PINEAPPLES, POTATOES, VERY OLD PEOPLE.
Other things were there on the wonderful Brazilian coast. There the mariners traded in them and were refreshed with a delicious fruit, called pique—pineapples.
They came to the knowledge here of a nutritious ground fruit called battate. "This," says our Italian, "has the taste of a chestnut and is the length of a shuttle." These ground fruits were potatoes.
On the distant shores palms rise in armies in the dusky air. The shores are silent. When arose the tall people that inhabited them?
Magellan dreams: he wonders at himself, at his inward commission; at his cast-out name and great opportunity.
One of his trusty friends comes to him; he is a Spaniard and his disquieting words break the serenity of the scene.
"Captain General, it hurts my soul to say it, but there is disloyalty on the ships—it is everywhere."
"I seem to feel the atmospheres of it," said Magellan. [74]"Why should it be? The sea and the sky promise us success. Who are disloyal?"
"Captain General, they are your own countrymen!"
"And why do they plot treason under the Cross of discovery?"
"Captain General, if the ocean open new ways before you, and you should achieve all of which you dream, they will have little share in the glory; you are facing stormy waters and perils unknown, not for Portugal, but for Spain."
"Captain General, I am loyal, and the Spanish sailors are loyal; it is your own men who plot in dark corners to bring your plans to naught."[75]
In the shadow of one of the tall castles of another ship sit a band of idle men. They are Portuguese.
One of them, who seems to lead the minds of the others, is whittling, and after a long silence says:
"We do not know where we are going, and wherever we are going, we are Portuguese and are slaves to Spain."
"Ay, ay," returned an old Portuguese sailor, "and when we go back again, should that ever be, the profit to us will be little at the India House."
"Right," answered a number of voices, and one ventured to say:
"Magellan, after all, may be mad, like his old companion, the astronomer. Both came from the same place in Portugal."
Some of the officers had schemes of their own.
But the ships crept on and on, along the Brazilian coast, where the flag of Spain and the farol guided them in the track of the Admiral they followed. Night after night the lantern of the flagship gleamed in the air, moving toward cooler waters under the Southern Cross.
And in Magellan's heart was a single purpose, and he anticipated the joy of a great discovery, as a revelation that would answer the prophetic light that shone like a star in his own spiritual vision. On, and on!
THE FIRST GIANT.—THE ISLANDS OF GEESE AND GOSLINGS.—THE DANCING GIANTS.
The narrative of Pigafetta, the Knight of Rhodes, has much curious lore in regard to giants. At a place on the coast, formerly called Cape St. Mary, the first of these giants appeared.
He was a leader of a tribe "who ate human flesh." The lively Knight of Rhodes informs us that this man, who towered above his fellows, "had a voice like a bull."
He was a leader of a tribe "who ate human flesh." The lively Knight of Rhodes informs us that this man, who towered above his fellows, "had a voice like a bull."
He came to one of the captains' ships and asked—of course in sign language; for a man may have a "voice like a bull" and yet fail to be understood in cannibal tongues—if he might come on board the ship and bring his fellows with him.
He left a quantity of goods on the shore. While he was negotiating at the ships, his people on the shore, who seem to have been unusually wise and prudent, began to remove the stores of goods from exposure to danger to a kind of castle at some distance
The officers of the ships grew inpatient when they saw the tempting goods being thus removed. So they landed a hundred men to recover the goods, which they seemed to have deemed theirs after the "right of discovery."
The men began to run after the provident natives, when they became greatly surprised. The natives seemed to fly over the ground, and leave them behind at a humiliating distance.
"They did more in one step than we could do at a bound," says Pigafetta, Knight of Rhodes.
The giant people here showed that there was need to approach them with caution. Some time before, these "Canibali" had captured a Spanish sea captain and sixty men, who had landed and pastured inland to make discoveries. They ate them all—a fearful feast!
Our voyagers probably had no desire to go too far inland in view of such a warning; so they returned and proceeded on their course toward the antarctic pole.
They discovered two small islands, which had more agreeable inhabitants than the land of Cape St. Mary. "These islands," says our good Knight Pigafetta, "were full of geese and goslings and sea wolves." He adds: "We loaded five ships with them for an hour."
Suddenly one day a most extraordinary sight met the eyes of some of the adventurers. Our Knight's description of this being is very vivid. He says:
"One day, without any one's expecting it, we saw a giant who was on the shore of the sea, quite naked, and was dancing and leaping and singing, and, while singing, he put sand and dust on his head." The Captain of one of the ships, who first saw this extraordinary creature, said to one of the sailors:
"Go and meet him. He dances and sings as a sign of friendship. You must do the same. Beckon him to me."
The Captain himself was on a little island.
The scene that followed must have been comical indeed.
The giant danced and sung and sprinkled his head with sand. The sailor did the same, danced and sang, and the two approached each other.
So the giant was made to think that he was among friends. The sailor led him on to the island, where he met the Captain.
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