The first voyage round the world, by Magellan : $b translated from the accounts of Pigafetta, and other contemporary writersPigafetta, Antonio
History
The first voyage round the world, by Magellan : $b translated from the accounts of Pigafetta, and other contemporary writers
Pigafetta, Antonio
Magalhães, Fernão de, -1521; Voyages around the world -- Early works to 1800
Departing thence as far as forty nine degrees and a half in the
Antarctic heavens (as we were in the winter), we entered into a port
to pass the winter, and remained there two whole months without ever
seeing anybody. However, one day, without anyone expecting it, we
saw a giant, who was on the shore of the sea, quite naked, and was
dancing and leaping, and singing, and whilst singing he put the sand
and dust on his head. Our captain sent one of his men towards him,
whom he charged to sing and leap like the other to reassure him, and
show him friendship. This he did, and immediately the sailor led this
giant to a little island where the captain was waiting for him; and
when he was before us he began to be astonished, and to be afraid, and
he raised one finger on high,[175] thinking that we came from heaven.
He was so tall that the tallest of us only came up to his waist;[176]
however[177] he was well built. He had a large face, painted red all
round, and his eyes also were painted yellow around them, and he had
two hearts painted on his cheeks; he had but little hair on his head,
and it was painted white. When he was brought before the captain he
was clothed with the skin of a certain beast, which skin was very
skilfully sewed. This beast[178] has its head and ears of the size of
a mule, and the neck and body of the fashion of a camel, the legs of a
deer, and the tail like that of a horse, and it neighs like a horse.
There is a great quantity of these animals in this same place. This
giant had his feet covered with the skin of this animal in the form of
shoes, and he carried in his hand a short and thick bow, with a thick
cord made of the gut of the said beast, with a bundle of cane arrows,
which were not very long, and were feathered like ours,[179] but they
had no iron at the end, though they had at the end some small white and
black cut stones, and these arrows were like those which the Turks use.
The captain caused food and drink to be given to this giant, then they
showed him some things, amongst others, a steel mirror. When the giant
saw his likeness in it, he was greatly terrified, leaping backwards,
and made three or four of our men fall down.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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