Over the Edge of the World: Magellen's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe (32 page)

O
nce again, the fleet plunged blindly into the expanses of the western Pacific, with no clear idea how to reach the Spice Islands.

Had Magellan tarried among the Chamorros, he might have learned valuable lessons about navigating across the Pacific. Like other island tribes, the Chamorros had techniques for identifying distant landmasses. They were adept at reading the ocean swells to maintain a course; they could distinguish between distracting swells raised by winds in the area and the widely spaced, regular swells useful for orienting a ship. The swells contained other clues to the whereabouts of remote islands, because they tended to bounce off islands or even to curve around them. By studying the patterns of the swells, an experienced navigator could make educated guesses about the distances and locations of various islands.

Island tribes also studied birds for signs of land. By simply following a bird’s trail at the end of the day, when it flew to its nest after a day’s fishing on the open ocean, island navigators could reach land.

They studied clouds. The higher islands in the Pacific interfere with the trade winds, causing mist and vapors to collect above the landmasses. Magellan’s lookout had seen this effect when he first spied land and was unable to distinguish the island of Guam from the surrounding clouds. Even the underside of clouds contained valuable information because they reflected the color of the ocean directly below. If the underside happened to be tinged with jade, it was likely reflecting the greenish shallow water covering an atoll or reef.

They also sensed patterns in the placement of the islands, which tended to be scattered in long archipelagos; if they found one island, they would know approximately where to look for others.

For celestial navigation, island tribes employed a significantly different system than the Europeans used. Instead of relying on instruments, they developed a so-called star compass, a mental construct in which points along the endless, undifferentiated horizon were determined by places where stars and constellations rose and set. With this construct, island navigators subdivided the horizon into thirty-two segments, just as European compass bearings did. Rather than rely on terms equivalent to north, south, east and west, the island system named the points after the star or constellation. Unlike the European system, the thirty-two segments migrated with the stars, resulting in irregular bearings. In addition, the island navigator assumed that his
proa
was stationary, and the reference points

on earth and in the sky were on the move. His reference point was the vessel, not landmarks, not even the stars. This custom may have derived from a common illusion experienced by sailors that their vessels seem to be motionless while landmarks slide by: hence the European sailor’s tendency to say that an island falls astern of the boat, as if the island itself were on the move.

In the preliterate societies that Magellan encountered, the island system of navigation worked as well as, if not better than, the flawed European system, which still lacked the ability to determine longitude accurately.

M
agellan set a westward course, journeying deeper into the unexplored reaches of the Pacific in his quest for the Moluccas. The revitalized fleet enjoyed another marvelous week of sailing downwind, making seven or eight knots—top speed.

On March 16, a lookout spied the mountains of a large island rising from the sea in pale majesty. The fleet had reached the eastern edge of the Philippine archipelago—over three thousand islands, most of which cover less than a square mile. Today, the two largest are known as Luzon and Mindanao. Magellan’s lookout had glimpsed the third largest island in the archipelago, Samar. The Philippines are situated almost directly south of Japan, and north of Borneo. Magellan sensed he was getting close to the Spice Islands, but he did not realize how close.

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ccounts of Philippine history begin abruptly in 1521, with Magellan’s arrival. But centuries before, these islands were well known to Chinese and Arab traders, who, with their superior sailing technology, profitably trafficked among them and developed sophisticated trading networks with the native societies. Archaeological evidence suggests that trade between mainland Asia and the Philippines had become highly evolved as early as
A.D.
1000. Chinese junks, distinguished by their three tall, featherlike sails stiffened with battens, became a familiar and welcome sight in the Philippines. The prevalence of commerce in the Philippine archipelago brought islanders out of their isolation and spread Asian cultural influences, especially writing, along with their goods. By the time Magellan arrived, Filipinos who dwelled near oceans and inland waterways had long been literate.

Chinese exploration of the Philippines reached its commercial peak during the years 1405 to 1433, when the Treasure Fleet ruled the South Pacific and the Indian Ocean. Its immense ships ranged as far as the east coast of Africa to collect precious items and tributes for the emperor. They were eight or nine times longer than Columbus’s ships and five or six times longer than any in Magellan’s armada. For sheer size, the Treasure Fleet was unrivaled until the zenith of the British navy in the nineteenth century. Despite its importance and unique character, the Treasure Fleet is little known in the West, even today. It was the creation, in many respects, of one man whose accomplishments rivaled and in some ways surpassed the more celebrated exploits of Columbus and Magellan: Cheng Ho.

I
n 1381, the Chinese army seized control of the mountainous province of Yunan, in southern China, and captured a young boy named Ma Ho, the son of a devout Muslim. Along with other young prisoners, he was castrated at the age of thirteen, a common practice in China, where eunuchs engaged in servant occupations. Ma Ho won an appointment as a servant to the fourth son of the Chinese emperor, Prince Zhu Di. Tens of thousands of eunuchs held such positions, which became so coveted that the Chinese eventually prohibited self-castration to discourage the overwhelming number of office seekers. In this competitive environment, Ma Ho rose to the rank of officer on the strength of his military and diplo matic skills. Later, the prince conferred the name Cheng Ho on his loyal and capable servant, and as Cheng Ho he played his pivotal role at the height of the Ming dynasty. (In the Pinyin transliteration of Chinese, he is now known as Zheng He, but he is still usually called Cheng Ho.) He was a giant of a man, seven feet tall, of considerable girth, endowed with a robust personality to match his stature and position. His complexion was said to be “rough like the surface of an orange,” and “his eyebrows were like swords and his forehead wide, like a tiger’s.”

His star rose even higher when his patron, Zhu Di, became emperor in 1402. Zhu Di placed administrative authority in the hands of the eunuchs who had helped him come to power, among them Cheng Ho. Having rid his kingdom of enemies, the emperor decided to give himself a suitable name. He picked Yongle, which means “lasting joy.” To pursue his goals of building an international commercial empire, Zhu Di named Cheng Ho as admiral, and placed him in charge of an ambitious and in some respects quite unChinese mission, that of building and leading a Treasure Fleet to explore the oceans.

Cheng Ho oversaw the operation of huge shipyards in Nanking, the planting of thousands of trees to provide wood for the ships, and the establishment of a school to train interpreters in foreign languages. Cheng Ho hastened to complete a fleet consisting of fifteen hundred wooden ships, including the largest sail-powered vessels ever built. They were extraordinarily luxurious, with staterooms, gold fittings, bronze cannon (for display rather than combat), and silk furnishings. Their seaworthiness was greatly enhanced by bulkheads, watertight compartments whose design was inspired by the chambers of the bamboo stalk. It would be several centuries before Western ships incorporated the same technology.

The Treasure Fleet assembled along the Yangtze River in Nanking in readiness for its first epic voyage, beginning in 1405. It consisted of 27,800 men, in contrast to the 260 men that made up the Armada de Molucca. Each of the Treasure Fleet’s larger ships— some as long as five hundred feet—carried nearly a thousand men. Others were devoted solely to transporting horses; still others carried water, or troops, or weapons, should they be needed to defend the fleet. Some ships carried only food, in case the crew found nothing to eat on distant shores; others carried large tubs of soil to cultivate fruits and vegetables. The luxury might have been responsible for preventing scurvy among the crew.

Unlike the Armada de Molucca, the Treasure Fleet did not conquer or claim distant lands. Although the Chinese considered themselves culturally superior to the outside world, they had no interest in establishing a colonial or military empire. Rather, the goal was to establish trade and diplomatic relations with the “barbarians” beyond their borders and to conduct scientific research. The unique Chinese philosophy of exploration received eloquent expression in a tablet said to have been written by the emperor himself at the height of the Treasure Fleet’s activity.

We rule all under heaven, pacifying and governing the Chinese and the barbarians with impartial kindness and without distinction between mine and thine. Extending the way of the ancient sage emperors and the enlightened kings so as to accord with the will of heaven and earth, we desire all distant countries and foreign domains each achieve its proper place under heaven.

At sea, the ships of the Treasure Fleet remained in touch with one another through a system of flags and lanterns, similar to the techniques employed by Magellan; they also used bells, gongs, and even carrier pigeons for communication. They measured time with burning graduated incense sticks. They navigated with compasses. Chinese pilots also employed a measuring instrument known as a
qianxingban
to fix their latitude, using the Southern Cross as their reference point. Cheng Ho often consulted a twenty-one-foot-long nautical chart that he unrolled section by section as his journey pro-gressed. Like the portolan charts employed by Spanish and Portuguese navigators a century later, it contained landmarks, compass bearings, and detailed directions for sailing from one point to another. Chinese navigators also learned to steer by the stars, relying on maps of the heavens to supplement their master charts. Chinese constellations differed from those traditionally used in the West; their great reference points were known as the Lantern and the Weaving Girl.

In rough weather, Chinese sailors prayed fervently to be spared from drowning, just as Magellan’s crew did. In their case, the Chinese prayed to the Celestial Spouse, a Taoist goddess. Deliverance from storms came in the form of the same Saint Elmo’s fire that signaled salvation to Magellan’s crew. Like Magellan’s sailors, the Chinese mariners considered the appearance of the spectral light a sign of safety conferred on their commander by divine forces.

The Treasure Fleet’s first important destination was Calicut, on India’s southwestern coast. Chinese explorers had reached this city overland eight centuries before, but the Treasure Fleet’s arrival prompted an outpouring of generosity from Calicut’s ruler, who conferred lavish gifts in the form of sashes made of finely spun gold, pearls, and precious stones.

While in Calicut, the men of the Treasure Fleet became aware of an unusual legend in which characters named Moses and Aaron figured prominently, along with a golden calf. The mysterious legend was recorded by the Treasure Fleet’s official chronicler, Ma Huan, who performed approximately the same function for Cheng Ho as Antonio Pigafetta did for Magellan. He wrote of a “holy man named Mouxie [Moses], who established a religious cult; the people knew that he was a true [man of] heaven, and all revered and followed him.” As it happened, the holy man had a younger brother with “depraved ideas.” According to the story, he made a “gold calf and said, ‘This is the holy lord; everyone who worships it will have his expectation fulfilled.’> He taught the people to listen to his bidding and to adore the gold ox, saying, ‘It always excretes gold.’ The people got the gold, and their hearts rejoiced; and they forgot the way of Heaven.” Later, when Mouxie returned, “He saw the multitude, misled by his younger brother . . . corrupting the holy way; thereupon he destroyed the ox and wished to punish his younger brother; [and] his younger brother mounted a large elephant and vanished.” This was, of course, a modified version of the biblical account of Moses and Aaron, but the Chinese did not understand its true origins. They assumed it came from India because that was where they first heard it.

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heng Ho returned from the Treasure Fleet’s first voyage as a hero, and he was soon making plans for future voyages. He stayed in China for the second voyage, and returned to sea for the third, commanding a fleet of forty-eight ships and thirty thousand men. With an eye to the future, they established trading posts and warehouses wherever they went. So it went for three more voyages, each lasting approximately two years as the Treasure Fleet established and maintained the first international maritime trading network. The Treasure Fleet explored the African coast all the way south to Mozambique, the Persian Gulf, and many other points throughout Southeast Asia and India. The lure and romance of ocean exploration spread throughout China. “We have beheld in the ocean huge waves like mountains rising sky-high,” Cheng Ho wrote, “and we have set eyes on barbarian regions far away hidden in a blue transparency of light vapors, while our sails, loftily unfurled like clouds, day and night continued their course like that of a star, traversing the savage waves as if treading a public thoroughfare.”

In 1424, the emperor, Zhu Di, died. His funeral was as excessive as his life, involving ten thousand mourners who watched as he was buried along with sixteen of his concubines. The unfortunate women had been hanged or ordered to take their own lives in preparation for the event. Their tomb was surrounded by a mile-long line of stone carvings representing soldiers, beasts, and officials. His son, Zhu Gaozhi, canceled all future voyages for the Treasure Fleet. Like other rulers during the Ming dynasty, Zhu Gaozhi was caught between followers of the Confucian traditions, who urged him to look inward and disdain traffic with foreigners, and the eunuchs, who encouraged international trade and grew rich off the proceeds. Zhu Gaozhi allied himself with the Confucians, and the admiral Cheng Ho, once the most powerful man in China next to the emperor, was reassigned to Nanking. The great shipyards, where thirty thousand men once toiled, fell silent as shipbuilding ceased.