The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 33, 1519-1522: Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth centuryPigafetta, Antonio
History
The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume 33, 1519-1522: Explorations by early navigators, descriptions of the islands and their peoples, their history and records of the Catholic missions, as related in contemporaneous books and manuscripts, showing the political, economic, commercial and religious conditions of those islands from their earliest relations with European nations to the close of the nineteenth century
Pigafetta, Antonio
Demarcation line of Alexander VI; Missions -- Philippines; Philippines -- Discovery and exploration; Philippines -- History -- Sources
On leaving Borneo, a number of prisoners from the captured junks are
kept, among them three women whom Carvalho ostensibly retains as
presents for the queen of Spain, but in reality for himself. Happily
escaping from the point on which one of the ships has become grounded,
and the fear of explosion from a candle which is snuffed into a barrel
of powder, the ships anchor at a point of Borneo, where for forty-two
days, the men are busied in repairing, calking, and furnishing the
vessels. The journey is resumed back toward Paragua, the governor of a
district of that island being captured on the way; with whom, however,
they enter into friendly relations. Thence the ships cruise along
between Cagayan, Joló, and Mindanao, capturing a native boat from
Maingdanao of the latter island, from the captive occupants of which
they learn news of the Moluccas. Pushing on amid stormy weather, they
anchor at the island of Sarangani, just south of Mindanao; and thence
proceed in a generally southerly direction amid many islands until the
Moluccas are reached, and they enter the harbor of Tidore on Friday,
November 8, 1521, after twenty-seven months, less two days, since their
departure from Spain.
At Tidore a warm welcome awaits them from the king, who is a powerful
astrologer and has been expecting their arrival. He promises them as
many cloves as they wish, even offering to go outside his island,
contrary to the practice of kings, to provide them the sooner; in
return for his services hoping for their aid in his designs for power
in the Moluccas, especially against the king of Ternate. There they
learn that Francisco Serrão, the great friend of Magalhães, has
perished some eight months previously from poison administered by the
king of Tidore, whom he had visited, because he had aided the king of
Ternate against Tidore. This Serrão, says Pigafetta, was the cause of
Magalhães undertaking his expedition, and he had been in the Moluccas
for ten years, for so long ago had Portugal discovered those islands.
The efforts of the Ternatans to gain the new strangers fail, for they
are already pledged to the king of Tidore. On November 12, a house is
built ashore and on the thirteenth the merchandise is carried there,
among it being that captured with the various junks at and near Borneo.
The sailors are somewhat careless of their bargains for they are in
haste to return to Spain. The king continues his kindness, and to humor
him, as he is a Mahometan, all the swine in the boats are killed. This
relation will be concluded in Vol. XXXIV.
The Editors
December, 1905.
PRIMO VIAGGIO INTORNO AL MONDO
By Antonio Pigafetta. MS. composed ca. 1525, of events of 1519–1522
Source: Our transcript is made from the original document which
exists in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Milan, Italy.
Translation: This is made by James Alexander Robertson.
[PRIMO VIAGGIO INTORNO AL MONDO]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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