Ocean's Story; or, Triumphs of Thirty Centuries: Maritime Adventures, Achievements, Explorations, Discoveries and Inventions; and of the Rise and Progress of Ship-Building and Ocean Navigation, from the Ark to the Iron SteamshipsGoodrich, Frank B. (Frank Boott)
History
Ocean's Story; or, Triumphs of Thirty Centuries: Maritime Adventures, Achievements, Explorations, Discoveries and Inventions; and of the Rise and Progress of Ship-Building and Ocean Navigation, from the Ark to the Iron Steamships
Goodrich, Frank B. (Frank Boott)
Discoveries in geography; Voyages and travels
The vessels kept on and on, seeing no fish but sharks, and finding no
bottom along the shores of the stunted islands which they passed. The
needle was so irregular in its motion that it required frequent passes
of the loadstone to revive its energy. No prominent star appeared to
serve as an Antarctic Polar guide. Two stars, however, were discovered,
which, from the smallness of the circle they described in their diurnal
course, seemed to be near the pole. "We traversed," says Pigafetta,
"a space of from sixty to seventy leagues a day; and, if God and His
Holy Mother had not granted us a fortunate voyage, we should all have
perished of hunger in so vast a sea. I do not think any one for the
future will venture upon a similar voyage." It was, indeed, nearly
sixty years before Drake, the second circumnavigator, entered the
Pacific Ocean.
Early in March, 1521, Magellan fell in with a cluster of islands, where
he and his men went ashore to refresh themselves after the fatigues
and privations of their voyage. The inhabitants, however, were great
thieves, penetrating into the cabins of the vessels and taking every
thing on which they could lay their hands. Magellan, exasperated at
length, landed with forty men, burned a village and killed seven of the
natives. The latter, when pierced with arrows through and through,--a
weapon they had never seen before,--would draw them out by either end
and stare at them till they died. Magellan gave the name of Ladrones to
these islands,--a name which they retain in modern geography, though,
in the time of Philip IV. of Spain, they were called the Marianne
Isles, in honor of Maria, his queen.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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