Ferdinand Magellan's Voyage round the World, 1519-1522.

Like Vasco da Gama, Magellan was a Portuguese, but unlike him he could not induce the King of Portugal to finance his expedition. Magellan was determined to prove indisputably the roundness of the world by sailing round the new continent, and beyond, until he should reach the Indies, and so round Africa back to Europe; that is, to circumnavigate the world from west to east. He was commissioned by the King of Spain to make his voyage, and embarked from Spain in August 1519 with a fleet of five ships, sailed southwards down the coast of South America, Brazil had been found and named the Portuguese Cabral in 1500, and part of the coast of South America had been explored, but no one had any idea how far south the continent ran. Magellan was a firm disciplinarian, and ordered his men to "follow the flagship and ask no questions." Even so, he was obliged to land in Patagonia, and hang some of his men for mutiny. Magellan found the strait which bears his name, and made a slow progress through it, taking sounding all the way, and at last reached the Pacific Ocean, he then named the Pacific Ocean (after his first impresion of it being peace and calm). Stores were running very low, and by the time the Ladrone Islands were reached, the crews were in a desperate plight, and reduced to eating rats and sawdust. They had voyaged for eighty-nine days without sighting any land except two small desert islands. From the Ladrones they proceeded to the Philippine Islands. Here, tragedy befell, for a quarrel with the natives led to a fight in which Magellan and a number of his men were killed. The survivors fled, and made the best of their way home. Five ships, with 280 men had left Seville in 1519; only one returned, ( September 1522 ) with eighteen men of the original expedition.