Nevertheless, Quirós followed Doña Isabel’s orders and searched westward for the Solomons, where wealth had to be waiting, but for once God was generous, and they missed the islands. Had they pushed a few leagues further west, they would have come upon the Solomons in a state so weak that they would probably have ended up in the ovens of cannibals. The Solomons, which had last been seen by Mendaña on August 17, 1568, were thus lost to the outside world until the English explorer Philip Carteret rediscovered them in 1767.
Near the unseen Solomons, Doña Isabel decided that, since no land was in sight and since the missing consort ship could not be found, her fleet should head for Manila, as planned. They sailed northwest to avoid the big island of New Guinea, which previous explorers had reported as the abode of “black people with frizzled hair, who are cannibals, and the devil walks with them.”
North of New Guinea, great waves knocked the ships about. Then, three weeks after leaving Santa Cruz, they crossed the Equator. It was so cold at night that they had to use blankets, although in the daytime the sun beat un-endurably on the planks of the deck.
The condition of the flagship was now so bad that the Governess feared it would fall apart, for the mainmast was sprung. She ordered Captain Corzo of the galiot to remain close by, to rescue the people in case the flagship foundered. But that night, in accordance with Corzo’s plan, the galiot disappeared, and was not seen again during the voyage. Later, Quirós heard that Captain Corzo had sailed off and left them, and that he and his men had landed safely on the Philippine island of Mindanao.
Starvation and sickness hung over the two remaining ships day and night. The ration for each person was half a pound of flour, which was mixed with salt water and baked in the ashes of the galley fire. The water ration was one pint of fluid, which stank with the bodies of drowned cockroaches and was almost undrinkable. Even so, the people prayed pitifully for more water; some begged for a single drop, pointing with their fingers at their swollen tongues, looking like the pictures of Lazarus in the Bible. The worst aspect of the sickness was the open ulcers that covered the bodies of the stricken ones. The noise of mourning never stopped. Scarcely a day passed when one or two did not die in the mud and filth of the flagship’s hold, and on some days three or four were thrown overboard. So few sound men were left that it was a problem to find enough of them to haul the bodies up from between decks.
Only a few of the sailors were healthy enough to work the flagship, and these were kept incessantly busy, splicing and sewing the decayed sails and rigging. One day the spritsail and all its gear fell into the sea, and could not be got back aboard. The topsails had to be taken down and used to mend the mainsails, which were the only ones that could be used. For one spell of three days one big sail was flapping about uselessly, because no hands were strong enough to try to hoist it with a rope that had already been spliced thirty-three times.
What was worse, the ship’s hull gaped open and the waves ran in and out; the vessel floated only because her timbers were of an excellent South American wood which never seemed to rot. But still the Pilot drove his stricken ships onward through the uncharted seas of the middle Pacific.
The sailors, although they were given double rations because they had to man the pumps four times a day, suffered from exhaustion, and some of them hid themselves so that they would not have to attempt the impossible hour after hour. They cared little for their lives, it seemed; one of them told the Pilot that he could no longer endure always being tired, and that they might as well shut their eyes and let the ship go to the bottom. The Pilot told him that if he dared to jump overboard, the devil would get him, body and soul.
While the passengers and crew were enduring these torments, what was Doña Isabel doing? She occupied her dead husband’s quarters, where she was attended by servants, but more important, she kept tight control over her private storeroom, which contained ample supplies of wine, oil, vinegar and flour. She also had a calf on board, and several small pigs. When starvation began to kill off the passengers, they naturally appealed to Doña Isabel for fragments of the stores she had stowed away for her own use, but she met each appeal with the reply that this food was hers.
When Quirós, in despair at seeing his sailors die at the pumps, received a cold rebuff from the Governess, he suggested that if she prized money so much, she might sell the food to the dying men, and he himself would give her receipts for any stores she issued and pay her when he got to Manila. He warned the lady that if his men did not maintain their strength, the ship would perish and all would die, and Doña Isabel would die too.
The Governess refused the offer. She said that the Pilot’s obligation to her, as the one who had raised funds for the expedition and was in full command, was greater than his obligation to these lowly sailors, and she suggested that if he hanged a few of them to the yardarm, the rest would learn to hold their tongues. But Quirós came back several times and urged her so strongly that at last she issued two jars of olive oil. That was soon used up, and the complaints against her continued.
The remaining soldiers were also despondent as they faced the fact that many days must pass before they could reach Manila. They swore that they would gladly exchange this existence for a death sentence in a prison, where at least they would be fed, or for a bench in a Turkish galley, where they might at least hope for rescue or ransom.
The weather now grew so unbearable that many passengers died for lack of water, and strict inspection was maintained to insure that not a drop was wasted. Quirós himself stood on guard to check each cupful as it was issued to the dying. His rage was great, therefore, when he observed that Doña Isabel was wasting large amounts in laundering her dresses. Once when she sent her large jar back to be filled again for washing clothes, Quirós cried that it did not seem right for her to use so much water for such a useless purpose when there was so grievous a shortage.
“Can I not do what I please with my own property?” she demanded angrily.
“The water should be shared by all. You should cut down your allowance,” he pleaded, “so that the soldiers cannot say that you wash your clothes with their life’s blood.”
The governess reacted by taking from him the keys to the storeroom and giving them to one of her own servants, so that she could continue to have all the water she wanted. Many men on the ship muttered that the Pilot should not allow himself to be ruled by a woman. If the matter were to be put to a vote, they assured him, the crew would elect the Pilot to lead them. But he answered, “Let her enjoy her legal title for the brief time that remains.”
Yet, fearing that the starving people might break open the storeroom and loot the supplies, the Pilot returned once more to argue with the lady. She answered: “Keep them away from me. They are always coming to me with complaints that I do not wish to hear.”
For once the Pilot spoke out bitterly. “I know that it was you yourself and your brother that plotted to kill me at Santa Cruz, and you sharpened the knives. I’m not ashamed of my advice to you, and I excuse you for your lack of sense, for you are a woman.” Then he added an observation which has ever since amused historians. “Very few women, I realize,” he said, at his wits’ end, “are as intelligent as Dido, Zenobia, and Semiramis.”
In contrast to Doña Isabel’s harsh behavior was that of an old man who had joined the enterprise somewhat by accident. Of him Quirós writes: “There had come on this expedition a venerable old man and good Christian, who in Lima had been a hermit and had served in the hospital of the natives. His name was Juan Leal [Loyal John], which he was through all events. This servant of God and worthy man, in poor health, for he was himself convalescent, devoted himself to the service of the sick with cheerful faith. He showed that his bowels were full of charity, for all that was done for the sick passed through his hands. He bled them, cupped them, made their beds, helped them to a good death, prepared and accompanied their bodies to burial, or got them out of danger; a man, in short, who did well in word and deed, though
deeply feeling the numerous miserable sights he beheld.… But he died alone and forsaken, like the rest. He had gone about dressed in sackcloth next to his skin, and reaching half down his legs, with bare feet, and long hair and beard.”
It was discovered that the little frigate was in even worse shape than the flagship, and was unable to maintain position, even though three men were sent aboard to help at the pumps. Several times the Pilot pleaded with the Governess to allow the people on the frigate to come aboard the flagship and let the leaky little vessel go adrift, but he could not get her to agree, for she remembered her investment in the doomed frigate and insisted that it complete the journey to Manila, where she could sell it.
She had her way, but the frigate did not quite reach Manila. One night, after Quirós had begged her in vain to pick up its crew, the little frigate with the body of Mendaña disappeared from sight and was not seen again. A long time later Quirós heard that the lost frigate had run aground in the Philippines with all sails set and the crew lying dead and stinking on the decks.
Next occurred one of the most incredible events of this expedition. Only one ship, the San Jerónimo, remained, and it almost wrecked itself on an immense, cruel reef which nearly took away the bottom. But early in 1596 Quirós made a landfall at Guam, whose natives rushed out in canoes bearing coconuts, rice, large fish and water. They offered to provide almost endless supplies to the starving men in exchange for old pieces of iron, which they needed badly for tools. But the trading ended abruptly when the Spaniards reverted to the custom of this voyage and wantonly shot two of the natives dead in an argument over an old iron hoop, whereupon the Guamanians sadly paddled away, taking with them the life-giving foods and the water that would have saved dozens of souls.
The sailors, seeing their salvation disappear, were mad to get ashore and obtain provisions for the last leg of the journey to Manila, but they were powerless, for they had no ropes by which to drop the longboat into the water, and Quirós refused to let them toss it overboard with no chance of recovering it, for it might turn out to be their only means of keeping afloat.
With a courage that few men could have commanded, Quirós resolutely set his face westward and ordered his starving, scurvy-ridden crew to drive the San Jerónimo on to Manila. In this way they left the island of Guam, whose food and water had been at their fingertips only to be lost through their brutal folly.
The deaths on this long haul through the central Pacific were lamentable, but Doña Isabel kept to her cabin with plenty of food and water and affected not to know of the misery. At last the Philippines hove in sight, but the crew was too exhausted to cheer. Most of the company were too weak even to be propped up to view the peak of the high mountain in sight; they were feeble skeletons who could only lie on the deck and whimper. They begged for a double ration of water to celebrate, but the Pilot told them this was not possible, for they must continue to ration the supply.
There were still many perils to be faced in threading the barrier of islands that dotted the route to Manila. If the ship foundered on one of the many reefs, anyone who might escape drowning would find ashore a horde of savages who would shoot him so full of arrows that he would look like St. Sebastian.
Doña Isabel in her private cabin now turned to piety, and with a book of devotions in her hand often raised her eyes to heaven and begged for divine mercy, but prudently she refused to issue any of her food. Nor did she, even now, ease up on discipline; and when, among the Philippine Islands, a married soldier sneaked ashore to get food for his starving wife, the Governess ordered him to be flogged as an example to the others, even though she knew that in his condition such a punishment meant death.
The boatswain interceded with the Pilot: “The Lady Governess, instead of ordering floggings, would do better by giving us food from the stores that she keeps for herself. All we have on this ship is flog here, hang there, plenty of orders, and no food!”
The Pilot went to Doña Isabel and pleaded that the guilty man had lost four children and all his possessions during the expedition, and that it would be unfair for him to be left without anything and to die without honor. She said that the man had disobeyed her orders and that he should suffer for it. But finally, due to the pleadings of Quirós, the prisoner was set free with a warning.
The ship was still twenty leagues from Manila when a boat was sent ashore to seek food. The natives fled, for they feared this to be an English ship, like that of Thomas Cavendish, who had frightened them in 1587 and had captured the Manila galleon. The men returned to the flagship without having found any food.
Acting as his own pilot in these dangerous, island-littered waters, Quirós threaded a channel only a stone’s throw across. After this escape, he had to meet another crisis. The starving soldiers had assembled at the Governess’ storeroom and were demanding their rations, or else, they threatened, they would break into the supplies locked inside.
Again the Pilot pleaded with the Governess to order that her food be served out to save the lives of the people. If she insisted upon money for it, he again offered personally to sign a promise to pay her for the food when they got to Manila. It was not just, he argued, that while there was still food on the ship the men should die for the lack of it.
“Sir captain,” the lady answered coldly, “have you spent forty thousand pesos on this expedition, as I have? Or have these mutinous men agreed to underwrite all the costs? My poor husband has been badly repaid for all the expense he went to in making these discoveries!”
“My lady,” said the Pilot, “I spent all my property, and each of these men has spent all he had to spend. Many have given up their lives, and spent all they had. That which belonged to my good friend the Governor, and which now belongs to your ladyship, must be used to bring us all to Manila.”
Doña Isabel, hating the Pilot for his sentimental interventions, finally consented that her cherished calf might be slaughtered to feed the starving crew.
Then two boats full of natives from one of the Philippine Islands came along and offered food for barter. The Pilot exchanged two pairs of his shoes for two large baskets of rice, and shared this food among the people. The Governess had a chance to barter for two more baskets of rice, which would have saved many lives, but she thought that the bargain offered by the natives was too dear, and she let the canoes go back to shore.
When the San Jerónimo was almost in sight of Manila, the sailors finally demanded that the vessel be run up on the shore, as they were totally unable to work her further unless they had something to eat. All their food and water were gone, though the Governess still kept two sacks of flour and a little wine. Doña Isabel would not give in. She not only refused to distribute the food, stating that she was determined to sell it in Manila in order to buy masses for the soul of her dead husband, but she also commanded the sailors to keep the ship moving.
At this dreadful moment a boat came out from the shore, rowed by natives but containing four Spaniards of the colony, who seemed to the ship’s people like four thousand angels. The Spaniards leaped aboard and saw the people lying sick, covered with revolting sores, barely hidden under rags and surrounded by misery. The visitors were so deeply moved by the horror of the ship that they could only exclaim, “Thanks be to God!”
One of the Spaniards descended to the sick bay and the women lying there screamed out to him, “Give us food! We are mad with hunger and thirst!” He came on deck again, and there in a pen he saw Doña Isabel’s two pigs. He stared at them, then at the dying, and cried, “If you are starving why don’t you kill those pigs?” He was told that the pigs belonged to the Governess. “What the devil!” he exclaimed. “Is this a time for courtesy about who owns the pigs?”
The Governess was thus shamed into ordering the pigs to be killed and eaten; but one starving soldier was heard to mutter, “Oh, the power of avarice, which will turn to stone even the heart of a gentle and pious woman, when the need is so clear and the remedy is so cheap!”
Then
another boat, sent by the governor of the Philippines, arrived with fresh bread, wine and fruit, which was shared out and gobbled up immediately. The long night ended, and next day a barge arrived laden with fowls, calves, pigs, bread, wine and vegetables. On February 11, 1596, the ship anchored at the port of Manila. Pilot Quirós, with a sick crew on the verge of mutiny because of misery and starvation, had brought his sinking ship, with rotten spars and rigging, safely across more than four thousand miles of unknown ocean, from Santa Cruz to the capital of the Philippines.
Throngs of charitable Spaniards visited the ship, bringing food and other gifts. They had heard that this vessel had come from Peru to bring away the Queen of Sheba from the islands of Solomon. When they saw the great distress of the survivors and heard their story, they praised God that so many had been spared. On the journey from Santa Cruz fifty persons had died. “It is to be noted,” concluded the Pilot philosophically, “that if the people who died had not died, those who survived would not have arrived with more than twenty jars of water and two sacks of flour left over.”
Within a few days, ten more of the ship’s company succumbed from the effects of their sufferings. But these deaths were forgotten in the many festivities that were held in Manila to celebrate the safe arrival of the Governess, who posed as the heroine of the expedition. She graced a procession of parties and gay ceremonies as guest of honor. She was comfortably lodged in the city, and when her year of widowhood had barely passed, she married again.
Her new husband was a young cavalier named Don Fernando de Castro, who was a cousin of the governor of Manila and a distant relative of Mendaña. The young man took possession of the goods and privileges of his wife, as was legally proper. In Manila the newlyweds raised money so that the San Jerónimo could be refitted and provisioned for the long voyage home to South America, since no other ship was available to take them back. Curiously, Pilot Quirós went home in the same vessel, but after what had happened on the fatal voyage to the South Pacific, it may be imagined that his relations with Doña Isabel were somewhat strained.