One of these ships was commanded by Alvaro de Mezquita, son of Magellan's brother, and this by the windings of the channel came out again into the ocean whence it had set out. When the Spaniards [225] saw that they were at a considerable distance from the other ships, they plotted among themselves to return home, and having put Alvaro their captain in irons, they sailed northwards, and at last reached the coast of Africa, and there took in provisions, and eight months after leaving the other ships they arrived in Spain, where they brought Alvaro to trial on the charge that it had chiefly been through his advice and persuasion that his uncle Magellan had adopted such severe measures against the Castilians. Magellan waited some days over the appointed time for this ship, and meanwhile one ship had returned, and reported that they had found nothing but a shallow bay, and the shores stony and with high cliffs; but the other reported that the greatest bay had the appearance of a strait, as they had sailed on for three days and had found no way out, but that the further they went the narrower the passage became, and it was so deep, that in many places they sounded without finding the bottom; they also noticed from the tide of the sea, that the flow was somewhat stronger than the ebb, and thence they conjectured that there was a passage that way into some other sea. On hearing this Magellan determined to sail along this channel. This strait, though not then known to be such, was of the breadth in some places of three, in others of two, in others of five or ten Italian miles, [226] and inclined slightly to the west. The latitude south was found to be fifty-two degrees, the longitude they estimated as the same as that of St. Julian's Bay. It being now hard upon the month of November, the length of the night was not much more than five hours; they saw no one on the shore. One night however a great number of fires was seen, especially on the left side, whence they conjectured that they had been seen by the inhabitants of those regions. But Magellan, seeing that the land was craggy, and bleak with perpetual winter, did not think it worth while to spend his time in exploring it, and so with his three ships continued, his voyage along the channel, until on the twenty-second day after he had set sail, he came out into another vast and open sea: the length of the strait they reckoned at about one hundred Spanish miles. The land which they had to the right was no doubt the continent we have before mentioned [South America]. On the left hand they thought that there was no continent, but only islands, as they occasionally heard on that side the reverberation and roar of the sea at a more distant part of the coast. Magellan saw that the main land extended due north, and therefore gave orders to turn away from that great continent, leaving it on the right hand, and to sail over that vast and extensive ocean, which had probably