But, leaving this aside, he ordered forty men from his ships get ready and they went to Mactan in two skiffs, and it was against his will that the lord of Cebu went along with two thousand of his men merely to watch the fight. Arriving at Mactan, Magellan wanted to land ashore, but was advised not to do so by the lord of Cebu, who said that since he did not know the place he should rather await the morning, and as soon as the morning came Magellan went ashore with thirty-four men, thirteen of whom were harquebusiers, leaving six men to watch over the skiffs; the chief of Cebu, against Magellan’s will, also went to the shore with his people, but only to watch, as he had been sternly warned by Magellan to refrain from entering the fight and that his people should carry some signal that made them recognizable.
The beach where they landed was very low so they left the skiffs very far from the shore. Reaching the shore they saw a big village in a palm grove but there was nobody to be seen. Magellan ordered to set a house on fire. As they were about to do so, up to fifty men came out of the house, where they were hiding, carrying cutlasses and shields, and charged down upon our men striking them with their swords. In the midst of this scramble, one of those barbarians struck a member of the fleet with his cutlass, slashing his thigh, as a result of which he later died. Our men, wishing to avenge this, charged against the barbarians, who beat a retreat, and as our men were chasing them they came out of a street toward the backs of our men, as if it all had been arranged as an ambush, and shouting most loudly pounced on our men and began to kill them.
Magellan was already severely wounded in many parts of his face and legs, and even though he was being told to order the Cebuan men to enter the fight, he refused to do so, and while he encouraged his people he was bleeding so much that he dropped down dead; then, the Cebuan people rushed forth making the Mactanese withdraw and some of the Cebuans took our men, who were all wounded, and carried them to the skiffs, leaving twelve of our men dead on the land, Magellan being one of them, and the others returned very wounded with the lord of Cebu to his island. From what has been told it can be gathered the madcap foolhardiness which the unfortunate Magellan attempted in such an unimportant affair when he could have done some much better things instead. 
Timeline of Magellan’s Voyage
1519
August 10
Magellan’s fleet, the Armada de Moluccas, departs Seville with five ships
September 20
Fleet departs Sanlúcar de Barrameda, bound for the Spice Islands
mid-December
Visits Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
1520
February 3
Magellan resumes voyage southward in search of strait
April
Magellan quells violent mutiny at Port Saint Julian
August 24
Fleet departs; Santiago wrecked in storm; four ships remain
October 21
Magellan discovers the strait and begins to navigate it
November
Mutiny aboard San Antonio;she returns to Spain
Late November
Magellan’s fleet, now three ships, enters the Pacific
1521
March 6
Magellan sights Guam after a 98-day passage
April 7
Fleet arrives in Cebu, now the Philippine Islands
April 27
Magellan dies in the bloody battle of Mactan
May 21
San Antonio arrives in Seville
May
Concepción burned; the fleet’s two remaining ships resume the voyage
November
Remnants of fleet sight Ternate and Tidore in the Spice Islands
December 21
Victoria departs Tidore; Trinidad remains for repairs, later captured by the Portuguese
1522
September 6
Victoria, with only 18 of the fleet’s original crew of 260, returns to Sanlúcar
September 8
Victoria enters Seville, led by Juan Sebastián Elcano, a Basque mariner
Read on Further Reading from Laurence Bergreen
Voyage to Mars:
NASA’s Search for Life Beyond Earth
Louis Armstrong:
An Extravagant Life
Capone:
The Man and the Era
As Thousands Cheer:
The Life of Irving Berlin
James Agee:
A Life
Look Now, Pay Later:
The Rise of Network Broadcasting
Also by Laurence Bergreen
Voyage to Mars:
NASA’s Search for Life Beyond Earth
Louis Armstrong:
An Extravagant Life
Capone:
The Man and the Era
As Thousands Cheer:
The Life of Irving Berlin
James Agee:
A Life
Look Now, Pay Later:
The Rise of Network Broadcasting
Copyright
A hardcover edition of this book was published in 2003 by William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
P.S.™ is a trademark of HarperCollins Publishers.
OVER THE EDGE OF THE WORLD. Copyright © 2003 by Laurence Bergreen. Introduction © Laurence Bergreen 2019. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST HARPER PERENNIAL EDITION PUBLISHED 2004.
FIRST WILLIAM MORROW PAPERBACK EDITION PUBLISHED 2019.
Cover design by Richard L. Aquan
Cover images: map from the John Carter Brown Library at Brown University; seascape photograph courtesy of Jon Diamond; inset of ship and portrait of Magellan from the Mariners’ Museum, Newport News, Virginia
The Library of Congress has catalogued the hardcover edition as follows:
Bergreen, Laurence.
Over the edge of the world: Magellan’s terrifying circumnavigation of the globe/Laurence Bergreen.—1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-06-621173-5
1. Magalhães, Fernão de, d. 1521—Journeys. 2. Explorers—Portugal— Biography. 3. Voyages around the world. I. Title.
G420.M2B47 2003
910’.92–dc21 [B] 2003050143