo of cloves, which were to prove more valuable than gold upon the return to Spain. Pigafetta mentions some of the technology of the court, such as porcelain and eyeglasses (both of which were neither available, or at best were only just becoming available, in Europe).

After reaching the Maluku Islands (the Spice Islands) on 6 November 115 crew were left. They managed to trade with the Sultan of Tidore, a rival of the Sultan of Ternate, who was the ally of the Portuguese.

The two remaining ships, laden with valuable spices, attempted to return to Spain by sailing westwards. However, as they left the Spice Islands, the Trinidad began to take on water. The crew tried to discover and repair the leak, but failed. They concluded that Trinidad would need to spend considerable time being overhauled, but the small Victoria was not large enough to accommodate all the surviving crew. As a result, Victoria with some of the crew sailed west for Spain. Several weeks later, Trinidad departed and attempted to return to Spain via the Pacific route. This attempt failed. Trinidad was captured by the Portuguese, and was eventually wrecked in a storm while at anchor under Portuguese control.
Victoria set sail via the Indian Ocean route home on 21 December, commanded by Juan Sebastián Elcano. By 6 May the Victoria rounded the Cape of Good Hope, with only rice for rations. Twenty crewmen died of starvation before Elcano put into Cape Verde, a Portuguese holding, where he abandoned 13 more crew on 9 July in fear of losing his cargo of 26 tons of spices (cloves and cinnamon).

On 6 September 1522, Elcano and the remaining crew of Magellan's voyage arrived in Spain aboard the last ship in the fleet, Victoria, almost exactly three years after they departed. Magellan had not intended to circumnavigate the world, only to find a secure way through which the Spanish ships could navigate to the Spice Islands; it was Elcano who, after Magellan's death, decided to push westward, thereby completing the first voyage around the entire Earth.

Maximilianus Transylvanus interviewed some of the surviving members of the expedition when they presented themselves to the Spanish court at Valladolid in the autumn of 1522 and wrote the first account of the voyage, which was published in 1523. The account written by Pigafetta did not appear until 1525 and was not wholly published until 1800. This was the Italian transcription by Carlo Amoretti of what we now call the Ambrosiana codex. The expedition eked out a small profit, but the crew was not paid full wages.

Four crewmen of the original 55 on Trinidad finally returned to Spain in 1522, 51 of them had died in war or from disease. In total, approximately 232 Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, English and German sailors died on the expedition around the world with Magellan.

Survivors

When Victoria, the one surviving ship, returned to the harbor of departure after completing the first circumnavigation of the Earth, only 18 men out of the original 237 men were on board. Among the survivors there were two Italians, Antonio Pigafetta and Martino de Judicibus. Martino de Judicibus (Spanish: Martín de Judicibus) was a Genoese or Savonese[26] Chief Steward. His history is preserved in the nominative registers at the Archivo General de Indias in Seville, Spain. The family name is referred to with the exact Latin patronymic, "de Judicibus". He was initially assigned to the caravel Concepción, one of five ships of the Spanish fleet of Magellan. Martino de Judicibus embarked on the expedition with the rank of captain.

Voyage of Circumnavigation: The Death of Magellan

Death in the Philippines

Heading northwest, the crew reached the equator on 13 February 1521. On 6 March they reached the Marianas and Guam. Magellan called Guam the "Island of Sails" because they saw a lot of sailboats. They renamed it to "Ladrones Island" (Island of Thieves) because many of Trinidad's small boats were stolen there. On 17 March Magellan reached the island of Homonhon in the Philippines, with 150 crew left. Members of his expedition became the first Spaniards to reach the Philippine archipelago, but they were not the first Europeans.

Magellan was able to communicate with the native tribes because his Malay interpreter, Enrique, could understand their languages. Enrique was indentured by Magellan in 1511 right after the colonization of Malacca and was at his side during the battles in Africa, during Magellan's disgrace at the King's court in Portugal and during Magellan's successful raising of a fleet. They traded gifts with Rajah Siaiu of Mazaua who guided them to Cebu on 7 April.

Rajah Humabon of Cebu was friendly towards Magellan and the Spaniards; both he and his queen Hara Amihan were baptized as Christians. Afterward, Rajah Humabon and his ally Datu Zula convinced Magellan to kill their enemy, Datu Lapu-Lapu, on Mactan. Magellan had wished to convert Lapu-Lapu to Christianity, as he had Humabon, a proposal of which Lapu-Lapu was dismissive. On the morning of 27 April 1521, Magellan sailed to Mactan with a small attack force. During the resulting battle against Lapu-Lapu's troops, Magellan was hit by a bamboo spear and later surrounded and finished off with other weapons.

Magellan's voyage led to Limasawa, Cebu, Mactan, Palawan, Brunei, Celebes and finally to the Spice Islands.

Pigafetta and Ginés de Mafra provided written documents of the events culminating in Magellan's death:
 
When morning came, forty-nine of us leaped into the water up to our thighs, and walked through water for more than two cross-bow flights before we could reach the shore. The boats could not approach nearer because of certain rocks in the water. The other eleven men remained behind to guard the boats. When we reached land, [the natives] had formed in three divisions to the number of more than one thousand five hundred people. When they saw us, they charged down upon us with exceeding loud cries... The musketeers and crossbow-men shot from a distance for about a half-hour, but uselessly... Recognizing the captain, so many turned upon him that they knocked his helmet off his head twice... A native hurled a bamboo spear into the captain's face, but the latter immediately killed him with his lance, which he left in the native's body. Then, trying to lay hand on sword, he could draw it out but halfway, because he had been wounded in the arm with a bamboo spear. When the natives saw that, they all hurled themselves upon him. One of them wounded him on the left leg with a large cutlass, which resembles a scimitar, only being larger. That caused the captain to fall face downward, when immediately they rushed upon him with iron and bamboo spears and with their cutlasses, until they killed our mirror, our light, our comfort, and our true guide. When they wounded him, he turned back many times to see whether we were all in the boats. Thereupon, beholding him dead, we, wounded, retreated, as best we could, to the boats, which were already pulling off.

Magellan provided in his will that Enrique, his interpreter, was to be freed upon his death. However, after the Battle of Mactan, the remaining ships' masters refused to free Enrique. Enrique escaped his indenture on 1 May with the aid of Rajah Humabon, amid the deaths of almost 30 crewmen. Pigafetta had been jotting down words in both Butuanon and Cebuano languages – which he started at Mazaua on Friday, 29 March and grew to a total of 145 words – and was apparently able to continue communications during the rest of the voyage. "Nothing of Magellan's body survived, that afternoon the grieving rajah-king, hoping to recover his remains, offered Mactan's victorious chief a handsome ransom of copper and iron for them but Datu Lapulapu refused. He intended to keep the body as a war trophy.

Since his wife and child died in Seville before any member of the expedition could return to Spain, it seemed that every evidence of Ferdinand Magellan's existence had vanished from the earth

Voyage of Curcumnavigation: Extracts from A Derrotero or Log-Book Francisco Albo

The Nao Victoria Replica in the Nao Victoria Museum, Punta Arenas, Chile

 Among many records of the first circumnavigation of the globe preserved in Spain is the log-book kept by the pilot who brought the Victoria home—under the command of Sebastian de Elcano. This pilot's name was Francisco Albo. He signed on in the first instance as master's mate of the Trinidad, Magellan's own ship, which did not return. Although a native of the island of Rhodes, he was thoroughly grounded in the Portuguese method of navigation—by observation of the noon Sun. It involved the use of a four-year table of declinations, and an English version of this very table and instructions was presented to Henry VIII about 1540 by Roger Barlow, who was urging an English participation in the new discoveries.

The ship's crew saw lands, seas, animals, plants, fruits and peoples never seen by Europeans before, including a "camel without humps" (possibly a llama, guanaco, vicuña, or alpaca), and a penguin, that they described as a "black goose" that had to be skinned instead of plucked. They were astonished by the appearance of a Patagonian Giant - a man of gigantic stature on the beach, who sang and danced, pouring sand upon his head in token of amity. They were the first Europeans to sail around the south of South America, and to sail across the Pacific Ocean, which was named by them. They were also the first to sail from Europe westwards to Asia, and the first men to sail around the world. Their epic voyage continued despite mutiny, starvation (which caused them to eat rats, hides and sawdust), scurvy, warfare, and treachery, that resulted in the considerable loss of lives and ships.



Extracts from
A Derrotero or Log-Book
Francisco Albo

The pilot of the Victoria is referred to as Alvo or Alvaro in the Hakluyt edition's Table of Contents, and as Albo on the first page of his account in that edition. The latter spelling is used here, and this page provides Albo's account of the voyage from the time the ships arrived at Rio de la Plata until they reached the entrance to the Pacific Ocean. The Hakluyt edition alternately uses brackets and parentheses in several locations whereas the original Spanish uses only the latter. In addition, the Hakluyt editor has placed a few parenthetical insertions in the text (“bay” for example) which do not appear in the original. In this online edition, all original parentheses have been restored, and only the editor's insertions are now in brackets.

Tuesday, 10th January [1520], I took the sun in 75°; it has a declination of 20°, and our latitude come to 35°. We were to the right of the Cape of Sta  Maria. Thence forward the coast runs East and West, and the land is sandy; we gave it the name of Montevidi (now they call it correctly Santovidio)§, and between it and the Cape Sta Maria there is a river which is called (de los Patos) Duck River. From thence we went on forward through fresh water, and the coast runs E.S.E. and W.N.W. for ten leagues distance; after that it trends N.E. and S.W. as far as 34½°, with a depth of 5, 4 and 3 fathoms; there we anchored, and sent the ship Santiago along the coast to see if there was a roadstead, and the river is in 33½°.

§ The original text (en español) is “… corrutamente llaman ahora Santo Vidio (ahora Montevid_o) …” (Italics in original, with missing letter indicated by underscore.) It appears that the Hakluyt editor misinterpreted the misspelled “corruptamente” (corruptly) as “correctamente” (correctly).

To the N.E. we found some islets, and the mouth of a very large river (it was the river of Solis)§ and it went to the N. Here they turned back to the ships, and the said ship was away from us a matter of 25 leagues, and they were 15 days in coming; and during this time two other of our ships went in a southerly direction to see if there was a roadstead for staying at; and those went in the space of two days, and the Captain-General went thither, and they found land to the S.S.W., 20 leagues distance from us, and they were four days in coming; and on returning we took in water and wood, and we went away from there, tacking from one tack to the other with contrary winds, until we came in sight of Montevidi; and this was on the 2nd day of the month of February, the day of our Lady of the Candlemas; and at night we anchored at 5 leagues from the mountain, and it lay to the S.E. and a quarter S. of us. Afterwards, on the morning of the 3rd, we set sail for the South, and we sounded, and found 4, 5, 6, and 7 fathoms, always increasing in depth; and this day we took the sun in 68° 30'; it had 13° 35' declination, and our latitude came to 35°.

§ Rio de la Plata.

Saturday, 4th February, we anchored in a depth of seven fathoms, the ship San Antonio having got leaky, and we were there till the 5th, and afterwards we weighed on the 6th, and stood on a south course, and at night we anchored in eight fathoms, and remained there till the next day.

The 7th we set sail to reconnoitre better the coast, and we saw that it tended S.E. ¼ S.; after that we took another tack and anchored in 8 fathoms, and there we took the sun in 66° 30', and it had 12° 15' declination, with which our distance from the equinoctial line to the south came to be 35¾°; after that we sailed the same day, and at night we anchored in 9 fathoms, and stood for Cape Santanton (Cabo Blanco) it was to the south in 36°, and this was Tuesday, the 7th.

On the 8th we set sail from the said point, and it is north and south with Montevidi, and 27 leagues distant from it; this coast runs N. and S. (the width of the Rio de la Plata is 27 leagues); from that place forward we went along the coast round the cape of St. Polonia; after that the coast trends from N.E. to S.W. The said cape is in 37°, and the land sandy and very low, it has sea of shallow depth for a distance of two leagues from land, or 8, 9, and 10 fathoms; so we ran all this day to the S.W., and the night and day.

Thursday, 9th of February, I took the sun in 63¼° it has 11½° declination, and the altitude came to 38° 30'; the coast can be sounded, and not very high nor mountainous, and we made out many smokes along the coast; this coast runs E.W. ¼ N.W. S.E., and the point is called Punta de las Arenas.§

§ Not to be confused with the modern Punta Arenas, Chile, within the strait.

On the 10th I took the sun in 62° ⅓, and it had 11° 8' declination, our distance from the equinoctial came to be 38° 48', and the coast runs E. W., and it is a very pretty coast for running in one or other direction.

On the 11th of the said month, I took the sun in 62°, it wad 10° 47' declination, and the altitude comae to be 38° 47', and the course was W. ¼ N.W., and the coast ran east and west from the Point de las Arenas; to this place there is a very good coast, with soundings, with many little green hills and low land.

Sunday the 12th, we did not take the sun, but from the day before till midday we began to run to S.W. and to S.W. and a quarter W., and to W.S.W., and W. and a quarter S.W., but I calculate that the whole course was W.S.W., and this run was from midday of the 11th, till nightfall of the 12th, and at that hour we anchored in 9 fathoms, and further on in 13 fathoms, and after that we had anchored we saw land, and we set sail to the N., and this was on the 13th, and in the morning we were alongside of some shoals, where the Victoria bumped several times.

Item, the same day we were at anchor, and we did not take the sun's altitude, and we were in soundings of 7 fathoms, and we remained there till the 14th, and the said day I took the sun in 60½°, and it had 9° 41' declination, and our altitude came to 39° 11'.

On the 15th of the said month I took the sun in 60°, and it had 9° 13' declination, and our distance came to be 39° 19', and we sailed a south course.

Thursday the 16th, we could not take the sun until the 18th, and on that day we were in 39¼°; and the next day, the 19th, we were in 39⅓°, and this day we went to S.W., and we went by this course, and could not take the sun until the 20th of the month.

On the 20th I took the sun in 57°, it had 7° 27' declination, and our distance to the south came to 40° 17'.

On the 21st, I took the sun in 55°, it had 7° 4' declination, our altitude came to 42° 4', the course was S. W. ¼ W., and we sounded and found bottom at 55 fathoms.

Wednesday the 22nd, I took the sun in 53°, it had 6° 41' declination, and our distance came to 43° 26', the course was S. W. ¼ W.; at night we sounded and found bottom at 55 fathoms.

On the 23rd I took the sun in 53¼°, it had 6° 54' declination, our altitude from the pole came to 42° 54', and our course was W.N.W.

On the 24th I took the sun in 53°, it had 5° 54' declination, our altitude from the pole came to 42° 54', and our course was W.N.W., and we were to the right of a very large bay§, to which we gave the name of St. Matthew, because we found it on his day; we entered well in, and could not find bottom until we were entirely inside, and we found 80 fathoms, and it has a circuit of 50 leagues, and the mouth is to the N.W., and it is in the altitude of 42½°.

§ The original has “… á la cual pusimos nombre de la bahía de San Matia, … .” That is, San Matías (in English, Saint Matthias—not Matthew). The modern Golfo San Matías is at about 41° 30' S.

On the 25th I did not take the sun, but I took it on the 26th, in 51⅔°, and it had 5° 7' declination, by which we found ourselves in 43° 27' to the south of the line, and the coast runs N.W. S.E. ¼ N.S.

On the 27th I took the sun in 50¼°, and it had 4¾° declination, and so our altitude came to be 44°; and here to the right hand we found a bay§, and three leagues before it there are two rocks, and they lie East and West with the said bay, and further on we found another [bay], and there were in it many sea wolves, of which we caught eight, and on this land there are no people, but it is very good land, with pretty plains without trees, and very flat country.

§ Possibly, the small bay to the north of Golfo San Jorge, perhaps now considered as part of that gulf. Albo's “another [bay]” may be the main part of Golfo San Jorge.

Tuesday, 28th, I took the sun in 48½°, and it had 4° 21' declination, and so we found ourselves in 44° 21', and the course was to the south, and at night we saw land to W.N.W.

On the 29th I took the sun in 48½°, and this day it had 4° declination, by which we found ourselves in 45½°, and the course was to S.S.W. and to W.S.W. until I took the sun, and afterwards we were two days that we could not take it.

On Friday, 2nd of March, I took the sun in 43° 50', it had 3° 10' declination, with which our distance came to be 47°; and after that we did not take the sun again until we entered a port called St. Julian, and we entered there on the last day of March, and remained there till the day of St. Bartholomew, which is the 24th of August, and the said port is in 49⅔°, and there we caulked the ships, and many Indians came there, who go covered with skins of antas§, which are like camels without humps, and they carry some bows of canes very small like the Turkish, and the arrows are like theirs, and at the point they have a flint tip for iron, and they are very swift runners, and well made men, and well fashioned. We sailed thence on the 24th of the said month of August, and went along the coast to S.W. ¼ W., a matter of 30 leagues, and found a river called Santa Cruz, and we entered there on the 26th of August, and remained till the day of S. Lucas, which is the 18th of the month of October, and there we caught much fish, and we took in water and wood, and this coast is well defined and with good marks.

§ The word “anta” is now associated with the South American tapir found in Brazil and surrounding areas. But according to Falkner (note 88:23, p. 154), it had been used to describe both the tapic and the guanaco. The Indians were probably wearing skins of the guanaco, which agrees with his “like camels without humps” description.

Thursday, the 18th of October, we sailed from the said river of Santa Cruz, with contrary winds, we went for two days tacking about, and then we had a fair wind, and went to the S.S.W. for two days, and in that time we took the sun in 50⅔°, and it was on the 20th.

On the 21st of the said month, I took the sun in exactly 52°, at five leagues from the land, and there we saw an opening like a bay, and it has at the entrance, on the right hand a very long spit of sand, and the cape which we discovered before this spit, is called the Cape of the Virgins, and the spit of sand is in 52° latitude, and 52½° longitude, and from the spit of sand to the other part, there may be a matter of 5 leagues, and within this bay we found a strait which may be a league in width, and from this mouth to the spit you look East and West, and on the left hand side of the bay there is a great elbow, within which are many shoals, but when you enter the strait, keep to the North side, and when you are in the strait to the S.W., in the middle of the channel, and when you are in the strait, take care of some shallows less than three leagues from the entrance of the straits, and after them you will find two islets of sand, and then you will find the channel open, proceed in it at your pleasure without hesitation; and passing this strait we found another small bay, and then we found another strait of the same kind as the first, and from one mouth to the other runs East and West, and the narrow part runs N.E. and S.W., and after we had come out of the two straits or narrows, we found a very large bay, and we found some islands, and we anchored at one of them; and took the sun, and found ourselves in 52⅓°, and thence we came in S.S.E. direction, and found a spit on the left hand, and from thence to the first mouth there will be a matter of 30 leagues; after that we went to S.W. a matter of 20 leagues, and there we took the sun, and we were in 53° latitude. In this strait there are a great many elbows, and the chains of mountains are very high and covered with snow, with much forest. After that we went to N.W. and a quarter W., and in this course there are many islets; and issuing from this strait the coast turns to the north, and on the left hand we saw a cape with an island, and we gave them the name of Cape Fermoso and Cape Deseado, and it is in the same latitude as the Cape of the Virgins, which is at the beginning of the straits, and from the said Cape Fermoso we afterwards went to N.W. and to N., and to N.N.E., and we went in this course two days and three nights, and in the morning we saw land of pointed hills, and it runs North and South (thus runs the coast of the South sea) and from this land to Cape Fermoso there is a matter of 20 leagues, and we saw this land the 1st December.

Voyage of Curcumnavigation: The Fleet and Crew

THE FLEET

Victoria, the sole ship of Magellan's fleet to complete the circumnavigation.

 
The fleet provided by King Charles V included five ships: the flagship Trinidad (110 tons, crew 55), under Magellan's command; San Antonio (120 tons; crew 60) commanded by Juan de Cartagena; Concepcion (90 tons, crew 45) commanded by Gaspar de Quesada; Santiago (75 tons, crew 32) commanded by Juan Serrano; and Victoria (85 tons, crew 43), named after the church of Santa Maria de la Victoria de Triana, where Magellan took an oath of allegiance to Charles V, commanded by Luis Mendoza. Trinidad was a caravel, and all others rated as carracks (Spanish "carraca" or "nao"; Portuguese "nau").
 
THE CREW

The crew of about 270 included men from several nations: including Portuguese, Spanish,Italians, Germans, Flemish, Greeks, English and French. Spanish authorities were wary of Magellan, so that they almost prevented him from sailing, switching his mostly Portuguese crew to mostly men of Spain. Nevertheless, it included about 40 Portuguese, among them Magellan's brother-in-law Duarte Barbosa, João Serrão, a relative of Francisco Serrão, Estêvão Gomes and also Magellan's indentured servant Enrique of Malacca. Faleiro, who had planned to accompany the voyage, withdrew prior to boarding. Juan Sebastián Elcano, a Spanish merchant ship captain settled at Seville, embarked seeking the king's pardon for previous misdeeds and Antonio Pigafetta, a Venetian scholar and traveller, had asked to be on the voyage accepting the title of "supernumerary" and a modest salary, becoming a strict assistant of Magellan and keeping an accurate journal. The only other sailor to report the voyage would be Francisco Albo, who kept a formal logbook. Juan de Cartageña was named Inspector General of the expedition, responsible for its financial and trading operations