When Ferdinand Magellan was dead the Christians got back to the ships,
where they thought fit to make two captains and governors whom they
should obey; and, having done this, they took counsel (and decided)
that the captains should go ashore where the people had turned
Christians, to ask for pilots to take them to Borneo, and this was on
May 1st of the said year. When the two captains went, being agreed upon
what had been said, the same people of the country who had become
Christians armed themselves against them, and killed the two captains
and twenty-six gentlemen; and the other people who remained got back to
the boats and returned to the ships, and, finding themselves again
without captains, they agreed, inasmuch as the principal persons were
killed, that one Joan Lopez, who was the chief treasurer, should be
captain-major of the fleet, and the chief constable of the fleet should
be captain of one of the ships. He was named Gonzalo Vas Despinosa.
Having done this, they set sail, and ran about twenty-five leagues with
three ships, which they still possessed; they then mustered, and found
that they were altogether one hundred eight men in all these three
ships, and many of them were wounded and sick, on which account they did
not venture to navigate the three ships and thought it would be well to
burn one of them--the one that should be most suitable for that
purpose--and to take into the two ships those that remained: this they
did out at sea, out of sight of any land. While they did this many
paraos came to speak to them, and navigating among the islands, for in
that neighborhood there are a great many. They did not understand one
another, for they had no interpreter, for he had been killed with
Ferdinand Magellan. Sailing farther on among islets, they came to anchor
at an island which is named Carpyam, where there is gold enough, and
this island is in fully 8 deg..
While at anchor in this port of Carpyam they had speech with the
inhabitants of the island, and made peace with them, and Carvalho, who
was captain-major, gave them the boat of the ship which had been burned:
this island has three islets in the offing. Here they took in
refreshments, and sailed farther on to the west-southwest, and fell in
with another island, which is named Caram, and is in 11 deg.; from this they
went on farther to west-southwest, and fell in with a large island, and
ran along the coast of this island to the northeast, and reached as far
as 9 deg., where they went ashore one day, with the boats equipped to seek
for provisions, for in the ships there was now not more than eight days'
food. On reaching shore the inhabitants would not suffer them to land,
and shot at them with arrows of cane hardened in fire, so that they
returned to the ships.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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