One would gladly know--albeit Pigafetta's journal and the still more
laconic pilot's logbook leave us in the dark on this point--how the
ignorant and suffering crews interpreted this everlasting stretch of
sea, vaster, said Maximilian Transylvanus, "than the human mind could
conceive." To them it may well have seemed that the theory of a round
and limited earth was wrong after all, and that their infatuated
commander was leading them out into the fathomless abysses of space,
with no welcoming shore beyond. But that heart of triple bronze, we
may be sure, did not flinch. The situation had got beyond the point
where mutiny could be suggested as a remedy. The very desperateness of
it was all in Magellan's favor; for so far away had they come from the
known world that retreat meant certain death. The only chance of
escape lay in pressing forward. At last, on the 6th of March, they
came upon islands inhabited by savages ignorant of the bow and arrow,
but expert in handling their peculiar light boats. Here the dreadful
sufferings were ended, for they found plenty of fruit and fresh
vegetables, besides meat. The people were such eager and pertinacious
thieves that their islands received the name by which they are still
known, the Islas de Ladrones, or isles of robbers.

On the 16th of March the three ships arrived at the islands which some
years afterward were named Philippines, after Philip II of Spain. Tho
these were islands unvisited by Europeans, yet Asiatic traders from
Siam and Sumatra, as well as from China, were to be met there, and it
was thus not long before Magellan became aware of the greatness of his
triumph. He had passed the meridian of the Moluccas, and knew that
these islands lay to the southward within an easy sail. He had
accomplished the circumnavigation of the earth through its unknown
portion, and the remainder of his route lay through seas already