At this time he received a letter from a friend who had settled in the Spice Islands, saying that he had “discovered another new world, larger than that found by Vasco da Gama.” Magellan wrote to this friend that he would soon be visiting those islands himself--“If not by way of Portugal, then by way of Spain.” After a long wait, the Spanish king consented to furnish five ships with two hundred and thirty-four officers and sailors, and to stock them with provisions to last through a two-year voyage. It was agreed also that Magellan and his partner should receive one-twentieth of the profits of their undertaking; and that they should be governors of the islands they discovered. At last, after two long years of waiting, Magellan’s fleet was ready to sail. Crossing the Atlantic seemed an easy matter then--twenty-seven years after the first voyage of Columbus. The first land they reached was the mainland of South America. The natives along the northern coast were friendly and ready to exchange enough fish for ten men for a looking-glass, a bushel of sweet potatoes for a bell, and several fowls (or even one of their own children) for a butcher-knife. Those people lived in huts and went almost naked, except for aprons of parrots’ feathers. There were many birds of bright plumage and plenty of monkeys in those regions. Some of the natives were cannibals, cooking and eating the flesh of men they captured or killed in battle. The little Spanish fleet coasted along toward the south. The wide mouth of the La Plata deceived them so that they sailed in until they found that it was only a river. As they drew nearer to the South Pole it grew intensely cold. The men on the ships begged Magellan to turn round and go home. Some of their number died of exposure and want, and the rest were afraid they could not live through such a winter. Not only did they suffer from the bitter cold, but their ships had been damaged by storms on the way down the coast. They stayed several weeks at a port in the country now called Patagonia without seeing a person. But one day an Indian giant strode in upon them. He was so tall that the white men’s heads barely came up to his waist. His hair was dyed white, his face colored red, and he had painted wide yellow circles around his little, black eyes. When they let him see himself in a big steel mirror he was so astonished that he jumped backward and knocked down four of the Spaniards standing around him. When he understood that it was himself he saw in the looking-glass, he was pleased and they made him a present of a small metal mirror. They found the Patagonians to be savages of a very low and brutal type, who ate raw meat, and even rats, like beasts of prey. If they felt sick they stuck arrows down their throats, and gashed their foreheads with shell-knives when their heads ached.