At length, on the 24th of August, with the earliest symptoms of spring
weather, the ships, which had been carefully overhauled and repaired,
proceeded on their way. Violent storms harassed them, and it was not
until the 21st of October (St. Ursala's day) that they reached the
headland still known as Cape Virgins. Passing beyond Dungeness, they
entered a large open bay, which some hailed as the long-sought strait,
while others averred that no passage would be found there. "It was,"
says Pigafetta, "in Eden's bredth. On both the sydes of this strayght
are Magellanus, beinge in sum place C.x. leaques in length: and in
breadth sumwhere very large and in other places lyttle more than halfe
a leaque in bredth. On both the sydes of this strayght are great and
hygh mountaynes couered with snowe, beyonde the whiche is the
enteraunce into the sea of Sur.... Here one of the shyppes stole away
priuilie and returned into Spayne." More than five weeks were consumed
in passing through the strait, and among its labyrinthine twists and
half-hidden bays there was ample opportunity for desertion. As
advanced reconnoissances kept reporting the water as deep and salt,
the conviction grew that the strait was found, and then the question
once more arose whether it would not be best to go back to Spain,
satisfied with this discovery, since with all these wretched delays
the provisions were again running short. Magellan's answer, uttered in
measured and quiet tones, was simply that he would go on and do his
work "if he had to eat the leather off the ship's yards." Upon the
_San Antonio_ there had always been a large proportion of the
malcontents, and the chief pilot, Estevan Gomez, having been detailed
for duty on that ship, lent himself to their purposes. The captain,
Mesquita, was again seized and put in irons, a new captain was chosen
by the mutineers, and Gomez piloted the ship back to Spain, where they
arrived after a voyage of six months, and screened themselves for a
while by lying about Magellan.