sounded without finding the
bottom; they also noticed from the tide of the sea, that the flow
was somewhat stronger than the ebb, and thence they conjectured
that there was a passage that way into some other sea. On hearing
this Magellan determined to sail along this channel. This strait,
though not then known to be such, was of the breadth in some places
of three, in others of two, in others of five or ten Italian miles,
[226] and inclined slightly to the west. The latitude south was found
to be fifty-two degrees, the longitude they estimated as the same as
that of St. Julian's Bay. It being now hard upon the month of November,
the length of the night was not much more than five hours; they saw no
one on the shore. One night however a great number of fires was seen,
especially on the left side, whence they conjectured that they had
been seen by the inhabitants of those regions. But Magellan, seeing
that the land was craggy, and bleak with perpetual winter, did not
think it worth while to spend his time in exploring it, and so with
his three ships continued, his voyage along the channel, until on the
twenty-second day after he had set sail, he came out into another
vast and open sea: the length of the strait they reckoned at about
one hundred Spanish miles. The land which they had to the right was
no doubt the continent we have before mentioned [South America]. On
the left hand they thought that there was no continent, but only
islands, as they occasionally heard on that side the reverberation
and roar of the sea at a more distant part of the coast. Magellan saw
that the main land extended due north, and therefore gave orders to
turn away from that great continent, leaving it on the right hand,
and to sail over that vast and extensive ocean, which had probably
never been traversed by our ships or by those of any other nation,
in a northwesterly direction, so that they might arrive at last at the
Eastern Ocean, coming at it from the west, and again enter the torrid
zone, for he was satisfied that the Moluccas were in the extreme east,
and could not be far off the equator. They continued in this course,
never deviating from it, except when compelled to do so now and then
by the force of the wind; and when they had sailed on this course for
forty days across the ocean with a strong wind, mostly favourable,
and had seen nothing all around them but sea, and had now almost
reached again the Tropic of Capricorn, they came in s