Part 14 (1/2)

How did the crews live on this long voyage of silence and calms?

The narrative says: ”We only ate old biscuit reduced to powder, and full of grubs, and we drank water that had turned yellow and smelled.”

But a more perilous diet had to be followed.

They ate the ”ox hides that were under the main yard.” To eat these hides they had to soak them for some days in the sea, and then cook them on embers.

They ate sawdust; then the vermin on the s.h.i.+ps.

A worse condition came. The gums of the men swelled from such food, so that many of them could not eat at all, and nineteen died. Beside those who died, twenty-five fell ill of ”divers sicknesses.”

Kind-hearted Pigafetta, who was always true to the Portuguese Admiral, formed an intimacy with the poor young giant, presumably with the giant whose wife had been left behind. This giant was imprisoned on the flags.h.i.+p of Magellan.

One day the giant said to him, helplessly:

”Capac.”

Our Italian understood that this must be the Patagonian word for bread.

So he wrote it down, and the giant saw that he was interested in the meaning of his native words.

So the young giant began to teach the young Italian.

”Her-dem” meant a chief.

”Holi” meant water.

”Ohone,” a storm.

”Setebos,” the Unseen Power.

They studied together for a time, and shared each other's good will.

One day the Italian drew a cross on paper. The young giant raised it to his lips and kissed it, as he had seen Pigafetta kiss the sign of the Cross.

But he said by signs: ”Do not make the Cross again, else Setebos will enter into you and kill you.”

The meaning of the cross was explained to him.

The poor giant fell ill at last, amid all the misery.

”Bring me the Cross,” he said by signs.

He kissed it again.

He knew that he would soon die.

”Make me a Christian,” he said.