Over the Edge of the World: Magellen's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe (49 page)

N
ow that the Europeans finally had their hands on the spices, Almanzor chose this moment to involve them in local politics, explaining that he wanted his visitors to return to the islands as soon as possible with even more ships. Even though the officers had experienced the bitter lessons of becoming ensnared in local vendettas, they blithely assured Almanzor they would help him. Content with this vague promise of assistance, the king invited everyone ashore for a banquet to celebrate the occasion.

The innocent gesture immediately sent the men of the armada into a panic because it reminded them of both the massacre at the banquet on Cebu and of Serrão’s death by poisoning. Suddenly, the officers of the armada saw signs of impending doom wherever they looked; for example, “We saw those Indians speaking very low to our captives.” Even the recently cleaned streets of the village, visible from the boats, appeared ominous. But they could not spurn the king’s invitation because they depended on his goodwill for access to the spices. “Some of us, supposing that this was some treachery . . . were in great doubt and of contrary opinion to those who wished to go to the banquet, saying that we ought not to go ashore and reminding them of another such misfortune.” Rather than go ashore, the officers offered to invite the king onto their ships, where they would bestow gifts on him, and even leave behind four men who wished to remain in the Spice Islands. (And good luck to those who remained in this dangerous place; they would certainly need it.)

Accepting the counteroffer, Almanzor immediately boarded
Trinidad,
boasting that he “entered there as safely as into his own houses.” As the suspicious sailors listened, he said he was “greatly amazed” to hear that the armada was about to weigh anchor and sail away. “The space of time for lading the ships was thirty days,” he explained. He meant no harm, or so he said, and only wanted to help them obtain their spices and journey home safely. “He besought us that we should not leave at once, seeing that it was not yet the season for navigation among those islands, and also because of the rocks and reefs that were around the island of Bandan, and also because we might easily have encountered the Portuguese.” These were all persuasive arguments, as the officers realized. And he demonstrated his sincerity by saying that if the armada wanted to leave now, he would do nothing to stop it; he requested only that they take back all the gifts they had conferred on him “because the kings his neighbors would say that the king of Tidore had received so many gifts from so great a king”—that is, King Charles—“and had given him nothing, and they would think that we had departed only for fear of some deception and treachery, whereby he would always be named and reputed a traitor.”

Here, at last, was the underlying reason why Almanzor wanted the armada to stay: to save face in front of the neighboring rulers. If he could maintain an alliance with his powerful visitors, he would impress and intimidate the jealous rulers of the other islands, but if he lost the visitors’ favor, if they dismissed him as insignificant, he would appear vulnerable to the rival kings.

The officers began to appreciate what Magellan had always refused to acknowledge in his dealings with islanders: their presence placed both sides in peril. There were hazards for the Europeans (the islanders might massacre them), and there were hazards for the islanders themselves (the Europeans might take their women or disturb the local balance of power). Seeing himself as a savior who, in the name of Christianity and the king of Spain could do no wrong, Magellan remained blind to such nuances. But his pragmatic successors, chastened by experience, listened carefully to the king, both to protect their own lives and their precious cargo of spices.

The king became even more emotional as he sought to appeal to their hearts as well as their minds. “He had his crown brought and, first kissing it and setting it on his head four or five times,” Pigafetta observed in astonishment, “he said in the presence of all that he swore by Allah, his great god, and by his crown which he had in his hand, that he desired to be forever a very loyal friend of the King of Spain. And he spoke these words almost weeping.”

The king’s tears softened the officers’ hearts, and they decided to stay another fifteen days. To strengthen their shared bond of loyalty to the king of Spain, the officers gave the grateful Almanzor a royal banner displaying the insignia associated with Charles.

The king was apparently sincere in his goodwill toward the crew, but what about the other islanders? A few days later, the crew members heard that the lesser chiefs had urged Almanzor to kill all the Europeans because “it would give great pleasure to the Portuguese.” The king sternly replied that he would not harm the visitors under any circumstances, “knowing the King of Spain and because he had made peace with us and plighted his faith.” Although Almanzor had proved himself to be a man of his word, the crew members were right to be cautious. Even if he protected them, others might not follow his orders. By remaining aloof, yet carefully attuned to the king of Tidore, the armada, which had sailed into so many disasters, averted another, and perhaps final, calamity.

W
orking feverishly throughout the last days of November and the early days of December, the men of the Armada de Molucca purchased and stored cloves until they had no more trinkets, caps, bells, mirrors, hatchets, scissors, or bolts of cloth to exchange for spices, and no more room to store the aromatic treasure. The ships reeked of the fragrant cloves; every breath the sailors drew was permeated with the scents of wealth, ease, and luxury.

The various kings of the Spice Islands paid daily visits to the ships, and the crew kept them entertained by firing off their weapons and engaging in mock swordplay. Despite the deep mistrust lingering between the islanders and the Europeans, a bond had formed between the two peoples. It was based, in part, on a mutual dislike of the Portuguese authorities (and the kings remained oblivious to the fact so many of the officers and crew happened to be Portuguese), but more than that, a genuine rapport developed between the armada’s crew and the inhabitants of Tidore, which only complicated leave-taking.

O
n Monday, December 9, Almanzor, whom Pigafetta unselfconsciously took to calling “our king,” brought three betel-bearing women on board
Trinidad
to impress them with the power and glory of the king of Spain. Almanzor was followed closely by the king of Gilolo, who asked plaintively for one last blast of their guns, and, if they pleased, a final demonstration of swordplay and armor.

After the exhibition, Almanzor, who may have injected his own feelings into the matter, confided that Gilolo’s king was bereft, “like a child who was taking milk and knew his sweet mother, who on departing would leave him alone; but that more especially he would remain desolate, because he had already known us and tasted some of the things of Spain.” Tearfully accepting that the armada must leave, he advised the departing sailors to sail only by day to avoid the shoals strewn throughout these waters. When the officers informed him that they planned to sail “day and night,” he told them he would pray daily for their safety.

The decorous leave-taking was marred only by an incident concerning Pedro Alfonso de Lorosa. Ever since his decision to return with the fleet to Spain he had remained in seclusion aboard
Trinidad,
out of harm’s way. With the departure only days away, the son of Ternate’s king, Chechili, traveled out to the fleet in a “wellmanned
proa,
” seeking to lure Lorosa into his vessel.

Fearing that he would be kidnapped and killed, Lorosa refused to go along, declaring that he was returning to Spain, “Whereupon,” said Pigafetta, “the king’s son tried to enter the ship, but we refused to allow him to come aboard, as he was a close friend of the Portuguese captain of Malacca, and had come to seize the Portuguese [Lorosa].” Frustrated in his attempt to capture Lorosa, Chechili returned to his island, venting his wrath on those who had let Lorosa go.

O
n December 15, the king of Bacan and his brother approached the fleet in the largest native vessel the crew had seen. Three tiers of oarsmen—120 men in all—propelled the craft through the water, “and they carried many banners made of white, yellow, and red parrot feathers.” Its progress was announced by the sound of gongs, used to synchronize the oarsmen’s strokes. It was accompanied by two
proas
“filled with girls.” As it happened, the king’s brother was about to marry Almanzor’s daughter, and the girls were intended as presents for the couple.

A summit meeting between kings unfolded with elaborate protocol. “When they passed near the ships, we saluted them with our artillery, and they in salute to us sailed round the ships and the port.” Afterward, “our king,” the king of Tidore, “came to congratulate him as it is not the custom for any king to disembark on the land of another king. When the king of Bacan saw our king coming, he rose from the carpet on which he was seated, and took his position at one side of it. Our king refused to sit down upon the carpet, but on its other side, so no one occupied the carpet. The king of Bacan gave our king five hundred
patols,
because the latter was giving his daughter as wife to the former’s brother. The said
patols
are cloths of gold and silk manufactured in China, and are highly esteemed among them. Whenever one of those people died, the other members of his family clothe themselves in those cloths in order to show him more honor.”

The festivities resumed the next day, when Almanzor dispatched fifty women “all clad in silk garments from the waist to the knees” with a banquet for the king of Bacan. “They went two by two with a man between each couple. Each one bore a large tray filled with other small dishes which contained various kinds of food. The men carried nothing but the large wine jars. Ten of the oldest women acted as macebearers. Thus did they go to the
proa,
where they presented everything to the king, who was sitting upon the carpet under a red and yellow canopy.” The crew members watched this ceremony with fascination and longing, because during their weeks in the Spice Islands, they had refrained from the orgies that highlighted their earlier layovers. Catching sight of the yearning sailors, the women decided to have a little fun and boarded one of the ships, where they “captured” them; in all likelihood, the hostages did not put up much resistance. The flirtatious game continued until “it was necessary to give them”—the women—“some little trifle in order to regain their freedom,” Pigafetta commented.

More industrious crew members busied themselves in bending and decorating the sails for the ships, restoring the rigging, and making sure the vessels would be able to withstand the rigors of the journey home. When hoisted, the sheets revealed a freshly painted design: an elaborate cross and beneath it the legend, “This is the sign of our good fortune.”

As that bold legend indicated, the officers and crew of the armada were proud of their accomplishments. Their voyage finally demonstrated what Columbus and so many other explorers had failed to show, that a water route to the Moluccas existed, and that it was possible to reach the East by sailing west. Those who had survived the grueling journey could look back on countless moments of courage and even heroism that helped to bring them to this place, and they could console themselves with dreams of glory and avarice.

A
s the hour of departure approached, the pace of activity quickened. The fleet took on board eighty casks of water and a supply of wood cut by one hundred laborers assigned to the task by the king of Bacan, who rallied to the cause of the armada and Spain. To seal the alliance, he arranged a meeting on the neighboring island of Mare with representatives of the armada (including Pigafetta) and Almanzor. The ceremony was impressive: “Before the king walked four men with drawn daggers in their hands. In the presence of our king and of all the others he said that he would always remain in the service of the king of Spain, and that he would save in his name the cloves left by the Portuguese until the arrival of another of our fleets, and he would never give them to the Portuguese without our consent.”

To demonstrate his good faith, he gave the armada a slave as a present for the king of Spain; two additional bahars of cloves (he would have sent ten, but the ships were so heavily laden with spices that there was no room); and “two extremely beautiful dead birds,” which caught Pigafetta’s imagination. “The people told us that those birds came from the terrestrial paradise, and they call them
bolon
diuata,
that is to say, ‘birds of God.’> ” The birds of paradise, as they came to be known throughout Europe, were as celebrated as the cloves, a token of heaven on earth. Maximilian of Transylvania reported that the Moors believed the birds were born in Paradise, spent the entire lives aloft, never falling from the sky until they died. Anyone who retrieved their skins and wore them in battle was supposed to be protected from harm. So these were extremely valuable presents, as Pigafetta realized at the time.

O
n the day of departure, the kings of all the Spice Islands assembled on the island of Mare to see the fleet off.
Victoria
weighed anchor and set sail, standing off the harbor awaiting
Trinidad,
the flagship, to join her. The ships’ gunners fired their artillery one more time, but in the midst of the excitement,
Trinidad’s
cables fouled and to the dismay of everyone, she began taking on water. None of the eyewitnesses supplied a reason for the near-disaster; most likely, the ship had not been adequately repaired during the long layover on Cimbonbon. But the leak was worse than ever, and she was in danger in losing her cargo of spices.

With her sister ship in distress, “
Victoria
returned to her anchorage, and we immediately began to lighten
Trinidad
to see whether we could repair her. We found that the water was rushing in as through a pipe, but we were unable to find where it was coming in. All that and the next day we did nothing but work the pump.” The work was grueling, but necessary. The loss of
Trinidad
would have been a disaster, depriving the armada of the rewards of its long-sought-after spices. Even worse,
Victoria
lacked room to hold the crews of both vessels. The arduous pumping continued until the men were exhausted, “but we availed nothing.” Laden with spices, the flagship of the fleet was on the verge of sinking at her mooring.