THUMBTACKS OF HISTORY. MAGELLAN.

Dozerdust, Volume 2, Issue 1, 4 December 1943, Page 5

THUMBTACKS OF HISTORY. MAGELLAN.

” ON 25 Sentenber 1515 Vr.-sco Nunez de Onlbna flrct of Eumrmn nen sighted the Pacific. H.th a chosen band of men he to* lnd and fought his way o rose the Igth«ius of Panama• and on that day from the summit, of the Sierras -he saw the ocean . The story, of how he waded into the water and claimed it and all the continents and Islands it washed for his master the King Of bpoin is an old story and one history has made familar to us. but not so famliter is the life of Magellan the first rreat explorer of the Pacific and a man who only in the last few years has merited the recognition he so richly deserved. ::: BOHN in 1480 of a noble Portuguese family, his youth was spent at the court of King • Pianoel where he saw sea car-* tains bring home their harvest of gold, soloes, strange men so slaves, . and stranger stories of fabulous wealth in foreign sons,' The ambitious, but mean M nr of Portugal, determined to reap a further harvest and to that encl equipped the greatest armada ever to leave Portugal (1504/• It is estimated that the death rate on voyages at that time was six out of every seven men. But death seldom dcfters when enormous wealth, religious z reward and high adventure go hand in hand. The wealth had been sighted, the adventuro was < in fighting the Moors, the rel - Igious promptings sunn lied by the Pone in 1493 when he had divided the world into two - the west for Spain and the East for Portugal. .Were there not heathens to convert - and was the task not specifically given by the Pope. That.motive comes to the fore again end again in the great Pacific discoveries. lit IN 1505'Mag---ellan enlisted under Almeida, one Portugal e greatest leaders and it wm x seven veers before Magellan returned - end he came fired with a belief of a stern passage to the Sa fit He was ” always busy with pilots, charts and questions of longitude, and all the geographical knowledge of his time, perfecting himself in the theories of navigation % Ho met one Huy Paletro "an astrologer of dark looks and uncert&lri temper, suspected of being in league with the devil " Magellan incurred the displeasure of the King, ■tha_ T .. upshot of which w«s to make him ao - -

Spanish nationality in 1517,

11 Your wife $ J I replied with some astonishment* ” Yah ? my wife, but she’s dead - committed suicide* Had two children too o Boot know why she did it ? she loved me and I loved her* But----now I’m free f and it won’t matt- . er if I do have a woman* I wouldnt mind one of ’em Hew Zealand .nurses* Thaf not too bad, no sirV He clicked his teeth round Me tongue as though about to enjoy a sweet caramel, K But it just aint easy to pick up the sonsabitches round here* Ho , it just’aint easy” He continued talking to himself as though lie were trying to straighten things, cut# 22c*$AY* what’s your name he asked as if Just 'aware of ;my. presence® . •- ■• Hine s Joo ”hi answered'be ford 1,, had time to reply* ” I sure would like to be back in the States behind one of them wheels u he went on as the trucks continued to tear past us. He walked on, thumbing* talking, trying to straighten out the Iron Lung, the sonsabit - ' chcs who were hard to get round , these parts, the States and the hospital which lay before him. But he could not He was jziat not made that way 0 ( B.H*) h it« a «’« it ti«i; fl ««♦?n ff «