The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - PREVIEW： Epochs #227 ｜ Magellan： Part VIII

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome back to Epochs where I shall be continuing the story of Magellan's

00:00:18.320 terrific, fantastic, terrible voyage around the world, the first circumnavigation of the

00:00:23.500 globe. As you might have noticed, I'm in Studio One today because of some timing and scheduling

00:00:28.460 issues which I shan't bore you with, but we're in the first studio today with the Epochs specific

00:00:33.720 video wall. But anyway, enough of that, let's just continue with the story. If you remember last time

00:00:39.660 Magellan had lost his second ship out of the Armada of Five, it's not a great Armada is it,

00:00:46.500 five ships, it's not really, usually when you hear the word Armada you think dozens or hundreds even,

00:00:51.380 but anyway, it was five ships and one had been wrecked hadn't it, and then he'd lost the second

00:00:55.460 one or say lost, it had been sort of mutinied and then just sailed home back to Spain. So he's down

00:01:01.280 to three ships and that was the last sort of thing, the last big event that just happened in the story

00:01:06.560 that I'm telling here. So there's still the three remaining ones are still in the strait, what comes

00:01:12.380 to be called the Strait of Magellan, that sort of maze of waterways and fjords that cut through the

00:01:19.920 bottom of South America and the cut through the land of Tierra del Fuego. So they're still

00:01:24.860 in the middle of that really. So I'll let Lawrence Burgreen pick up the story, a great book, one of

00:01:32.180 the best books there is on Magellan, although there are many, there are loads in fact. This story has

00:01:38.440 been picked through over the centuries again and again and again. People have found it fascinating

00:01:45.820 ever since it happened, as do I and I hope you do. Okay, so after that second ship just sailed back

00:01:53.020 to Spain, the San Antonio, it does seem that that did sort of knock Magellan's confidence a little bit.

00:01:59.160 I mean, how could it not that they were prepared, or at least some men on board that ship were prepared

00:02:04.320 to do such a drastic action? Because it is quite drastic, isn't it? Just to sail away, just to mutiny and

00:02:09.860 just simply sail away. It would be difficult not to knock his confidence. It speaks volumes that they,

00:02:15.700 they must have hated you, they must have hated your leadership, really hated it, you know, at risk of

00:02:21.720 being tortured or executed if and when they got back home and were found to have done something

00:02:25.920 wrong. That's how much they hated you. So okay, Burgreen says this, quote, once Magellan became 0.79

00:02:31.060 resigned to the loss of the ship, the three remaining vessels of the Armada de Maluca pressed on.

00:02:36.240 After the hardships they had endured at bleak Port St. Julian, the crew came to welcome the variety

00:02:42.000 and natural majesty the strait afforded them. As they plied its fields, they marvelled at the dolphins

00:02:48.640 that swam beside their ships and jumped in agile arcs. Sailor's law had it that when dolphins jumped

00:02:54.620 straight ahead, good weather was approaching, and when they jumped to one side or the other, the weather

00:02:59.160 would be foul. The marvellous but hazardous strait still lacked a name. At first, the men called it simply

00:03:04.520 the strait. Pigafetta took to referring to the waterway as the Patagonian strait, while San Martin,

00:03:11.360 the astrologer pilot, preferred the name strait of all saints. Still others referred to it as

00:03:16.800 Victoria strait after the first ship to enter its waters. By 1527, six years after the expedition's

00:03:23.160 conclusion, the waterway had earned the name by which it is now known, the strait of Magellan. For all

00:03:28.760 his pride, Magellan never dared to name the strait after himself. The names he did confer during his

00:03:33.480 journey were either descriptive, Patagonia, or religiously inspired, Cape of the Eleven

00:03:38.960 Thousand Virgins. As one mountainous prospect gave way to another, Pigafetta wrote glowingly

00:03:44.520 of the strait's natural splendour and sustaining food. And these are Pigafetta's words. He said,

00:03:50.320 One finds the safest of ports every half league in it. Water, the finest of wood, but not of cedar,

00:03:56.680 fish, sardines, and mizigiloni, which is a sweet herb. We ate of it for many days, as we had nothing

00:04:03.220 else, Bergrin continues, although the men did not realise it. Their diets replenished their depleted

00:04:08.920 bodies. The wild herbs they consumed contained vitamin C, which protected them against the

00:04:14.380 depredations of scurvy, at least for a while. All things considered, Pigafetta judged, quote,

00:04:20.340 I believe there is not a more beautiful or better strait than this one, end quote. So they sail on,

00:04:25.480 and they get a little bit of that precious vitamin C. And this will become vitally important,

00:04:31.040 as we shall see in a bit, heading out into the Pacific for weeks or months on end,

00:04:36.160 with basically no vitamin C. You can get scurvy, did get scurvy, and eventually scurvy will kill

00:04:42.400 you, quite horribly, really. Okay, so a few words then about Magellan's, how it knocked his confidence

00:04:48.520 when the San Antonio ran away back to Spain. We've actually got very few writings, very,

00:04:56.580 very few, of Magellan himself. We've got Pigafetta, and we've got one or two other

00:05:01.500 survivors that wrote accounts. But words directly from Magellan, very, very few sort of written orders

00:05:08.680 that have survived. But one we do have here, in fact, it's the longest thing we've got that's

00:05:14.780 actually written by Magellan in Magellan's hand. And it was written about this time, when they were

00:05:19.860 still in the sort of the western half of the Strait of Magellan. And he sends a letter to the other

00:05:25.300 captains of the remaining ships. And it's very un-Magellan-like. It's sort of a little bit out

00:05:31.360 of character. It's one of the few times, the few moments, when he sort of seems to be not exactly

00:05:36.240 asking for forgiveness. It's not really that. But he's sort of bending his will a tiny bit.

00:05:42.480 Well, I'll read it to you. I'll read it to you. So he sent letters to the other two ships. And the

00:05:46.780 one that he sent to Durant Barbosa, who's the captain of the Victoria, that's the one that actually

00:05:53.320 literally physically survives. And he wrote this, quote,

00:05:56.900 I, Ferdinand Magellan, knight of the order of Santiago and captain general of the Armada,

00:06:02.300 which his majesty sends to the discovery of the islands of Spice, etc. Hereby inform you,

00:06:09.340 Durant Barbosa, captain of Victoria, and its pilots and boatswains, that I am aware of your deeming it

00:06:15.140 a very grievous thing that I shall be determined to continue onwards, because you think that time is

00:06:20.040 short to accomplish our journey. And since I am a man who never despised the advice and opinions of

00:06:25.240 others, yeah, yeah, right, yeah, right. On the contrary, all my decisions are taken jointly with

00:06:31.340 everyone and notified to one and all, without my offending anyone. And because of what happened

00:06:37.140 in St. Julian, with the deaths of Luis de Mendoza and Caspar de Quesada, and the banishment of Luis de

00:06:43.860 Cartagena, and Pero Sanchez de la Reina, priest, you, out of fear, refrain from telling me and

00:06:50.000 advising me on everything you believe to be useful to his majesty and the Armada's well-being. But if

00:06:55.500 you do not tell me so, you are going against the advice of the Emperor King, our Lord, and against

00:07:00.720 the oath and homage you took with me. Therefore, I ask you on behalf of the said Lord, and I myself

00:07:06.780 beg you and order you to write down your opinions, each one individually, stating the reasons why we

00:07:12.320 should continue onwards, or else turn back, and all this showing no respect for anything that may

00:07:17.680 prevent you from telling the truth. Being aware of these reasons and opinions, I will then say mine

00:07:22.440 and my willingness to conclude what should be done. Written in the Canal de Todos Los Santos,

00:07:28.220 opposite Rio de la Isleta, on the 21st of November, Thursday, at 53 degrees of the year 1520,

00:07:35.360 ordered by Captain General Ferdinand Magellan, end quote. So, there you go, he's saying,

00:07:39.340 let me know your thoughts. I was never someone who ruled in an authoritarian manner. I always

00:07:47.820 listened to what people around me said. We know that's not true. Maybe he's very, very deliberately

00:07:52.340 wanting to get it down on paper as some sort of proof, if they finally get back. Something physical

00:07:59.200 proof, evidence, saying, no, look, I definitely didn't act in some sort of overbearing, tyrannical

00:08:07.100 way. Look, here's evidence. I sent, well, Captain's letters saying, you've got to let me, not only do I

00:08:12.680 want to know your opinions, but you've got to tell me your opinions. It would be wrong of you not to

00:08:18.140 give me your opinions. The King and God would be displeased if you didn't. I insist you do,

00:08:23.500 and I will listen to them with all fairness. But you can tell this is a reaction, we know,

00:08:29.460 this is a reaction to the loss of San Antonio now. So, you know, everyone that, well, nearly

00:08:34.840 everyone that has looked back at this sees this as some sort of attempt to cover his tracks a tiny

00:08:41.480 bit. Because we know that going forward, we also know from Pigafetta and other accounts that after

00:08:46.780 this stage, Magellan still continues to rule with an iron fist. It's still completely his way on the

00:08:54.580 highway, on everything. So that, the reality of that hasn't and doesn't change. So this letter does

00:09:00.480 seem to be, you know, just an exercise in, not exactly fabricating evidence, but, you know,

00:09:06.540 having something that you can point to later to suggest, to make the argument that, you know,

00:09:12.060 I wasn't all that bad. I did ask for other people's opinions. Okay. So that's what it is. But we've also

00:09:16.500 got a response, at least from one of the officers, Andreas de Saint-Martin, the fleet's astronomer.

00:09:23.260 We've actually got his response to it. And I can read you that. It's kind of long. It's not all

00:09:27.680 that long, but, you know, it's a couple of hundred words or so. But I'll read that so you can, I like

00:09:32.900 the original texts, right? Going back to the actual original sources. You can't beat that. And it's

00:09:37.920 interesting. So it is kind of revealing as well. So first of all, Berggren says this, quote,

00:09:42.740 This remarkable document, i.e. Magellan's, Magellan's letter I just read out. This remarkable document,

00:09:48.540 Magellan's longest statement to have survived, reveals the suspicion and mistrust running

00:09:53.120 rampant at what should have been one of their most harmonious and triumphant intervals.

00:09:57.700 The normally resolute Magellan sounds as though he is about to apologise for the protracted trial

00:10:03.300 and cruel executions he ordered in Port St. Julian, and he clearly realises that as a result of his

00:10:09.540 severe, though legally sanctioned, disciplinary measures, he has alienated his officers, even

00:10:15.840 those closest to him. Afraid of losing still more of his ships to mutiny, Magellan's isolation at this

00:10:21.260 moment was nearly complete. Thrust into an unaccustomed position of authority,

00:10:26.340 Andreas de Saint-Martin, the fleet's astronomer, urged that they continue the expedition

00:10:30.980 at least through mid-January. And remember, they're in the southern hemisphere. So that's

00:10:36.160 summer. December and January is a sort of higher summer.

00:10:38.980 Although he remained sceptical that the strait, this is Saint-Martin, remained sceptical that the

00:10:44.480 strait would ultimately prove to be the miraculous passage to the Spice Islands. After January, he

00:10:50.200 warned, the days would grow short and the waterways, whose destructive power they had already experienced,

00:10:56.560 would become even more ferocious. Furthermore, they must not sail by night because the men would

00:11:01.360 be exhausted after a long, you know, like 17-hour day sometimes, after a long strenuous day battling

00:11:06.880 high winds and rough waters. So the fleet's astronomer, Andreas de Saint-Martin, wrote this

00:11:11.860 in response to Magellan's letter, asking for his opinion on everything. He wrote, quote,

00:11:17.040 Most magnificent lord, having seen your lordship's command, of which I was notified of February 22nd

00:11:23.200 of November in the year 1520, by Martin Mendes, clerk of the ship of his majesty named Victoria,

00:11:29.740 of which orders gave to me my view as regards to what I believe to be better for this journey,

00:11:34.660 either to continue or turn back, with the reasons behind either choice. I say, that aside from

00:11:40.960 doubting that neither through his canal de todos los santos, in which we now are, nor through the

00:11:46.880 other two straits laying to the east and east-northeast, there might be found any passage to the Moluccas,

00:11:52.700 this is irrelevant to the question of what could eventually be found. Weather permitting, insofar as

00:11:58.160 we are in the prime of summer, and it seems that your lordship must continue ahead in search of it,

00:12:03.340 i.e., you know, actually getting to the Pacific. And depending on what shall be found or discovered

00:12:08.580 until the middle of this coming January of 1520, you may consider the possibility of returning to

00:12:14.500 Spain, because from then on, the days suddenly dwindle and the weather shall worsen. And since now,

00:12:20.360 even though the days last 17 hours added to the dawn and dusk, we still suffer stormy and shifting

00:12:26.200 weather, much more so than can be expected when the days decrease from 15 to 12 hours, and much more

00:12:32.180 in winter, as we already know. So your lordship may want to leave these straits and spend the month of

00:12:37.520 January in reaching the outside, i.e. the Pacific, and then, after collecting enough fuel and water,

00:12:44.160 head towards Cadiz and the port of San Luca de Barrameda, i.e. Spain, whence we departed.

00:12:50.000 Continuing nearer the Austral Pole, where we presently are, as you instructed the captains,

00:12:55.320 at the river of Santa Cruz, i do not think it feasible due to the terrible and stormy weather,

00:13:00.480 because if at this latitude sailing proves so hazardous and painful, what shall it be like

00:13:05.020 when we find ourselves at 60 or 75 degrees or more? He's saying, you know, the further south we go,

00:13:10.800 the more hazardous it's going to be. And he's right in that, of course. As your lordship said,

00:13:15.680 he must go in search of the Moluccas by way of the eastern and the east-northeastern route,

00:13:20.320 rounding the Cape of Good Hope. By the time we should arrive there, it would already be winter,

00:13:25.560 and also the crew is thin and lacking in strength. Moreover, if there are now sufficient provisions,

00:13:31.000 there are not many, nor enough to regain energies and enable too much working without the crew's

00:13:36.260 health suffering it. And I also have noticed how it takes the ill ones longer to recover.

00:13:41.620 I also believe that your lordship should not sail along these coasts at night, both because of

00:13:47.220 the ship's safety and the crew's need to rest a little. Since there are 17 hours of daylight,

00:13:52.640 let your lordship have the ships lie at anchor for the four or five nightly hours, so that,

00:13:57.820 as I said, the people can rest instead of having to bustle about the ships with the rigging.

00:14:03.020 And most importantly, in order to spare ourselves the blows that an untoward fate would inflict on us,

00:14:09.740 may heaven forbid it. For if such blows befall us when things can be seen and observed,

00:14:15.000 it should not be unfitting to fear them when nothing can be seen or known or well watched.

00:14:20.620 So let your lordship have the ships anchor one hour before sunset, rather than continue forward

00:14:26.300 at night to cover two leagues. I have said as I feel and understand in order to serve both God and

00:14:31.700 your lordship with what I believe is best for the armada and your lordship. Your lordship shall do as

00:14:37.400 your lordship sees fit, as God shall guide your lordship. Please he, i.e. God, that your lordship's

00:14:42.940 life and condition be successful, as it is my wish. End quote. So basically he's saying, let's push on,

00:14:49.140 but also be careful, particularly at night, and let's push on at least to January until the days

00:14:54.720 start getting shorter, and then have a rethink at that point. You know, if we've got to the Pacific,

00:15:00.300 or they don't know it's the Pacific. They don't call it that yet. They just know that there is

00:15:04.580 an ocean on the other side of the South American continent. We've got no idea how big it is or

00:15:09.860 anything, but see if we can reach that ocean by sort of mid-January or the end of January at the

00:15:15.260 latest, and then have a rethink. That's basically what the astronomer says. Not bad advice. You know,

00:15:21.360 not bad advice. It does seem, though, from everything we know, what happens going forward is that Magellan

00:15:27.160 had made up his mind. He was still completely of the opinion that they're going to press on until,

00:15:33.060 if not death, then something very close to it. He's got no real intention of turning back.

00:15:39.220 You know, you get the impression, most people think that probably, even if he'd got word back

00:15:43.880 from all of his officers saying, no, we all think you should turn back, he probably wouldn't have

00:15:49.140 still. I mean, we don't know. That's just conjecture. But yeah, from the way Magellan behaves

00:15:54.580 for the rest of the expedition, he truly is single-minded. That's the one thing you can absolutely

00:16:00.600 say about Magellan. He's not intending to turn back at any stage. Okay, Bergering goes on saying

00:16:07.040 this quote. Sam Martin, the astronomer, dared to express what nearly everybody on the voyage

00:16:13.140 whispered. There was great danger ahead, and chances were they would not make it to the

00:16:17.960 Spice Islands, wherever they were. Their maps had long sinks proved to be useless. Give it

00:16:23.460 until January, he advised, and if they had not reached their goal by then, return to Spain

00:16:28.020 and try again. Magellan considered these carefully thought-out admonitions, but he was nevertheless

00:16:33.060 inclined to proceed, no matter how long it took to reach the Spice Islands. They had

00:16:37.300 at least three months' provisions, by his reckoning. Most important, he believed that

00:16:42.480 God would assist them in achieving their goal. After all, he had permitted them to discover

00:16:48.860 the strait, and he would guide them to their final goal. The next day, Magellan gave the order

00:16:53.860 to weigh anchor. The ships fired a salvo of cannon that reverberated around the splendid dark

00:16:59.360 green mountains, grey ravines, and azure glaciers of the strait, and the armada set sail once

00:17:04.720 again, heading west, always west. At last, the churning metallic waters of the Pacific came

00:17:11.160 into view, and they realised that they had reached the end of the strait. Magellan had

00:17:16.080 done it, and he found the waterway just as he had promised King Charles. Now that the armada

00:17:21.620 had accomplished this feat, all the arguments for turning back by mid-January were never again

00:17:26.460 discussed, and Jeanne de Mafra, one of the other men to have survived, made it back to Spain,

00:17:32.240 gone all the way around the world and survived, come back to Spain and written accounts, the

00:17:36.400 other one other than Pigafetta. He said this, at this moment, quote, everyone thought himself

00:17:40.540 fortunate to be where none had been before, end quote. A bit Star Trek that, isn't it? A bit

00:17:45.800 Starship Enterprise. Okay, Bergering continues. Magellan was overwhelmed to have completed his navigation

00:17:53.300 of the strait, at last. Pigafetta recalls that the Captain General, quote, wept for joy, quote.

00:17:59.080 When he recovered, he named the just-discovered Pacific Cape, Cape Desire. Oh, well, this is

00:18:04.800 Pigafetta again. He named it Cape Desire, for we had been desiring it for so long, end quote.

00:18:10.140 As the armada approached the Pacific, the seas turned grey and rough. It was late in the day,

00:18:15.300 and the dull skies were fading to darkness as the three ships put the western mouth of the

00:18:20.160 strait to stern. Pigafetta again. Wednesday, November the 28th, 1520, we debauched from the

00:18:26.160 strait, engulfing ourselves in the Pacific Sea, noted Pigafetta with quite satisfaction,

00:18:32.520 even with the mutiny of San Antonio and the time spent trying to recover the ship, not to mention

00:18:37.980 the ubiquitous dead ends the straits presented. Magellan needed only 38 days and nights to travel

00:18:43.780 from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific. And in hindsight, this is me now, and in hindsight,

00:18:48.940 that's a remarkable feat of navigation and seamanship. Even a very, very good pilot might

00:18:56.960 have been expected to take a lot longer than that, or even got completely lost and, you

00:19:02.400 know, got himself into a terrible survival situation. So the fact it took Magellan merely

00:19:07.200 38 days is remarkable. Most people have remarked on that. I mean, Drake, a few years later,

00:19:13.160 well, like 50 odd years later or so, 60 odd years later, he didn't even really attempt

00:19:18.660 it. He thought it was too dicey. He thought it was too much of a risk. You're sort of more

00:19:24.140 likely to get lost than not. That's why he didn't even really attempt it. Bergering continues.

00:19:29.720 For Magellan and his crew, it had been a remarkable rite of passage. As they sailed beyond the strait

00:19:35.340 into the open water, how could they doubt that their expedition was indeed blessed by

00:19:39.980 the Almighty? Although Magellan and his crew appeared vulnerable to the elements, to starvation,

00:19:45.260 to the local tribes they encountered, and most of all to each other, this was not how they

00:19:49.780 saw themselves. They all believed that a supernatural power looked after them and conferred on them

00:19:54.780 the unique status of global travellers.

00:19:57.340 But how much of this accomplishment of navigating the strait derived from Magellan's skill, and how

00:20:05.600 much could be attributed to plain good luck? Magellan was fortunate that the weather was

00:20:11.020 relatively mild. After the intense storms that had menaced his ships, no other squalls surprised

00:20:16.720 them, no glaciers collapsed on them, and the temperature, fluctuating as it does at the time

00:20:21.820 of year, from between 35 degrees to 50 degrees Fahrenheit, maintained within normal bounds,

00:20:27.760 so that the men were spared the intense cold they had suffered at Port St. Julian.

00:20:32.740 Their scouting excursions, as well as the addition of fresh vegetables to their diet, boosted both

00:20:37.960 their spirits and their health. The passage through the strait, while strenuous, was far healthier

00:20:43.960 than being at sea for long stretches, within the unsanitary confines of the ships, subsisting

00:20:49.500 on a diet of salty, spoiled food and wine. Some think they're now going to have to suffer,

00:20:55.160 because they've got no idea how wide the Pacific is.

00:20:58.180 Burgreen again. Although the Armada enjoyed reasonably good fortune, Magellan's extraordinary

00:21:02.840 skill as a strategist proved to be the decisive factor in negotiating the entire length of the

00:21:09.160 dragon's tail. That's just another, sometimes, how the bottom of South America is described.

00:21:14.740 He ordered lookouts scrambling to the highest perch on the ships, where they could see the waterways

00:21:19.400 and obstacles that lay ahead. In addition, he regularly sent small scouting parties in the

00:21:24.180 longboats, Jean de Maffre wrote. They would go on and come back with news of the findings,

00:21:28.860 and then the rest of the Armada would follow. This is the way the Armada operated for the

00:21:32.880 whole passage of the strait. The information they brought back helped Magellan plot his next move.

00:21:37.620 They warned him against rocky shoals, bays that deceptively resembled a continuation of the strait,

00:21:43.420 and other dead ends that would have delayed his passage. Magellan even relied on the taste of

00:21:48.540 seawater to guide the fleet. That's actually a really important one. How salty is the water

00:21:53.680 we're in right now? As the water became fresher, he knew he was travelling inland, and once it turned

00:21:58.660 salty, he realised he was approaching the Pacific on the western side of the strait. It sounds like a

00:22:04.460 very, very simple, what it is, very, very simple, straightforward thing to do. And yet,

00:22:09.440 if you get used to it, if you become a master of that, it can be extremely useful and telling.

00:22:14.980 We're agreeing again. This array of tactics saved tedious days of wandering up and down

00:22:19.540 dead-end channels and harbours. If one approach failed, he always had others on which to fall

00:22:24.960 back. Not even the loss of his best pilot, Estroval Gomez, and his biggest ship, San Antonio,

00:22:31.140 defeated him. The more the fleet shrank, the more nimble it became. His sophisticated approach to

00:22:36.380 navigating uncharted waters went far beyond technical ability in boat handling and direction

00:22:41.460 finding. It revealed an ability to deploy novel tactics to overcome one of the greatest challenges

00:22:47.520 of the Age of Discovery, namely how to guide a fleet of ships through hundreds of miles of unmapped

00:22:52.900 archipelagos in rough weather. A skill he's going to need when he gets to Southeast Asia, or the modern 0.98

00:22:59.220 day Indonesia. A giant maze of unmapped archipelagos, and sometimes in rough weather.

00:23:05.680 Magellan's skill in negotiating the entire length of the strait is acknowledged as the single greatest

00:23:10.460 feat in the history of maritime exploration. It was, perhaps, an even greater accomplishment

00:23:15.400 than Columbus's discovery of the new world, because the Genoan, Columbus, thinking he had arrived in China,

00:23:22.580 remained befuddled to the end of his days about where he was and what he had accomplished,

00:23:27.040 and as a result he misled others. Magellan, in contrast, realised exactly what he had done.

00:23:32.900 He had, at long last, begun to correct Columbus's great navigational error. Columbus, till his dying day,

00:23:39.040 was under the impression that the islands and land that he had discovered was, in fact, still somewhere

00:23:45.320 quite near Asia, near India and Japan and stuff. He never accepted that it was an entirely new continent.

00:23:53.700 Of course, he landed in what is today the Caribbean, basically. But they knew there was a large

00:24:00.180 landmass, you know, not too far away from the islands of the Caribbean. And yet Columbus insisted

00:24:05.440 that, you know, he never accepted that there was this giant continent. And of course, he had no concept

00:24:10.820 that there was also, beyond that, then, the Pacific. They thought the world was a lot smaller than it

00:24:15.900 really was. Let Berggrin continue again. He says this, quote,

00:24:18.500 When the fog receded and the sun broke through the low clouds, the Western Sea, as the Pacific was

00:24:23.960 then called, turned from lifeless grey to seductive cobalt. Its surface mottled with frothy white caps

00:24:30.380 that melted into the frigid air. The water boiled menacingly and surged over the rocks and cliffs

00:24:36.080 emerging from its inscrutable depths. Fearing shoals, Magellan adjusted his navigational technique.

00:24:41.720 Instead of gliding through deep fjords, it steered a course in rough water between two rocks,

00:24:47.200 later named, with a bitter irony best appreciated by wary sailors, the Evangelists and Good Hope.

00:24:53.940 A cold miasma descended, blinding the pilots, Demafra said. The Western exit of the strait is

00:24:59.320 very narrow and foggy, and there is no sign of it. Having exited it and sailed three leagues into

00:25:04.580 the sea, its mouth cannot be descried, end quote. Berggrin goes on. Magellan set a northerly course

00:25:10.200 along the coast of Chile. The strait they had just left seemed an enchanted refuge by comparison

00:25:15.240 to the ocean they now faced. Darwin, on his journey, found the vista so horrifying that he

00:25:21.460 was moved to comment, and this is Darwin now, one sight of such a coast is enough to make a landsman

00:25:26.560 dream for a week of shipwreck, peril and death, end quote. I.e., it's like a very, very rugged coastline.

00:25:33.760 You can sort of see that the ocean's trying to push you onto really, really dangerous rocky

00:25:41.520 coasts, but you could easily, so easily, so easily be wrecked along that coast. It's terrifying,

00:25:47.760 in pre-modern times anyway. If you enjoyed that preview, please consider heading over to

00:25:52.960 lotusseaters.com to watch the full and abridged video.

The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters - September 07, 2025

PREVIEW： Epochs #227 ｜ Magellan： Part VIII

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