islands of St. Lazarus, from the saint whose day and feast were celebrated early in his stay among them.[1]
The calculations of the longitude showed that these islands were well within the Spanish half of the world and the success with which a Malay slave of Magellan, brought from Sumatra, made himself understood[2] indicated clearly enough that they were not far from the Moluccas and that the object of the expedition, to discover a westward route to the Spice Islands, and to prove them to be within the Spanish demarcation, was about to be realized. But Magellan, like Moses, was vouchsafed only a glimpse of the Promised Land. That the heroic and steadfast navigator should have met his death in a skirmish with a few naked savages when in sight of his goal, is one of the most pathetic tragedies in history.[3]
The difficulties, however, of approaching the Moluccas by the western route through the straits of Magellan (that Cape Horn could be rounded was not discovered till 1616), the stubborn and defiant attitude of the King of Portugal in upholding his claims, the impossibility of a scientific and exact determination of the Demarcation Line in the absence of accurate means for measuring longitude,—all these, reinforced by the pressure of financial stringency led King Charles in 1529 to relinquish all claims to or rights to trade with the Moluccas for
- ↑ See Pigafetta's account in The First Voyage Round the World by Magellan, p. 74.
- ↑ Pigafetta, ibid., p. 76.
- ↑ The description of the Philippines and their inhabitants which we owe to the Italian Pigafetta who accompanied Magellan is especially noteworthy not only as the first European account of them, but also as affording a gauge by which to estimate the changes wrought by the Spanish conquest and the missions.
