that the respective distances be laid down as exactly as poffible, which has, in these charts, been totally neglected; of which glaring defects I have from time to time made mention in my journal.

The fecond caufe of the danger and difficulty of the eastern navigation are the currents, which fet with so much violence between the islands and along the coafts of this archipelago, that if I had not experienced it myself, I fhould fcarcely credit the account in addition to this, they have no regular courfe, and fometimes run contrary to the wind, and at uncertain times.

Add to these, as a third caufe, the calms which prevail fo much in these climates, and the dangers which furround navigators in this paffage will be very manifeft; for veffels are driven, in dead calm weather, by the violent currents, upon unknown fhoals and rocks, so that the most experienced feaman is unable, in fuch cases, to save the fhip and cargo entrusted to him.

It has likewife been obferved, that fuch of the Company's captains as have performed several voyages to the eastern provinces are, for this reafon, continued in that navigation, which is not difadvantageous for the intereft of the Company, but unfortunate for those captains, as thefe voyages afford but little profit, and they do not, in confequence, feel much attachment for the fervice of the Company.

PIGAFETTA'S VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD.

THE FIRST VOYAGE ROUND THE WORLD,

Effected in the Years 1519, 1520, 1521, and 1522,

By the Chevalier PIGAFETTA, on board the Squadron of MAGELLAN;

WITH

An Extract from the TREATISE ON NAVIGATION, by the fame Author; fome OBSERVATIONS on the Chevalier MARTIN BEHAIM, and a DESCRIPTION of his TERRESTRIAL GLOBE. Paris, An IX. (1800.)

I.

IN

INTRODUCTION,

By the French Tranflator, the Editor of the Edition in modern Italian.

the fifteenth century the Italians poffeffed, almoft exclufively, the trade in thofe articles which Afia furnishes to Europe, especially fpices; that is to fay, pepper, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, nutmegs, &c. vegetable productions, formerly as now in constant demand, lefs on account of their agreeable flavour than their intrinfic virtues. Thefe aromatics were brought from fome iflands near the equator, either by the inhabitants of thofe iflands themfelves, or by their neighbours, to that part of India intermediate between the place of growth and Europe, whither the European merchants went to purchase them *. Before the Arabs overran and laid Egypt waste, commerce with India was carried on by the way of the Red Sea, as in the time of the Phoenicians. From the fhores of this fea the merchandize was tranfported on the backs of camels to the Nile, after vain attempts to form navigable canals between that river and the Red Sea. Down the Nile thefe goods were carried in boats to the ports of Egypt, where they were laden on veffels belonging to Venice, to Genoa, Amalfi, and Pifa. But, when the Arabs, whether in confequence of religious motives, the policy of defpotifm, or that anarchy always favourable to pirates, drove commerce from its channel by the gulf of Arabia, the merchants of India reforted to the Perfian Gulf and

The Europeans were not accustomed, at the period adverted to, to fetch the fpices in which they traded from any part of India: from that country, either by the Indians themfelves, or by Perfian merchants who went to India for the purpose, thefe valuable commodities were tranfported on the backs of camels to the Cafpian Sea, and were there put on board veffels, navigated indifferently by Indians or Perfians, to be landed, part at the mouth of the Kur, whence overland they were conveyed to the Black Sea, and there received by the Genoefe and Venetians established in the Crimea; and part at Aftracan, whence by the merchants of Novogorod they were conveyed overland to the Baltic, and afterwards diftributed over Europe by the members of the Hanfeatic league connected with the merchants of Novogorod. ENG. TR.

289

Indian Sea, whence, by the Euphrates, and by the Indus and Oxus, the productions of India were conveyed to the Cafpian, or the Black Sea, and thence into the Mediterranean, whither the Italians went to purchase and transport them to all the shores of Europe, and even to the interior of the continent as far as to the frozen regions of Mufcovy and Norway where they had their factories *.

II. It will readily be inferred that the price of these commodities at first hand, compared with the price at which they were ultimately retailed, muft have been very low; the coft to the consumer being neceffarily much enhanced by the charge of transport and the great risks run, whether in navigating the Red Sea, or in paffing the deferts; to which must be added the profit exacted by the different individuals through whose hands they paffed. We are informed by one Barthelemi, a Florentine merchant, who, towards the clofe of the fifteenth century, had refided the fpace of four-and-twenty years in India †, that they paffed through twelve different, hands before they reached the confumer, and that the ultimate price of them was increased tenfold from the first coft ; this great increase however was much affifted by monopoly. When the anti focial Arabs had perfectly annihilated the commerce of the Red Sea, the Genoese combined with the fchifmatic Emperor of Conftantinople in establishing an exclufive commerce by the way of the Black Sea, by Tatary [Samarcand], and Perfia; and when the Sultan of Egypt, after fubduing the Arabs, re-opened to trade the channel by the Nile, his allies the Venetians fupplanted the Genoefe, and exclufively fupplied the nations of Europe with the rich merchandize of India . Finally, by one means or other, the ||. Italians fo perfectly engroffed the trade with India, as to render all other nations of Europe their tributaries; and the price for fpices, towards the middle of the fixteenth S century, from affother circumftance, became farther enhanced: at this epoch the Moors rendered themselves mafters of the islands which almoft exclufively produce the valuable spices; and, better acquainted with the value they bore in Europe than were the natives, would no longer part with them without an increase of price ¶.

III. The

*This is an error, the distributors of the commodities of India to the north of Europe, (as may be seen in Tooke's View of the Ruffian Empire, in Coxe's Northern Tour, in Guthrie's Travels to the Crimea, and in Pallas's Southern Tour,) at the period of the establishment of the Venetians at Conftantinople, and of the Genoefe at Caffa, as is obferved in the preceding note, were the merchants of Novogord, connected with the Hanfeatic league. Their predeceffors in this lucrative commerce were the Golden Horde, and theirs again the Permians, inhabitants of the country weft of the Ural mountains; thefe people, even earlier than the days of the great Alfred, maintained a profitable intercourfe with India. ENG. TR.

Rather, perhaps, in Turkey, as Benedetto Dei in his chronicle, (extracts of which are before the writer,) on noticing the different ftates with whom the Florentines traded direct at this time, does not mention India. Benedetto Dei was contemporary with Barthelemi, had been deputed reprefentative of the ftate of Florence to the Sultan Ottoman, and in his chronicle throws great light on the trade of Flo rence as well as of Venice at this period, a period fo difastrous to the Venetians, and at which Florence fhone with its greateft fplendor. ENG. TR. from Della Decima e delle altre gravizze, della monita, e della mercatura degli Fiorentini, tomo fecondo, Lisbona e Lucca, 1765.

This alfo is corroborated by the remarks on the map of the world of Behaim, of which I shall speak in the twelfth paragraph. FRENCH TR.

Again, this is not perfectly the fact; at the period alluded to, the Genoefe continued to compete with the Venetians, as did the Florentines by means of the port of Pifa. The treaty made die 6 menfis Moharra, anno Egira 894 (an. Chr. 1474-5) between the Florentine nation, by means of their ambassador Luigi di M. Agnolo della Stufa, and the Sultan of Egypt Kaflim Aboo Elonazer, the Florentines were admitted to trade with Egypt, equally with the Venetians, had protection affured to fuch as chose to refide in the country, and were fecured in their rights and privileges in not only the fame, but even a more ample degree than the Venetians. ENG. TR. from Della Decima, &c. before quoted, tomo fecondo, p. 213. Fifteenth it fhould be.

Hiftorians relate the fact of the invafion of the Moluccas by the Moors; and our author himself adverts to the circumftance in the following words, which are literally copied from the manufcript that the

VOL. XI.

P P

reader

III. The love of gain, and a difpofition to leffen the difficulties and expences incident on the traffic with India, originated schemes for obtaining its merchandize directly from the first hand; these schemes were planned at the epoch of the regeneration of literature, that at which the art of printing, newly discovered, had already diffused through a greater number of hands the knowledge tranfmitted to pofterity by ancient writers on navigation and the figure of the earth. It became known that certain Phoenician navigators, failing from the Red Sea, entered the Mediterranean by the Strait of Gibraltar *; it confequently was conjectured, it would be possible to fail from the Atlantic to the mouth of the Red Sea, and, by pursuing an eastern course, to reach the Spice Islands. Moreover, it ceafed any longer to be doubted that the ancients were acquainted with the fpherical form of the earth, and the existence of our antipodes, an opinion which, in the age of ignorance, was not only confidered to be antiphilofophical, but alfo a herefy. Travellers who, treading in the steps of the Venetian Marco Polo, had traced all the fea-coaft of Afia, affirmed that the earth defcribed a curve from east to west; and the Portuguese who, in the beginning of the fifteenth century, had visited all the fhores of Guinea, by uniting their information to that of the navigators of the north of Europe, made evident, from their account of the elevation and depreffion of the polar ftar, that the earth, from north to fouth, in a fimilar manner was marked by a curve. From these two data it confequently followed that the earth was of a spherical form, and that it would be poffible to make the circuit of it. The deduction correfponded well with the obfervations of aftrologers, who, notwithstanding the ridiculous object by which they were actuated in their observations, that of devining the future, had yet much advanced the fcience of aftronomy. Narratives alfo were current, though of a vague description, of certain failors faid to have been transported to the islands between Europe and America, and thence to the new continent then unknown. On these grounds were built the hope of reaching Malucho (the name then given to the Spice Iflands, now termed the Maluccas,) either by coasting along the fhores of Africa and afterwards fteering eaft, or by keeping a western courfe across the Atlantic Ocean. So little obftacle was expected to this latter course, that the most celebrated geographers, in their charts, placed only a few iflands between the western fhores of Europe and Africa and the eastern coast of Afia, as will be seen in paragraph XII. This was indeed an error, but an error very excufable in the geographers of that time; for, though the ancients had pretty correctly afcertained the circumference of the earth, and had even laid down certain rules to determine the longitude of

places,

reader may be qualified to judge of the ftyle of Pigafetta; and for the fame reafon as often as occafion may prefent itself to quote his words the fame plan will be followed. The words of Pigafetta are, Sono forfi cinquanta anni, che quefti mori habitano in Malucho: prima li habitano gentili: p. 203. "The Moors have inhabited Molucca about fifty years; before them it was peopled by Pagans."

* Herodotus, 1. iv. c. 4; Strabo, l. i.; and others enumerated by Riccioli Geogr. 1. iii. c. 20. FRENCH TR.

† Ariftotle (de Cœlo, lib. ii.) speaks of it as an eftablished fact. It appears that the mathematicians of Egypt measured a degree in the latitude of Memphis, that is to fay in thirty degrees north, upon their determining on the pofition and fize of the pyramids; for each of the fides of the largeft pyramid is th part of a degree in length, whence it may be fair to conjecture, that they divided the degree into a thoufand parts, and gave to each fide of the pyramid the length of th parts of a degree. (Venini Delle Misure Francefe. Opufc. Sulti, tom. xx. p. 98.) FRENCH TR.

A degree in latitude thirty degrees measures 263,724 English feet, according to the tables of Profeffor Pond. The 500th part of a degree is confequently 7273 English feet. Now, as will be feen in the notes to the relation refpecting Egypt of Abd Allatif, in that portion of this work which comprizes the Travels in

Africa,

places, for want of these rules being thoroughly comprehended they were but little regarded. To the general ignorance at this time therefore of the dimenfions of the earth, and of the longitude of places, is to be afcribed the expectation of reaching in a fhort time, by a western courfe, thofe islands, the distance of which from Europe was only known towards the east and the fouth.

IV. The mind of Christopher Colon was wholly occupied by reflection on this matter; this great man, who combined with a theoretic and practical knowledge of navigation all the information that could be gathered from preceding navigators, and the intrepidity requifite for a grand enterprize, this great man, convinced of the fpherical form of the earth, faw no difficulty in croffing the Atlantic Ocean by means of the compafs, with the variation of which, and with the means of correcting it he was acquainted *. He applied to the Genoefe, who had no other means of reviving their commerce, for fhips and means of putting his plan into execution; but the Ge noese, occupied on trivial speculations, and perpetually embroiled by domeftic factions, which rendered them now fubject to the Kings of France, and at other times to the Dukes of Milan, refufed him affiftance. To the King of Portugal he next made application, but ineffectually, as, intent on reaching the Moluccas by doubling the fouthern cape of Africa, his propofition was not regarded by this monarch; at length, after long and repeated memorials, the court of Spain refolved on trufting him with fome fhips. Still Colon merely touched at the islands of America (the difcovery of that continent being referved for his fucceffors), and flattered himself in vain with finding a paffage to the west of Mexico, and by the ifthmus of Panama.

V. The voyage of Colon engendered disputes between the Spaniards and Portuguese respecting certain islands discovered by them, and still more respecting the lands which they hoped to discover in future. The latter, on undertaking their voyages along the coaft of Africa, had the forefight to avail themselves of the general opinion of the time, that the fucceffor of St. Peter, as the vicar of Jefus Chrift, had the power of difpofing of fuch kingdoms as did not pertain to Christian potentates. The Popes, Martin V. Eugenius IV. and Nicholas V. had already invested Portugal with the empire of all the countries they had hitherto discovered on the coast of Africa. Alexander VI. to whom, after the voyage of Colon, Spain and Portugal preferred at the fame inftant their different pretenfions, marked out a line which traverfing the two poles, divided the terrestrial globe. The island Ferro, one of the Canaries, through which paffed the firft meridian of Ptolemy, was the point through which this line, called the Line of Demarcation, ran to either pole. From this line all eastward was granted by the Pope to the Portuguese, to the Spaniards all they should discover weft. But when the

Africa, the fides of the great pyramid, according to the French geometricians, measure at prefent 716 French feet 6 inches, or 764 English feet, without the cafing of marble with which it was formerly covered; with that cafing it is computed to have measured 734 French feet 6 inches, or 7827 English feet. Now, taking the latter measurement, the proportion of the fide of the great pyramid to a degree in latitude thirty degrees will be nearly as 1 to 464, and not as 1 to 500. ENG. Tr.

It is moreover known that Hypparchus, three centuries before the vulgar æra had determined the latitude and longitude of several stars; and that Ptolemy in the fecond century afcertained by his method the geographical pofition of feveral places on the earth with a nicety from which we may infer that they were the refult of aftronomical obfervations. Robertfon. An Historical Difquifition refpecting Ancient India. Sect. II. FRENCH. TR.

* Teraboschi. Storia delle Lettere Ital. Tomo vi. However, the knowledge of the variation of the needle must at this time have been far from generally diffused, fince it was unknown to the pilots of the fquadron of Magellan. (See forward Book II.).