In six days the squadron reached Teneriffe; of this island Pigafetta relates several curious legends current at that time. It never rained there, he says, and there was neither river nor spring in the island. The leaves of a tree, however, which was constantly surrounded by a thick mist, distilled excellent water, which was collected in a pit at its foot, whither the inhabitants and wild beasts repaired to quench their thirst. Early in October the fleet passed between Cape Verd and its islands, and coasted along the shores of Guinea and Sierra Leone. Here they met with contrary winds, sharks, and dead calms. One dark night, during a violent tempest, the St. Elmo fire blazed for two hours upon their topmast. This, which is now known to be an effect of electricity, which the ancient idolaters believed to be Castor and Pollux, which Catholics in Magellan's time regarded as a saint, and which English sailors call Davy Jones, was a great consolation to the Portuguese during the storm. At the moment when it disappeared it diffused a light so resplendent that Pigafetta was almost blinded and gave himself up for lost; but, he adds, "the wind ceased momentaneously." Passing the equinoctial line and losing sight of the polar star, Magellan steered south-southwest, and in the middle of December struck the coast of Brazil. His men made excellent bargains with the natives. For a small comb they obtained two geese; for a piece of glass, as much fish as would feed ten men; for a ribbon, a basket of potatoes,--a root then so little known that Pigafetta describes it as resembling a turnip in appearance and a roasted chestnut in taste. A pack of playing-cards was a fortune, for a sailor bought six fat chickens with the king of spades. The fleet remained thirteen days at anchor, and then pursued its way to the southward along the territory of the cannibals who had lately devoured de Solis. Stopping at an island in the mouth of a river sixty miles wide, they caught, in one hour, penguins sufficient for the whole five ships. Magellan anchored for the winter in a harbor found in south latitude 49° and called by him Port Julian. Two months elapsed before the country was discovered to be inhabited. At last a man of gigantic figure presented himself upon the shore, capering in the sands in a state of utter nudity, and violently casting dust upon his head. A sailor was sent ashore to make similar gestures, and the giant was thus easily led to the spot where Magellan had landed. The latter gave him cooked food to eat and presented him, incidentally, with a large steel mirror. The savage now saw his likeness for the first time, and started back in such fright that he knocked over four men. He and several of his companions, both men and women, subsequently went on board the ships, and constantly indicated by their gestures that they supposed the strangers to have descended from heaven. One of the savages became