Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Fuego). Who could tell what horrors might lurk further within the
strait? Fear played on jealousies and rivalries. At the first opportun-
ity the captain of the
San Antonio
was overpowered and the largest
ship in the fleet slipped past its companions and set course for Spain.
Despite this setback, Magellan pressed on, probing inlets and
channels in search of the real strait. His men endured cold, storms
and hunger as they threaded their way past snow-topped peaks and
scrub-covered rock along the 334-mile waterway which, for all they
knew, had no outlet:
On 27 November (Magellan] came out into the South Sea, bless-
ing God, who had been pleased to permit him to find what he so
much desired, being the first that ever went that way, which will per-
petuate his memory for ever.
7
The passage of the straits had been entirely due to Magellan's
determination and fierce discipline. It was an achievement that
changed the course of history. Thus, probably no place on earth is
more fittingly named than the Straits of Magellan.
Hardships passed were as nothing compared with what now lay
ahead. Magellan's fleet travelled over nine thousand miles in three
months and eight days without making a landfall. Thanks to chance
and the SE trade winds the voyagers missed Easter Island, Pitcairn,
the Society Islands, the Marquesas, the Carolines, the Gilbert Islands
and the thousand and one other atolls and volcanic ridges thrust up
from the floor of the Pacific.
It was a nightmare crossing. Men died from scurvy, malnutrition
and sheer exhaustion. And they were the lucky ones. Their ship-
mates, driven by the primal urge to survive, forced stagnant water,
sawdust and boiled-up bits of leather into their aching stomachs.
And all for a purpose which rapidly lost the last vestiges of cred-
ibility. For, the further Magellan's ships sailed towards the taunting
emptiness of the horizon the more pointless the exercise became.
*
The only fact established beyond doubt by the crews' appalling or-
