CHAPTER IX.

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.

The people here seem to have been very liberal in trading.

They would give six fowls for a knife--well they might do so, as they used stone implements.

They gave _two_ geese for a comb--here they were both generous and wise.

They gave as great a quantity of fish as ten men could eat for a pair of scissors.

And for a bell, they gave a whole basket full of potatoes (battate).

Marvelous indeed as was this same country of Verzim, it also abounded in the conditions and atmospheres of long life.

"Some of these people," says our Italian chronicler, "live to be a hundred or a hundred and twenty, or a hundred and forty or more. They wear little clothing."

Which speaks well for pineapples, potatoes, and easy dress.

"They sleep on cotton nets, which are fastened on large timbers, and stretch from one end of the house to another."

It is good to sleep in ample ventilation. We do not wonder that many of the people passed a hundred years.

The boats of these people were as simple as their open houses.

"These are not made with iron instruments, for there are none, but with stones."

The canoes were dug out of one long tree--some giant growth of the forest which would convey from thirty to forty men. The paddles for these canoes resembled shovels. The rowers were usually black men.

The people ate human flesh, but only at feasts of triumph. They then served up their enemies.

Pigafetta draws the following grewsome picture:

"They do not eat up the whole body of a man whom they take prisoner; they eat him bit by bit, and for fear that he should be spoiled, they cut him up into pieces, which they set to dry before the chimney. They eat this day by day, so as to keep in mind the memory of their enemy."

This was indeed the sweet food of revenge, and as barbarous as it seems, the spirit of revenge secretly cherished is hardly less unworthy when it finds expression in words that are bitter, if not carnal.

The region abounded with bright birds, yet with all these delights, and pineapples and potatoes, there fell great rains. So there were shadows in the sunlands.

We can fancy Pigafetta relating his discoveries on the shore to a susceptible spirit, like Del Cano, and writing an account of them day by day in his immortal journal.

These strange adventures by sea and on land which so greatly interested the Italian Knight Pigafetta, our historian, do not seem to have greatly impressed the mind of Magellan. The lands had been sighted before. His whole soul was bent on one purpose--not on rediscovery, but on discovery. He was sailing now where other keels had been. It was his purpose to find new ways for the world to follow over unknown seas. His heart could find no full satisfaction but in water courses that sails had never swept; a new way to the Moluccas that no ship had ever broken.

Notwithstanding the friendly spirit and liberal patronage of the Emperor, he still stood against the world. He represented a cast-out name. His own countrymen, on his own ships in the long delays on the voyage to unknown seas, were plotting against him.

Let us recall in fancy a night scene as the ships lay on the waters of the meridional world. Magellan sits alone in one of the castles of the ship and looks out on the phosphorescent sea. The stars above him shine in a clear splendor, and are reflected in the sea. The sky seems to be in the waters; the waters are a mirror of the sky. Among the clear stars the Southern Cross, always vivid, here rises high. Magellan lifts to it his eye, and feels the religious inspiration of the suggestion. He is a son of the Church, and he holds that all discoveries are to be made for the glory of the Cross.

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. "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."

"Not for Spain alone, nor for Portugal, but for the glory of the Cross, and the good of all the world. A divine will leads me, and sustains me, and directs me. I am not seeking gold or fame or any personal advantage; my soul goes forth to reveal the wonders and the benevolence of Providence to the heart of the whole world. I go alone, and feel the loneliness of my lot. I left all that I had to make this expedition. It is my purpose to discover unknown seas. Joy, rapture, and recompense would come to me, beyond wealth or fame, could my eyes be the first to see a new ocean world, and to carry back the knowledge of it to all nations. What happiness would it be to me to ride on uncharted tides! My friend, you are loyal to me?"

"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."

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!