s in the air,
Strange ducks with spoon-shaped bills,--and overhead
Like some fantastic frieze of living gold,
The little yellow monkeys leaped and swung
Chattering of Setebos in their unknown tongue.

The old men lived beyond their sevenscore years--
Or so the people said. They made canots
Of logs that they carved out with heated stones.
They slept in hamacs, woven cotton swings.
Their chiefs were called cacichas--you may find
All this put down in the thrice precious book
Written by Pigafetta of Vicenza
For a queen's pleasure when the voyage was done.

Then from that shore they sailed, and southward bent,
And as the long days lengthened, till the nights
Were but star-circled midnight intervals,
They wondered of what race and by what seas
They should find kings at the antipodes.

Where a great river flowed into the sea
They found sea-lions,--on another isle
Strange geese, milk-white and sable, with no wings,
Who swam instead of flying, and they called
The place the Isle of Penguins.

Then they found
A desolate harbor called San Juliano,
Where the fierce flame of mutiny broke forth,
Spaniard on Portuguese turned treacherously
Till in the red midwinter sunrise towered
The place of execution, and an end
Was made of the two traitors. Outward flashed the sail
And left the sea-birds there to tell the tale.

Beyond there lay a bleak and misty shore,
And in the fog a wild gigantic form
White-haired, a savage, called a greeting to them.
Friendly the huge men were, and took these men,
Bearded and strange, for kinfolk of their god,
Setebos, from his home beyond the moon,
And from their great shoes filled with straw for warmth
Magalhaens named them men of Patagonia.

Westward they steered, and buffeted by winds,
They found a narrow channel, where the fleet
Halted for council. One returned to Spain
Laden with falsehood and with mutiny.
On sailed the others valiantly, their hearts
Remembering their Admiral's haughty words
Flung at his craven captain, "I will see
This great voyage to the end, though we should eat
The leather from the yards!" And thus they reached
The end of that strait path of Destiny,
And saw beyond the shining Western Sea.

Northward the Admiral followed that long coast