dominions over the seas. [Illustration: MAGELLAN STRAIT AND PATAGONIAN CHANNELS] CHAPTER V PATAGONIA Port Desire—Eastern Magellan Straits—Punta Arenas—Western Magellan Straits—Patagonian Channels The most southerly portion of the South American continent, called Patagonia, first became known in the endeavour to find a new way into the Pacific. Magellan was commissioned by Charles of Spain to try to find by the south that ocean passage to the Indies which Columbus had sought in vain further north. He sailed in August 1519, and began his search along the coast at the River Plate; on October 21st, the day of the Eleven Thousand Virgins, he came in sight of a large channel opening out to the west: the promontory to the north of this channel still bears the name he bestowed of Cape Virgins. He proceeded cautiously, sending boats ahead to explore, and on November 28th entered the Pacific. When he saw the open sea he is said to have wept for joy, and christened the last cape “Deseado,” or the “Desired.” The sea power of England, which had been negligible in the time of the first voyages to the New World, was growing in strength; and, though she had attempted no settlement on the southern continent, she saw no reason to acquiesce in the edicts of the King of Spain, shutting her off from all trade with the New World. In 1578 Drake took Magellan’s route, with the object of intercepting galleons on the Pacific coast, and passed through the Straits in sixteen days. On entering the Pacific he was blown backward towards Cape Horn, and was the first to realise that there was another waterway, yet further south, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Up till this time the land had been supposed to extend to the Antarctic. A hundred years later Charles II of England sent an expedition under Sir John Narborough to explore this part of the world and trade with the Indians, which wintered on the eastern coast of Patagonia. Anson’s squadron avoided the Straits, taking the way by the Horn. The Chilean and Argentine Boundary Commission divided Patagonia between the two countries, giving the west and south to Chile and bisecting Tierra del Fuego, 1902.