In order to realise the nature of the delays and difficulties to be encountered, nay, the disasters and sufferings to be endured and the determination required for the distant voyages of the period, we have but to recall the fate of Magellan's and Loaysa's expeditions.
[* See the Ribero Map.] Those navigators were sent out in search of a western passage to the Spice Islands, and with the object of determining their situation.
Of the five vessels which composed Magellan's squadron, one alone, the _Victoria_, performed the voyage round the world.
The _S.

Antonio_ deserted in the Straits which received Magellan's name, seventy odd of the crew returning to Spain with her.
The _Santiago_ was lost on the coast of Patagonia.
The _Concepcion_, becoming unfit for navigation, was abandoned and burnt off the island of Bohol, in the St.Lazarus Group, afterwards called the Philippines.
The _Trinidad_ was lost in a heavy squall in Ternate Roads, and all hands made prisoners by the Portuguese.

Many of them died, and, years after, only four of the survivors reached their native shores.
The _Victoria_, after an absence of three years all but twelve days, returned to Spain with thirty-one survivors out of a total crew of two hundred and eighty.

The remaining one hundred and sixty or seventy had perished.

It is true that some of those shared the fate of Magellan, and were killed in the war undertaken in the Philippines to help their allies.
The fate of Loaysa's armada was still more disastrous.