pigafjetta’s voyage round the world.

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the run of our (hip, as eftimated by the log, we traverfed a fpace of from fixty tofeventy leagues a day; and if God and his Holy Mother had not granted us a fortunatevoyage, we fhould all have perilhed of hunger in fo vaft a fea. I do not think thatany one for the future will venture upon a fimilar voyage *.

If, on leaving the ftraits, we had continued a weftern courfe under the fame parallel,We fhould have made the tour of the world ; and without feeing any land fhould havereturned by Wifhed-for-Cape (II Capo Defeado), to the cape of the Eleven ThoufandVirgins, both of which are in latitude fifty-two degrees fouth.

The antar&ic has not the fame liars as the ardtic pole ; but here are feen two cluflersof fmall nebulous flars, which look like fmall clouds, and are but little diftant the onefront the other f. In midfl of thefe cluflers of fmall flars two are diftinguifhedvery large and very brilliant, but of which the motion is fcarcely apparent: thefe indi-cate the antarftic pole. Though the needle declined fomevvhat from the north pole,it yet ofcillated towards it, but not with equal force as in the northern hemifphere."When out at fea, the captain-general directed the courfe the pilots fhould fleer, andenquired how they J pointed. They unanimoufly replied they bore in that diredlionhe ordered them: he then informed them that their courfe was wrong, and directedthem to correct the needle, becaufe, being in thefouthern, it had not an equal power todefignate the true north as in the northern hemifphere. When in midfl of the oceanWe difeovered, in the weft, five flars of great brilliancy, in form of a crofs fj.

We fleered north-well by weft till we reached the equinoftial line in one hun-dred and twenty-two degrees of longitude, weft of the line of demarcation §. Thisline is thirty degrees weft of the meridian ^j", and three degrees weft of Cape Verd.

In our courfe we coafted along two very lofty iflands, one of which in latitude twentydegrees fouth, the other in fifteen degrees fouth. The firft is called Cipangu, thefecond Sumbdit Pradit **.

After

* Fifty years elapfed before another navigator made the circuit of the globe. Drake in 1578 was thefirth after Magellan, who eroded this fea.

f Due nubecule, that is to fay, two cinders of ftars, are marked by ailronomers at the fouthern pole :one of thefe is above the other below the hydra. Near the pole feveral ftars are feen which form the con-ftellation the oftant; but as thefe ftars are of the fifth or fixth magnitude, the two large and brilliant ftarsMentioned by Pigafetta muft be the y and /3 of the hydra.

i How they pointed by the compafs, in what direction they fteered. To corrcB ihe needle, is to add oroiminifh the degrees of its variation, that the compafs may point to the true north. ,

II Dante (Purgat. lib. i.) fpeaks of. this crofs in thefe verfes:

I mi volfi a man deftra, e poll menteAll’altro polo, e vidi quattro ftelleNon vifte mai fuorche alia prima gente.Goder pareva il ciel di lor fiammelle.

Oh ! fettentrional vedovo fito,

Poiche privato fei di mirar quelle.

$ An imaginary line which, feparatmg the globe into two hemifpneres, divided the conquefts of Ptu gal from thofe of the Spaniards according to the bull of Pope Alexander VI . bee the Intiodudt o ,Parag. V.

11 Id eft, the firft meridian. . , „ • , a

** Cipangu is Japan ; it bears this name on the globe of Behaim , on which it is termed the ncheftifland of the eaft. Sumbdit-Pradit is perhaps the Antiilia of the fame globe, called alfo Septe Ritade.But on this globe thefe two iflands are in the northern hemifphere, one in twenty degrees, the ot. er intvyenty.four degrees. Kamufio (tom. i. tav. 3.) places Cipangu in twenty hve degrees, but in chart 19.°( Urban Monti I find Sumbdit in latitude nine degrees fouth. Dehfle, otl what authority I know not,Places them in feventeen degrees and twenty degrees fouth. It muft, howevei, be obferved, that Piga e ta^

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