Over the Edge of the World: Magellen's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe by Laurence Bergreen Read Free Book Online

mostly black—pitch black. They derived their blackness, and their ominous aura, from the tar covering the hull, masts, and rigging, practically every exposed surface of the ship except for the sails. Their sterns rose high out of the water, towering as much as thirty feet over the waves, so high that a man standing on the stern deck seemed to rule the sea itself. Their height exaggerated movement; even in relatively calm water, they tossed the men about like toy figures.
    The ships were among the most complicated machines of their day, wonders of Renaissance technology, and the product of thousands of hours of labor by skilled artisans working at their specialized trades. They were relatively small, out of necessity. One of Seville’s limitations as a port was the shallowness of the Guadalquivir River; ships had to be sufficiently small and light to negotiate the narrow waterway to the Atlantic. Thus Magellan’s flagship, Trinidad, weighed 100 tons; San Antonio, which carried many of the provisions, weighed 120 tons; Concepción 90 tons, Victoria 85 tons; and Santiago, to be used for reconnaissance, weighed just 75 tons.
    With the exception of Santiago, a caravel, the ships were all classified as naos, a term that simply meant ships. No illustrations of them have survived, so it is difficult to determine exactly how they were configured, but accounts from Magellan’s time mention their daunting stern castles, their multiple decks, and the profusion of obras muertas, or “dead wood,” to ornament the officers’ quarters. Each ship had three masts, one of which carried a lateen sail.
     
    A lthough King Charles was supposed to pay for Magellan’s ships, according to the contract, he was deeply in debt. To cover the expedition’s cost, the Casa de Contratación turned to a familiar presence in financial circles, Cristóbal de Haro, who represented the House of Fugger, an influential banking dynasty based in Augsburg, Germany. Haro’s name derived from the city of Haro, in north central Spain. Haro (the city) flourished as a center of winemaking, and it also sheltered a community of Jewish goldsmiths and bankers until a civil war broke out in the fourteenth century and drove the Jews from their homes. Many of the persecuted Jews adapted by becoming conversos, adopting Christian-sounding names, Cristóbal de Haro’s ancestors among them.
    For years, Haro served as the Fuggers’ man in Lisbon, trading in spices, lending money for secret Portuguese expeditions, and forging friendships with many of the great explorers of the era, including Bartolomeu Dias. His familiarity with secret Portuguese expeditions, or with tantalizing rumors about their findings, gave him privileged information concerning the existence of a strait leading through the American landmass to the Indies—the same possibility that animated Magellan’s furious desire to explore the East. Following a bitter dispute with King Manuel, Haro left Lisbon for Seville, where he renewed his acquaintanceship with Magellan, and combined their enthusiasm for a search for the strait.
    For an explorer in need of financial backing, Cristóbal de Haro was the ideal friend; the House of Fugger, for which he worked, had enough money to finance ten expeditions, or more; indeed, it had more money than King Charles. By bringing in Haro, the king and his advisers would be giving up a significant amount of the profits. Given the hazards of the spice trade, and the uncertainty of long ocean voyages, financiers like Haro could be induced to risk their capital on such ventures for only one reason: the lure of extraordinary profits. If successful, or even partly successful, a fleet returning from the Indies could yield a profit of 400 percent; the more pragmatic Haro estimated that Magellan’s expedition could yield a profit of 250 percent. Meanwhile, he advanced money at an interest rate of 14 percent.
    The official accounting of the expedition put the cost at 8,751,125