ed him in the
belief that the Moluccas, as well as the Philippines, properly
belonged to Spain. Meanwhile in these Philippines of themselves he had
discovered a region of no small commercial importance. But his brief
tarry in these interesting islands had fatal results; and in the very
hour of victory the conqueror perished, slain in a fight with the
natives, the reason of which we can understand only by considering the
close complication of commercial and political interests with
religious notions so common in that age....

Meanwhile, on the 16th of May, the little _Victoria_, with starvation
and scurvy already thinning the ranks, with foretopmast gone by the
board and fore-yard badly sprung, cleared the Cape of Good Hope, and
thence was borne on the strong and friendly current up to the equator,
which she crossed on the 8th of June. Only fifty years since Santarem
and Escobar, first of Europeans, had crept down that coast and crossed
it. Into that glorious half-century what a world of suffering and
achievement had been crowded! Dire necessity compelled the _Victoria_
to stop at the Cape Verde Islands. Her people sought safety in
deceiving the Portuguese with the story that they were returning from
a voyage in Atlantic waters only, and thus they succeeded in buying
food. But while this was going on, as a boat-load of thirteen men had
been sent ashore for rice, some silly tongue, loosened by wine, in the
head of a sailor who had cloves to sell, babbled the perilous secret
of Magellan and the Moluccas. The thirteen were at once arrested, and
a boat called upon the _Victoria_, with direful threats, to surrender;
but she quickly stretched every inch of her canvas and got away. This
was on the 18th of July, and eight weeks of ocean remained. At last,
on the 6th of September--the thirtieth anniversary of the day when
Columbus weighed anchor for Cipango--the _Victoria_ sailed into the
Guadalquivir, with eighteen gaunt and haggard survivors to tell the
proud story of the first circumnavigation of the earth.

The voyage thus ended was doubtless the greatest feat of navigation
that has ever been performed, and nothing can be imagined that would
surpass it except a journey to some other planet. It has not the
unique historic position of the first voyage of Columbus, which
brought together two streams of human life that had been disjoined
since the glacial period. But as an achievement in ocean navigation
that voyage of Columbus