A Book of Discovery by M. B. Synge (classic novels TXT) 📖

"Lo, this is the end of traitors."

THE SILVER MAP OF THE WORLD THE SILVER MAP OF THE WORLD.
The reverse half, showing the route of Drake's voyage home from California in 1579-1580, through the Spice Islands and the Indian Ocean. The end of the homeward track, round the Azores, will be seen on the previous Silver Map illustration.

It was now midwinter, and for six weeks they remained in harbour till August came, and with three ships they emerged to continue their way to the Straits of Magellan. At last it was found and boldly they entered. From the towering mountains that guarded the entry, tempests of wind and snow swept down upon the "daring intruders." As they made their way through the rough and winding waters, they imagined with all the other geographers of their time that the unknown land to the south was one great continent leading beyond the boundaries of the world. Fires lit by the natives on this southern coast added terror to the wild scene. But at the end of sixteen days they found themselves once more in the open sea. They were at last on the Pacific Ocean. But it was anything but pacific. A terrible tempest arose, followed by other storms no less violent, and the ships were driven helplessly southward and westward far beyond Cape Horn. When they once more reached the coast they found in the place of the great southern continent an indented wind-swept shore washed by waves terrific in their height and strength. In the ceaseless gale the Marygold foundered with all hands and was never heard of again. A week later the captain of the Elizabeth turned home, leaving the Pelican, now called the Golden Hind, to struggle on alone. After nearly two months of storm, Drake anchored among the islands southward of anything yet known to the geographers, where Atlantic and Pacific rolled together in one boisterous flood. Walking alone to the farthest end of the island, Drake is said to have laid himself down and with his arms embraced the southernmost point of the known world.

SIR FRANCIS DRAKE, THE FIRST ENGLISHMAN TO SAIL ROUND THE WORLD SIR FRANCIS DRAKE, THE FIRST ENGLISHMAN TO SAIL ROUND THE WORLD.
After the engraving attributed to Hondius.

He showed that the Tierra del Fuego, instead of being part of a great continent—the Terra Australis—was a group of islands with open sea to east, south, and west. This discovery was first shown on a Dutch silver medallion struck in Holland about 1581, known as The Silver Map of the world, and may be seen to-day in the British Museum.

Remarking that the ocean he was now entering would have been better called "Mare Furiosum" than "Mare Pacificum," Drake now directed his course along the western coast of South America. He found the coast of Chili, but not as the general maps had described it, "wherefore it appeareth that this part of Chili hath not been truly hitherto discovered," remarked one on board the Golden Hind. Bristling with guns, the little English ship sailed along the unknown coast, till they reached Valparaiso. Here they found a great Spanish ship laden with treasure from Peru. Quickly boarding her, the English sailors bound the Spaniards, stowed them under the hatches, and hastily transferred the cargo on to the Golden Hind. They sailed on northwards to Lima and Panama, chasing the ships of Spain, plundering as they went, till they were deeply laden with stolen Spanish treasure and knew that they had made it impossible to return home by that coast. So Drake resolved to go on northward and discover, if possible, a way home by the north. He had probably heard of Frobisher's Strait, and hoped to find a western entrance.

As they approached the Arctic regions the weather grew bitterly cold, and "vile, thick, stinking fogs" determined them to sail southward. They had reached a point near what we now know as Vancouver Island when contrary winds drove them back and they put in at a harbour, now known as San Francisco, to repair the ship for the great voyage across the Pacific and home by the Cape of Good Hope. Drake had sailed past seven hundred miles of new coast-line in twelve days, and he now turned to explore the new country, to which he gave the name of New Albion. The Indians soon began to gather in large quantities on the shore, and the King himself, tall and comely, advanced in a friendly manner. Indeed, he took off his crown and set it on the head of Drake and, hanging chains about his neck, the Indians made him understand that the land was now his and that they were his vassals.

THE GOLDEN HIND AT NEW ALBION THE GOLDEN HIND AT NEW ALBION.
From the Chart of Drake's Voyages. 1589.

Little did King Drake dream, as he named his country New Albion, that Californian gold was so near. His subjects were loving and peaceable, evidently regarding the English as gods and reverencing them as such. The chronicler is eloquent in his detailed description of all the royal doings.

"Before we left," he says, "our General caused to be set up a monument of our being there, as also of Her Majesty's right and title to that kingdom, namely, a plate of brass, fast nailed to a great and firm post, whereon is engraved Her Grace's name and the day and year of our arrival here, and of the free giving up of the province, both by the people and king, into Her Majesty's hands, together with Her Highness' picture and arms in a piece of sixpence current money. The Spanish never so much as set foot in this country—the utmost of their discoveries reaching only to many degrees southward of this place.

"And now, as the time of our departure was perceived by the people, so did the sorrows and miseries seem to increase upon them—not only did they lose on a sudden all mirth, joy, glad countenance, pleasant speeches, agility of body, but with signs and sorrowings, with heavy hearts and grieved minds, they poured out woeful complaints and moans, with bitter tears and wringing of their hands, tormenting themselves. And, as men refusing all comfort, they only accounted themselves as those whom the gods were about to forsake."

Indeed, the poor Indians looked on these Englishmen as gods, and, when the day came for them to leave, they ran to the top of the hills to keep the little ship in sight as long as possible, after which they burnt fires and made sacrifices at their departure.

Drake left New Albion on 23rd July 1579, to follow the lead of Magellan and to pass home by the southern seas and the Atlantic Ocean. After sixty-eight days of quick and straight sailing, with no sight of land, they fell in with the Philippine Islands, and on 3rd November with the famous Spice Islands. Here they were well received by the King—a magnificent person attired in cloth of gold, with bare legs and shoes of Cordova skins, rings of gold in his hair, and a chain "of perfect gold" about his neck. The Englishmen were glad enough to get fresh food after their long crossing, and fared sumptuously on rice, hens, "imperfect and liquid sugar," sugar-canes, and a fruit they call figo, with plenty of cloves. On a little island near Celebes the Golden Hind was thoroughly repaired for her long voyage home. But the little treasure-laden ship was nearly wrecked before she got away from the dangerous shoals and currents of these islands.

"Upon the 9th of January we ran suddenly upon a rock, where we stuck fast from eight of the clock at night till four of the clock in the afternoon the next day, being, indeed, out of all hope to escape the danger; but our General, as he had always hitherto showed himself courageous, so now he and we did our best endeavours to save ourselves, which it pleased God so to bless, that in the end we cleared ourselves most happily of the danger."

THE GOLDEN HIND AT JAVA THE GOLDEN HIND AT JAVA.
From the Chart of Drake's Voyages.

Then they ran across the Indian Ocean, rounded the Cape of Good Hope in calm weather, abusing the Portuguese for calling it the most dangerous Cape in the world for intolerable storms, for "This Cape," said the English, "is a most stately thing and the finest Cape we saw in the whole circumference of the earth."

And so they came home. After nearly three years' absence Drake triumphantly sailed his little Golden Hind into Plymouth harbour, where he had long ago been given up as lost. Shouts of applause rang through the land at the news that an Englishman had circumnavigated the world. The Queen sent for Drake to tell his wonderful story, to which she listened spellbound. A great banquet was held on board the little ship, at which Elizabeth was present and knighted Drake, while she ordered that the Golden Hind should be preserved "as a worthy rival of Magellan's Victoria" and as "a monument to all posterity of that famous and worthy exploit of Sir Francis Drake." It was afterwards taken to pieces, and the best parts of wood were made into a chair at Oxford, commemorated by Cowley's lines—

"To this great ship, which round the world has run
 And matched in race the chariot of the sun;
·               ·               ·               ·               ·
 Drake and his ship could ne'er have wished from fate
 A happier station or more blest estate;
 For lo, a seat of endless rest is given
 To her in Oxford and to him in Heaven."

Sir Francis Drake died at sea in 1596.

"The waves became his winding sheet, the waters were his tomb,
 But for his fame the ocean sea was not sufficient room."

The world as known after its circumnavigation by Sir Francis Drake in the years 1577-1580 "THE UNROLLING OF THE CLOUDS"—V.
The world as known after its circumnavigation by Sir Francis Drake in the years 1577-1580.

CHAPTER XXXV DAVIS STRAIT

But even while Drake was sailing round the world, and Frobisher's search for a north-west passage had been diverted into a quest for gold, men's minds were still bent on the achievement of reaching Cathay by some northern route. A discourse by Sir Humphrey Gilbert to prove the existence of a passage by the north-west to Cathay and the East Indies, in ten chapters, was much discussed, and the Elizabethan seamen were still bent on its discovery.

"When I gave myself to the study of geography," said Sir Humphrey, "and came to the fourth part of the world, commonly called America, which by all descriptions I found to be an island environed round by sea, having on the south side of it the Strait of Magellan, on the west side the Sea of the South, which sea runneth toward the north, separating it from the east parts of Asia, and on the north side the sea that severeth it from Greenland, through which Northern Seas the Passage lieth which I take now in hand to discover."

The arguments of Sir Humphrey seemed conclusive, and in 1585 they chose John Davis, "a man well grounded in the principles of the art of navigation," to search for the North-West Passage to China. They gave him two little ships, the Sunshine of fifty tons, with a crew of seventeen seamen, four musicians, and a boy, and the Moonshine of thirty-five tons. It was a daring venture, but the expedition was ill-equipped to battle with the icebound seas of the frozen north. The ships left Dartmouth on 7th June, and by July they were well out on the Atlantic with porpoises and whales playing round them. Then came a time of fog and mist, "with a mighty great roaring