Page:The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 (Volume 01).djvu/341

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1493–1529]
DE MOLVCCIS INSULIS
337

of the islands called Santiago, to buy slaves. As our men, sailor-like, had no money, they offered cloves in exchange for slaves. When the Portuguese officials heard of this, they committed thirteen of our men to prison. The rest, eighteen in number, being alarmed at the position in which they found themselves, left their companions behind, and sailed direct to Spain. Sixteen months after they had sailed from Thedori, on the sixth of September 1522 they arrived safe and sound at a port [San Lucar] near Seville. These sailors are certainly more worthy of perpetual fame, than the Argonauts who sailed with Jason to Colchis; and the ship itself deserves to be placed among the constellations more than the ship Argo. For the Argo only sailed from Greece through the Black Sea; but our ship setting out from Seville sailed first southwards, then through the whole of the West, into the Eastern Seas, then back again into the Western.

I humbly commend myself to your Most Reverend Lordship.

Written at Valladolid twenty-fourth of October 1522.

Your Most Reverend and Most Illustrious Lordship's

Most humble and perpetual servant,
Maximilianus Transylvanus.

Cologne—[printed] at the house of Eucharius Cervicornus. A. D. 1523—in the month of January.