Abstract

The Greatest Navigator

The article presents information about the book "Magellan: A General Account of His Life and Times and Remarkable Adventures by Land and by Sea," by Arthur Sturges Hildebrand. Romancers in history, in art, in religion, in science must look sharp for their laurels, the laurels of their heroes. The great navigator Ferdinand Magellan, like all the rest, passes under this potent searchlight with the result that he can be proclaimed no more the first circumnavigator of the world, despite this book and its jacket. Mr. Hildebrand attempts no analysis. Admitting that there are wide gaps in the sources, he has made no effort to fill any of them with new data. He follows well the standard authorities on the subject, but he takes them all raw, as it were. Mr. Hildebrand does, however, carry the reader along with a fine, breezy enthusiasm and his knowledge and love of the sea and boats prevent him from making blunders in that direction-in fact add much to the vim of the narrative.