The raid on Panama had brought Drake enormous wealth. At his own cost he built three frigates and two sloops to explore the South Seas, his purpose being to enter the Pacific through the Strait of Magellan, which no Englishman had yet ventured to pass. These ships he equipped as if for royal tournament. Players of the violin and the harp discoursed music at each meal. Rarest wines filled the lockers. Drake, clad in rich velvet, {4} dined on plates of pure gold served by ten young noblemen, who never sat or donned hat in his presence; and on his own ship, the _Pelican_--afterwards called the _Golden Hind_--he had a hundred picked marines, men eager for battle and skilful in wielding the cutlass. His men loved him as a dauntless leader; they feared him, too, with a fear that commanded obedience on the instant. Queen Elizabeth was in a quandary how to treat her gallant buccaneer and rover of the high seas. England and Spain were at peace, and she could not give Drake an open royal commission to raid the commerce of a friendly power; but she did present him with a magnificent sword, to signify that she would have no objection if he should cut his way through the portals leading to the 'closed sea.' The fleet set sail in December 1577, and steered by the west coast of Morocco and the Cape Verde Islands. The coast of Brazil was reached in April. Two of the ships were abandoned near the mouth of the Rio de la Plata, after having been stripped of provisions. In August the remaining three ships entered the tempestuous seas around Cape Horn. Drake drove before the gales with sails close-reefed and hatches battened, and came {5} out with only one of his three ships left, the first English keel to cleave the waters of the Pacific. In honour of the feat Drake renamed his ship the _Golden Hind_. Perhaps there was jocose irony in the suggestion of gold and speed. Certain it is, the crew of the _Golden Hind_ were well content with the possession of both gold and speed before advancing far up the west coast of South America.