If the equatorial sun is too hot for you at noon, in two or three strides you can go to the cool, shady room where the electric fans are kept working, and a little farther on you can plunge into a swimming-pool. At dinner you can choose at will from the food and the drinks provided in this most sumptuous of hotels; whatever you want-and more than you can want-is brought to you as if by magic. You can be alone to read when you like; should you prefer company, you can join in the games on deck, or listen to good music. You are given both ease and safety. You know your destination; to the hour, almost to the minute, you know when you will get there; and your coming is eagerly awaited. So, likewise, in London, Paris, Buenos Aires, and New York, anyone who wishes can discover from moment to moment exactly where you are. If you trouble to mount a few steps to the wireless room, an obedient spark will carry a question or a greeting to almost any spot on the world's surface, and within the hour you will have an answer. Remember, impatient and ungrateful as you are, what voyages were like in the old days. Compare your present experiences with those of the valiant navigators who were the first to cross this ocean, and to make the world known to us. Are you not ashamed of yourself when you think of them? Try to picture how they set forth, on ships little larger than fishing-smacks, to explore the unknown, to sail they knew not whither, lost in the infinite, ceaselessly in peril, exposed to all the vicissitudes of storm, to every kind of privation. No light when darkness had fallen; nothing to drink but the brackish, lukewarm water stored in butts, supplemented by occasional rainfall; nothing to eat but biscuit that was often mouldy, and pickled pork that was often rancid—and not always a sufficiency of these unpalatable viands. No beds, no rest-room; stifling heat or pitiless cold, made worse for the mariners by the consciousness that they were alone in the unending desert of waters. For months, for years, no one at home knew what had become of them, any more than they themselves knew where they were going. Want was their fellow-passenger; death in myriad forms environed them by sea or on land, danger from man and from the elements.

Month after month and year after year in their poor little craft they had to endure the unspeakable torments of isolation. There was no one to come to their help. In the tin-travelled waters, months would pass without their catching sight of a sail. No one could save them from the hazards they had to encounter; and should they go down to destruction, it was likely enough that no one would record their fate."

Yes, as soon as I began to recall the early voyages of the conquistadors of the sea, I was thoroughly ashamed of my impatience.

Once this sense of shame had been aroused, it did not leave me for the remainder of the voyage. Not for a moment could I free myself from the thought of these nameless heroes. It made me long to learn more about those who had first dared to struggle against the elements, and to read more of the first voyages into unexplored oceans, voyages the description of which had fascinated me in boyhood. Going to the library, I chose a few volumes haphazard. As I studied them, it seemed to me that the deed worthiest of admiration was that of the man who made the most wonderful of all voyages of discovery—Ferdinand Magellan, who started from Seville with five little ships to circumnavigate the globe. Was not this the most glorious Odyssey in the history of mankind, the departure of two hundred and sixty-five resolute men of whom only eighteen got back to Spain on a crumbling vessel, but with the flag of triumph flying at the masthead?

There was not much about Magellan in these books, certainly not enough to satisfy me. As soon as I got home, therefore, I continued my researches, and noted with increasing astonishment how little trustworthy information there was concerning this astounding exploit. As had happened to me several times before, I found that to tell the story to others would be the best way of explaining the inexplicable to myself. Such was the origin of my book, which, I can frankly say, has come into being to my own surprise. For, in recounting this Odyssey as faithfully as I could after the examination of all the documents available, I have been animated throughout by the strange feeling that I must be painting a fanciful picture, must be relating one of the great wish-dreams, one of the hallowed fairy tales of mankind. Yet what can be better than a truth which seems utterly improbable? There is always something inconceivable about man's supreme deeds, for the simple reason that they greatly transcend average human powers; but it is by performing the incredible that man regains faith in his own self.

—STEFAN ZWEIG

Chapter 1 - Page 3

NAVIGARE NECESSE EST

The quest for spices began it.

From the days when the Romans, in their journeys and their wars, first acquired a taste for the hot or aromatic, the pungent or intoxicating dietetic adjuvants of the East, the Western World found it impossible to get on without a supply of Indian spices in cellar and storeroom. Lacking spices, the food of Northern Europe was unspeakably monotonous and insipid, and thus it remained far into the Middle Ages. Centuries were to elapse before the fruits, the tubers, and the other products which now seem commonplaces were to be used or acclimatized in Europe. Potatoes, tomatoes, and corn were unknown.