Epox!

And welcome back to Epox, where this shall be the last episode, the final instalment of my story all about Magellan's terrifying circumnavigation

of the globe. Okay, last time we left off, if you remember, they'd basically just finally

reached the actual Spice Islands in Indonesia. So let's just pick up the story straight from

there, shall we? A little bit of a description from a slightly later chronicler, a Portuguese

man from just a few years later.

And he described the Spice Islands, these five islands in Indonesia like this.

He said, quote, the shape of most of these islands is that of a sugar loaf with the base going

downward into the water surrounded by reefs at little more than a stone's throw, at

ebb-tired, one can go there on foot. One can put into the islands through some channels

in the reef, which outside is very high, and there is no place to anchor except in certain

small sandy bays. A dangerous thing! They look gloomy, somber and depressing. That is always

the way they strike the onlooker at first sight.

For always, there is a large blanket of fog on their summits. And for the greatest part of the year,

the sky is cloudy, which makes it rain very often. And if it does not, everything withers,

but the clove tree which prospers. and at certain intervals there falls a dismal,

misty rain. Some of these islands spit fire and have warm waters like hot springs, and they are so

thickly crowded with groves as to look like one big mass of them, and they are therefore

hiding places for evildoers. The soil is black and loose and in places there is clay and gravel which

is unstable because it lies on the rock where it does not take hold. And however much it may

rain, the water stands only a while before it is absorbed. So yeah, these are volcanic islands.

So it's like the very volcanic rich soil which absorbs all the water and it rains loads. So it's very, very fertile.

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