lan described as being very tall, like
giants, with long, flowing hair, and dressed scantily in skins.

Great hardships had been endured by the crew. Food and water had been
scarce, the storms had been severe, and suffering from cold was intense.
The sailors did not believe there was any strait, and they begged
Magellan to sail for home. It was useless to try to influence this
determined man. Danger made him only the more firm. Magellan told them
that he would not return until he had found the opening for which he
was looking.

Then the mutiny broke out anew. But Magellan by his prompt and decisive
action put it down in twenty-four hours. One offender was killed, and
two others were put in irons and left to their fate on the shore when
the ships sailed away.

As soon as the weather grew warmer the ships started again southward.
After nearly two months of sailing, most of the time through violent
storms, a narrow channel was found, in which the water was salt. This
the sailors knew must be the entrance to a strait.

Food was scarce, and the men again begged Magellan to return; but he
firmly refused, saying: "I will go on, if I have to eat the leather
off the ship's yards."

So the ships entered and sailed through the winding passage, which
sometimes broadened out into a bay and then became narrow again. Among
the twists and windings of this perilous strait, one of the vessels,
being in charge of a mutinous commander, escaped and turned back.

On both sides of the shore there were high mountains, the tops of which
were covered with snow, and which cast gloomy shadows upon the water
below them.

[Illustration: Strait of Magellan.]

Think of the feelings of the crew when, after sailing five weeks
through this winding channel, they came out into a calm expanse of
water. Magellan was overcome by the sight, and shed tears of joy. He
named the vast waters before him Pacific, which means "peaceful,"
because of their contrast to the violent and stormy Atlantic.

The fleet now sailed northwest into a warmer climate and over a
tranquil ocean, and as week after week passed and no land was seen,
the sailors lost all hope. They began to think that this ocean had
no end, and that they might sail on and on forever.

These poor men suffered very much from lack of food and water, and
many died of famine. The boastful remark of Magellan was recalled when
the sailors did really begin to eat the leather from the ship's yards,
fi