Since I have told you about Balboa and the new ocean, I must tell you about the first voyage around the world. A Portuguese named Magellan started out from Spain with a large fleet, hoping to find a way through this new continent by which he might sail to the Spice Islands. He sailed directly across the Atlantic to America, and looked all up and down the coast for an opening to the other ocean.

Finding there was none, he sailed down to the most southern point of South America, and after sailing around that point he came out into the new ocean. When he saw it first, it looked as it did when Balboa first saw it—smiling and peaceful. On account of its calm, sunny appearance, he named it at once the "Pacific," which means peaceful.

They saw some very strange people as they sailed along the coast of South America, who, so Magellan's men said, were ten and twelve feet tall. These people were unusually tall, but it is not very likely that they were quite as tall as the men said. Sailors in those days liked to tell very big stories, I think, just as they do now.

These natives of South America were as surprised to see the white men as the white men were to see them. The natives could not understand how such little men could make such big ships move; and they thought the boats must be the babies of the ships.

They pulled from the ground, and gave to the white men to eat, something which Magellan and his men said looked like turnips and tasted like chestnuts. The sailors ate them eagerly without cooking, and carried some of them home to Spain as great curiosities. Do you guess what they were? Nothing but common potatoes, which are eaten now everywhere, but which then were only known to the natives of America.

But it was not curiosities nor even gold and silver that Magellan most desired to find. Like most of the explorers, including Columbus himself, he was in search of a short route to the East Indies. And as he sailed down the Atlantic coast, he hoped at every little bend in the shore to find himself able to steer his ship directly west towards the Indies. So onward he sailed, till as we said, he finally reached the southern end of South America, passed through the Straits of Magellan—as they were afterwards called—and came into the Pacific. Here was another route to India, that was sure. But, unfortunately, it was not another but a shorter route the European merchants wanted. However, Magellan sailed straight across the new ocean as far as the Philippine Islands, meaning to return to Spain by the old route around Africa.

He had five ships when he set out from Spain, but one of these had been lost while sailing down the Atlantic coast of South America. When he entered the straits the captain of another vessel, discouraged by the distance before him, turned and went back to Spain. With three ships then, Magellan crossed the Pacific. Then, at the Philippine Islands, two more ships were lost in battles with the natives, and he himself was killed. Only one ship—the Victoria—with but eighteen men, and those sick and half starved, was able to make its way back to Spain to tell the story of the first voyage around the world.