One of the greatest of the explorers of this time was undoubtedly Da Gama's compatriot and contemporary, Ferdinand Magellan. He had been in the service of the king of Portugal, but as his services were unappreciated he went over to the king of Spain and succeeded in persuading the Spanish Government that the Spice Islands could be reached by {267} sailing to the West. The Portuguese had previously reached them by sailing East. Magellan's idea was to find some mode of getting through or around the American continent so as to sail into the great South Sea. He reached the land to which he gave the name of Patagonia, where he noted the presence of men of huge size. South of this he succeeded in finding a passage which he called San Vittoria Strait, but which has come much more properly to be known since as the Straits of Magellan. He shed tears of joy, as Pigafetti who was with him on the expedition tells, when he beheld the immense expanse of the new ocean. He found it so placid that he gave it the name it has borne ever since, the Pacific Ocean. For nearly four months he sailed on the Pacific without seeing any inhabited land. His sailors were compelled to eat even the skin and leather wherewith their rigging was bound and to drink water which had become putrid. It required super-human courage and perseverance to continue the expedition, but Magellan did so. He touched at the Ladrone Islands, but unfortunately he was killed shortly after his vessels reached the Spice Islands, it is presumed by the natives, though perhaps by his own men, who dreaded his intensity of purpose to circumnavigate the globe and feared that it would carry them once more through similar awful sufferings to those which they had experienced in the voyage through the Pacific Ocean. His lieutenant, Sebastian de Elcano, directed his course from the Moluccas to the Cape of Good Hope, but did not reach it until he had gone through hardships almost as severe as those suffered in the Pacific. He lost twenty-one of his men, but succeeded in getting back to Seville just about three years and one month after they had sailed from that port. They had accomplished, however, one of the greatest achievements in the history of the race. They had circumnavigated the globe and proved beyond all doubt that by sailing westward one might come round to where one started. It is interesting to know that Magellan's lieutenant, Sebastian, received high honors and armorial bearings, with the globe of the world belted by the inscription, "You were the first to go round me" (_Primus circumdedisti me_). Spain made many claims {268} to lands discovered on this expedition and it added notably to the extent of the Spanish Empire.