year Spain and Portugal agreed, by
the treaty of Tordesillas, to move the dividing meridian farther west,
about midway between the most westerly island of the Old World and the
most easterly island of the New. By this agreement, superseding the
Papal award, Portugal obtained Brazil. When the lines of demarcation
were drawn in 1493 and 1494, nobody knew where they would cut the
equator on the other side of the globe. There also was matter for
later negotiation.

After the fall of Malacca, Albuquerque sent a squadron to examine the
region of islands farther east. One of his officers, Serrano,
remained out there, and after as many adventures as Robinson Crusoe,
he found his way to the very heart of the Moluccas, to Ternate, the
home of the clove. In describing his travels to a friend, he made the
most of the distance traversed in his eastward course. Magellan, to
whom the letter was addressed, was out of favour with his commander
Albuquerque, and on his return home found that he was out of favour
with King Emmanuel. For the country which had repelled Columbus
repelled the only navigator who was superior to Columbus. Magellan
remembered Serrano's letter, and saw what could be made of it. He
told the Spaniards that the spice islands were so far east that they
were in the Spanish hemisphere, and he undertook to occupy them for
Spain. He would sail, not east, but west, in the direction which was
legally Spanish. For he knew a course that no man knew, and America,
hitherto the limit of Spanish enterprise, would be no obstacle to him.

It seemed an apparition of Columbus, more definite and rational,
without enthusiasm or idealism, or quotations from Roger Bacon, and
Seneca, and the greater prophets. Cardinal Adrian, the Regent,
refused to listen, but Fonseca, the President of the Board of
Control, became his protector. Magellan wanted a good deal of
protection; for his adventure was injurious to his countrymen, and was
regarded by them as the intrigue of a traitor. Vasconcellos, Bishop
of Lamego, afterwards Archbishop of Lisbon, advised that he should be
murdered; and at night he was guarded in the streets of Valladolid by
Fonseca's men. Magellan was not the first to believe that America
comes to an end somewhere. Vespucci had guessed it; the extremity is
marked on a globe of 1515; and a mercantile house that advanced funds
is supposed to have been on the track.

Without a chart Magellan made his way through t