Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
helped him to compile maps and charts of the maze of islands lying
between Malaysia and New Guinea.
*
And that is how Magellan fell in with Rui Faleiro, who would
prove to be his evil genius. Faleiro was an astrologer. He was a math-
ematician. And he was mad. Specifically, he believed, with all the
passion of the megalomaniac, that he had cracked the major prob-
lem facing all Renaissance cosmo-graphers: the calculation of longit-
ude. Equipped with his navigational aids,
†
Faleiro insisted, explorers
could now confidently venture across unknown seas and lay bare
their secrets. One of his 'discoveries' was that no great distance lay
between newly-discovered America and the Spice Islands. A corol-
lary of this 'fact' was that, if the demarcation line of Tordesillas was
drawn around the globe, the Moluccas would be found to lie well and
truly within the Spanish hemisphere. In all this Faleiro was wrong.
For Magellan the error would prove fatal.
The young soldier spent most of the years 1513-1515 fighting
in Morocco. In a skirmish before the walls of Azamor he received a
leg wound which left him with a permanent limp. By now Magellan
had developed into a tough, proud, ruthless campaigner in his mid-
thirties; the kind of man who makes loyal friends and implacable en-
emies. In Africa he ran into trouble. Someone accused him of trad-
ing with the enemy. Magellan tried in vain to clear his name and
when King Manuel, after Magellan's years of loyal service, refused
him promotion, he felt the slight very deeply. In 1517, he shook the
native dust of Portugal from his feet and travelled to Seville to sell
his sword to Charles I of Spain. But he had more than valour to offer.
Rui Faleiro went with him and together they had devised a scheme
to make good Spain's claim to the Spice Islands and establish a regu-
lar trade route - a westerly trade route.
They planned their campaign carefully. They had already made
contact with another Portuguese
émigré
who was highly placed in
the department dealing with voyages to the Spanish Indies. Arrived
