Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
rather than lose the favourable trade winds, the
Victoria
should sail
immediately. The
Trinidad
would be properly repaired and then es-
say the Pacific crossing to the Spanish settlement at Panama, whence
crew and cargo could travel over land to the Atlantic coast and re-
turn to Spain in one of the regular convoys.
Thus, on 21 December, the
Victoria,
with a crew of forty-four
Europeans and thirteen Indonesians, sailed out of the anchorage,
their sixty heavy-hearted comrades accompanying them as long as
possible in Moluccan canoes and eventually waving their farewells
as the tiny craft fell far astern. Not until 6 April 1522 did the
Trinidad
weigh anchor, under the command of Gonzalo Gomez de Espinosa.
After three months, during which all the horrors of the outward voy-
age had repeated themselves and thirty-five men had died of scurvy,
malnutrition and fever, she was forced to turn back. She reached
the Moluccas again in November only to discover a large Portuguese
fleet dominating the islands. Espinosa surrendered with his twenty-
two surviving crewmen. They were eventually sent back to Spain but
only four of them arrived in 1525 to become the second group of
men to circumnavigate the globe.
Meanwhile the
Victoria
was scarcely faring better. Her captain
was now Juan Sebastian d'Elcano, a Basque mariner promoted by
the vicissitudes of the voyage from relative obscurity to ship's cap-
tain. He was different in character from Magellan and faced fewer
difficulties but he showed that, like his dead leader, he too could be
firm and single-minded in the pursuit of an objective. His task was
simply to get his ship and his men home and to avoid a clash with
the Portuguese. Thus, he steered a south-westerly course across the
Indian Ocean to avoid the Portuguese bases along the coasts of In-
dia and Africa and the sea lanes between them. This meant anoth-
er long journey through empty, uncharted seas which was almost as
arduous as the trek across the Pacific. The
Victoria
left Timor on 11
February, sailed in a wide arc as far as 42° S and did not round the
