Over the Edge of the World: Magellen's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe

by Laurence Bergreen

  Nutmeg was almost as important and valuable as cloves, and Pigafetta offered this description of its appearance in the wild: “The tree resembles our walnut tree, and has leaves like it. When the nut is gathered it is as large as a small quince, with the same sort of down, and it is of the same color. Its first rind is as thick as the green rind of our walnut. Under that there is a thin layer, under which is found the mace. The latter is a brilliant red and is wrapped about the rind of the nut, and within that is the nutmeg.”

  In the early hours of Monday, November 25, Almanzor sailed out to the fleet in his proa to the resonant accompaniment of gongs. As he passed between the armada’s ships, he announced that the cloves would be ready for delivery within four days. Overjoyed, the men of the armada fired their weapons to celebrate the event and to impress the king.

  Later the same day, the men began to load what eventually amounted to 791 catis of cloves, about 1,400 pounds. “As those were the first cloves which we had laden in our ships, we fired many pieces.” The more spices they took on board, the more anxious the men of the armada became to return to Spain before another disaster befell them.

  Now that the Europeans finally had their hands on the spices, Almanzor chose this moment to involve them in local politics, explaining that he wanted his visitors to return to the islands as soon as possible with even more ships. Even though the officers had experienced the bitter lessons of becoming ensnared in local vendettas, they blithely assured Almanzor they would help him. Content with this vague promise of assistance, the king invited everyone ashore for a banquet to celebrate the occasion.

  The innocent gesture immediately sent the men of the armada into a panic because it reminded them of both the massacre at the banquet on Cebu and of Serrão’s death by poisoning. Suddenly, the officers of the armada saw signs of impending doom wherever they looked; for example, “We saw those Indians speaking very low to our captives.” Even the recently cleaned streets of the village, visible from the boats, appeared ominous. But they could not spurn the king’s invitation because they depended on his goodwill for access to the spices. “Some of us, supposing that this was some treachery . . . were in great doubt and of contrary opinion to those who wished to go to the banquet, saying that we ought not to go ashore and reminding them of another such misfortune.” Rather than go ashore, the officers offered to invite the king onto their ships, where they would bestow gifts on him, and even leave behind four men who wished to remain in the Spice Islands. (And good luck to those who remained in this dangerous place; they would certainly need it.)

  Accepting the counteroffer, Almanzor immediately boarded Trinidad, boasting that he “entered there as safely as into his own houses.” As the suspicious sailors listened, he said he was “greatly amazed” to hear that the armada was about to weigh anchor and sail away. “The space of time for lading the ships was thirty days,” he explained. He meant no harm, or so he said, and only wanted to help them obtain their spices and journey home safely. “He besought us that we should not leave at once, seeing that it was not yet the season for navigation among those islands, and also because of the rocks and reefs that were around the island of Bandan, and also because we might easily have encountered the Portuguese.” These were all persuasive arguments, as the officers realized. And he demonstrated his sincerity by saying that if the armada wanted to leave now, he would do nothing to stop it; he requested only that they take back all the gifts they had conferred on him “because the kings his neighbors would say that the king of Tidore had received so many gifts from so great a king”—that is, King Charles—“and had given him nothing, and they would think that we had departed only for fear of some deception and treachery, whereby he would always be named and reputed a traitor.”

  Here, at last, was the underlying reason why Almanzor wanted the armada to stay: to save face in front of the neighboring rulers. If he could maintain an alliance with his powerful visitors, he would impress and intimidate the jealous rulers of the other islands, but if he lost the visitors’ favor, if they dismissed him as insignificant, he would appear vulnerable to the rival kings.

  The officers began to appreciate what Magellan had always refused to acknowledge in his dealings with islanders: their presence placed both sides in peril. There were hazards for the Europeans (the islanders might massacre them), and there were hazards for the islanders themselves (the Europeans might take their women or disturb the local balance of power). Seeing himself as a savior who, in the name of Christianity and the king of Spain could do no wrong, Magellan remained blind to such nuances. But his pragmatic successors, chastened by experience, listened carefully to the king, both to protect their own lives and their precious cargo of spices.

  The king became even more emotional as he sought to appeal to their hearts as well as their minds. “He had his crown brought and, first kissing it and setting it on his head four or five times,” Pigafetta observed in astonishment, “he said in the presence of all that he swore by Allah, his great god, and by his crown which he had in his hand, that he desired to be forever a very loyal friend of the King of Spain. And he spoke these words almost weeping.”

  The king’s tears softened the officers’ hearts, and they decided to stay another fifteen days. To strengthen their shared bond of loyalty to the king of Spain, the officers gave the grateful Almanzor a royal banner displaying the insignia associated with Charles.

  The king was apparently sincere in his goodwill toward the crew, but what about the other islanders? A few days later, the crew members heard that the lesser chiefs had urged Almanzor to kill all the Europeans because “it would give great pleasure to the Portuguese.” The king sternly replied that he would not harm the visitors under any circumstances, “knowing the King of Spain and because he had made peace with us and plighted his faith.” Although Almanzor had proved himself to be a man of his word, the crew members were right to be cautious. Even if he protected them, others might not follow his orders. By remaining aloof, yet carefully attuned to the king of Tidore, the armada, which had sailed into so many disasters, averted another, and perhaps final, calamity.

  Working feverishly throughout the last days of November and the early days of December, the men of the Armada de Molucca purchased and stored cloves until they had no more trinkets, caps, bells, mirrors, hatchets, scissors, or bolts of cloth to exchange for spices, and no more room to store the aromatic treasure. The ships reeked of the fragrant cloves; every breath the sailors drew was permeated with the scents of wealth, ease, and luxury.

  The various kings of the Spice Islands paid daily visits to the ships, and the crew kept them entertained by firing off their weapons and engaging in mock swordplay. Despite the deep mistrust lingering between the islanders and the Europeans, a bond had formed between the two peoples. It was based, in part, on a mutual dislike of the Portuguese authorities (and the kings remained oblivious to the fact so many of the officers and crew happened to be Portuguese), but more than that, a genuine rapport developed between the armada’s crew and the inhabitants of Tidore, which only complicated leave-taking.

  On Monday, December 9, Almanzor, whom Pigafetta unselfconsciously took to calling “our king,” brought three betel-bearing women on board Trinidad to impress them with the power and glory of the king of Spain. Almanzor was followed closely by the king of Gilolo, who asked plaintively for one last blast of their guns, and, if they pleased, a final demonstration of swordplay and armor.

  After the exhibition, Almanzor, who may have injected his own feelings into the matter, confided that Gilolo’s king was bereft, “like a child who was taking milk and knew his sweet mother, who on departing would leave him alone; but that more especially he would remain desolate, because he had already known us and tasted some of the things of Spain.” Tearfully accepting that the armada must leave, he advised the departing sailors to sail only by day to avoid the shoals strewn throughout these waters. When the officers informed him that they planned to sail “day and night,” he to
ld them he would pray daily for their safety.

  The decorous leave-taking was marred only by an incident concerning Pedro Alfonso de Lorosa. Ever since his decision to return with the fleet to Spain he had remained in seclusion aboard Trinidad, out of harm’s way. With the departure only days away, the son of Ternate’s king, Chechili, traveled out to the fleet in a “wellmanned proa,” seeking to lure Lorosa into his vessel.

  Fearing that he would be kidnapped and killed, Lorosa refused to go along, declaring that he was returning to Spain, “Whereupon,” said Pigafetta, “the king’s son tried to enter the ship, but we refused to allow him to come aboard, as he was a close friend of the Portuguese captain of Malacca, and had come to seize the Portuguese [Lorosa].” Frustrated in his attempt to capture Lorosa, Chechili returned to his island, venting his wrath on those who had let Lorosa go.

  On December 15, the king of Bacan and his brother approached the fleet in the largest native vessel the crew had seen. Three tiers of oarsmen—120 men in all—propelled the craft through the water, “and they carried many banners made of white, yellow, and red parrot feathers.” Its progress was announced by the sound of gongs, used to synchronize the oarsmen’s strokes. It was accompanied by two proas “filled with girls.” As it happened, the king’s brother was about to marry Almanzor’s daughter, and the girls were intended as presents for the couple.

  A summit meeting between kings unfolded with elaborate protocol. “When they passed near the ships, we saluted them with our artillery, and they in salute to us sailed round the ships and the port.” Afterward, “our king,” the king of Tidore, “came to congratulate him as it is not the custom for any king to disembark on the land of another king. When the king of Bacan saw our king coming, he rose from the carpet on which he was seated, and took his position at one side of it. Our king refused to sit down upon the carpet, but on its other side, so no one occupied the carpet. The king of Bacan gave our king five hundred patols, because the latter was giving his daughter as wife to the former’s brother. The said patols are cloths of gold and silk manufactured in China, and are highly esteemed among them. Whenever one of those people died, the other members of his family clothe themselves in those cloths in order to show him more honor.”

  The festivities resumed the next day, when Almanzor dispatched fifty women “all clad in silk garments from the waist to the knees” with a banquet for the king of Bacan. “They went two by two with a man between each couple. Each one bore a large tray filled with other small dishes which contained various kinds of food. The men carried nothing but the large wine jars. Ten of the oldest women acted as macebearers. Thus did they go to the proa, where they presented everything to the king, who was sitting upon the carpet under a red and yellow canopy.” The crew members watched this ceremony with fascination and longing, because during their weeks in the Spice Islands, they had refrained from the orgies that highlighted their earlier layovers. Catching sight of the yearning sailors, the women decided to have a little fun and boarded one of the ships, where they “captured” them; in all likelihood, the hostages did not put up much resistance. The flirtatious game continued until “it was necessary to give them”—the women—“some little trifle in order to regain their freedom,” Pigafetta commented.

  More industrious crew members busied themselves in bending and decorating the sails for the ships, restoring the rigging, and making sure the vessels would be able to withstand the rigors of the journey home. When hoisted, the sheets revealed a freshly painted design: an elaborate cross and beneath it the legend, “This is the sign of our good fortune.”

  As that bold legend indicated, the officers and crew of the armada were proud of their accomplishments. Their voyage finally demonstrated what Columbus and so many other explorers had failed to show, that a water route to the Moluccas existed, and that it was possible to reach the East by sailing west. Those who had survived the grueling journey could look back on countless moments of courage and even heroism that helped to bring them to this place, and they could console themselves with dreams of glory and avarice.

  As the hour of departure approached, the pace of activity quickened. The fleet took on board eighty casks of water and a supply of wood cut by one hundred laborers assigned to the task by the king of Bacan, who rallied to the cause of the armada and Spain. To seal the alliance, he arranged a meeting on the neighboring island of Mare with representatives of the armada (including Pigafetta) and Almanzor. The ceremony was impressive: “Before the king walked four men with drawn daggers in their hands. In the presence of our king and of all the others he said that he would always remain in the service of the king of Spain, and that he would save in his name the cloves left by the Portuguese until the arrival of another of our fleets, and he would never give them to the Portuguese without our consent.”

  To demonstrate his good faith, he gave the armada a slave as a present for the king of Spain; two additional bahars of cloves (he would have sent ten, but the ships were so heavily laden with spices that there was no room); and “two extremely beautiful dead birds,” which caught Pigafetta’s imagination. “The people told us that those birds came from the terrestrial paradise, and they call them bolon diuata, that is to say, ‘birds of God.’> ” The birds of paradise, as they came to be known throughout Europe, were as celebrated as the cloves, a token of heaven on earth. Maximilian of Transylvania reported that the Moors believed the birds were born in Paradise, spent the entire lives aloft, never falling from the sky until they died. Anyone who retrieved their skins and wore them in battle was supposed to be protected from harm. So these were extremely valuable presents, as Pigafetta realized at the time.

  On the day of departure, the kings of all the Spice Islands assembled on the island of Mare to see the fleet off. Victoria weighed anchor and set sail, standing off the harbor awaiting Trinidad, the flagship, to join her. The ships’ gunners fired their artillery one more time, but in the midst of the excitement, Trinidad’s cables fouled and to the dismay of everyone, she began taking on water. None of the eyewitnesses supplied a reason for the near-disaster; most likely, the ship had not been adequately repaired during the long layover on Cimbonbon. But the leak was worse than ever, and she was in danger in losing her cargo of spices.

  With her sister ship in distress, “Victoria returned to her anchorage, and we immediately began to lighten Trinidad to see whether we could repair her. We found that the water was rushing in as through a pipe, but we were unable to find where it was coming in. All that and the next day we did nothing but work the pump.” The work was grueling, but necessary. The loss of Trinidad would have been a disaster, depriving the armada of the rewards of its long-sought-after spices. Even worse, Victoria lacked room to hold the crews of both vessels. The arduous pumping continued until the men were exhausted, “but we availed nothing.” Laden with spices, the flagship of the fleet was on the verge of sinking at her mooring.

  After all the pomp and circumstance, not to mention the gongs, girls, and parrot feathers surrounding the fleet’s departure, the situation was humbling, indeed. And it was just the sort of mishap that Magellan would likely have prevented, because he had always been meticulous about the condition of his ships and saw to it that they were seaworthy at all times. Trinidad had fallen into disrepair from sheer neglect, and with that ship disabled, the officers’ hasty decision to burn Concepción returned to haunt them. Not even Magellan would risk taking one, and only one, ship all the way from the Spice Islands back to Spain.

  As soon as Almanzor—“our king”—heard about the plight of Trinidad, he sprang into action, boarding the afflicted ship and prowling below deck, trying to locate the source of the damnable leak, but without success. Then, “He sent five men into the water to see whether they could discover the hole. They remained more than one half hour under water, but were quite unable to find the leak.” The ship was listing badly, and desperate measures were required. “Seeing that he could not help us and the water was increasing hourly, [he] sai
d almost in tears that he would send to the head of the island for three men, who could remain under water a long time.” Almanzor went in search of them, as the ship slowly but unmistakably settled into the water.

  After an anxious night, Almanzor reappeared with the men by the first light of dawn. “He immediately sent them into the water with their hair hanging loose so that they could locate the leak by that means.” Water entering into ship would draw strands of their hair into its current. But even these men failed to locate the leak, and when they emerged, grim-faced, from the water, the king finally broke down in tears. Who among them, he pleaded, would be able to return to Spain now and tell King Charles about the loyalty of the king of Tidore?

  Pigafetta and the others tried to calm the distraught ruler by describing their new plan for returning to Spain. “We replied to him that Victoria would go there in order not to lose east winds that were beginning to blow, while the other ship, until being refitted, would await the west winds and go then to Darién, which is located in another part of the sea in the country of Yucatán.” In other words, Elcano would take Victoria on a westerly course, which was the most direct route back to Spain. But it brought special dangers because it cut a swath through the Portuguese hemisphere, as defined by the Treaty of Tordesillas. If Portuguese navigators captured a Spanish ship loaded with spices in their waters, they would be merciless. Trinidad’s course home promised even greater risks. Once she was repaired, she would try to catch favorable winds carrying her along an easterly course to the American continent. Her cargo of spices would then be transferred to mules, and the beasts would carry the spices to another Spanish fleet heading for Seville.

  As devoted and helpful as ever, Almanzor pledged no fewer than 250 carpenters to perform “all the work” required to return Trinidad to seaworthiness, and he promised to treat all the sailors who remained behind as if they were his own sons, vowing that “they would not suffer any fatigue beyond two of them to boss the carpenters in their work.” The king’s sincerity and generosity finally wore away the officers’ skepticism: “He spoke these words so earnestly that he made us all weep.”