e fleet had been two whole months in the Port S. Julian without seeing
a single native.

"However, one day, without any one expecting it, we saw a giant, who
was on the shore of the sea, dancing and leaping and singing. He was
so tall that the tallest of us only came up to his waist; he was well
built; he had a large face, painted red all round, and his eyes also
were painted yellow around them, and he had two hearts painted on his
cheeks; he had but little hair on his head and it was painted white."

The great Patagonian giant pointed to the sky to know whether these
Spaniards had descended from above. He was soon joined by others
evidently greatly surprised to see such large ships and such little
men. Indeed, the heads of the Spaniards hardly reached the giants'
waists, and they must have been greatly astonished when two of them
ate a large basketful of biscuits and rats without skinning them and
drank half a bucket of water at each sitting.

With the return of spring weather in October 1520, Magellan led the
little fleet upon its way. He was rewarded a few days later by finding
the straits for which he and others had been so long searching.

[Illustration: FERDINAND MAGELLAN, THE FIRST CIRCUMNAVIGATOR OF THE
WORLD. After the engraving by Selma in Navarrete's _Coleccion de los
Viages_.]

"It was the straight," says the historian simply, "now cauled the
straight of Magellans."

A struggle was before them. For more than five weeks the Spanish
mariners fought their way through the winding channels of the unknown
straits. On one side rose high mountains covered with snow. The weather
was bad, the way unknown. Do we wonder to read that "one of the ships
stole away privily and returned into Spain," and the remaining men
begged piteously to be taken home? Magellan spoke "in measured and
quiet tones": "If I have to eat the leather of the ships' yards, yet
will I go on and do my work." His words came truer than he knew. On
the southern side of the strait constant fires were seen, which led
Magellan to give the land the name it bears to-day--Tierra del Fuego.
It was not visited again for a hundred years.

[Illustration: A SHIP OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. From Amoretti's
translation of _Magellan's Voyage round the World_.]

At last the ships fought their way to the open sea--Balboa's Southern
Ocean--and "when the Captain Magellan was past the strait and saw the
way open to the other main sea he was so glad thereof that fo