quite a favorite: he was taught to pronounce the name of Jesus and to repeat the Lord's prayer, and was even baptized by the name of John by the chaplain. This profession of Christianity did the poor pagan no good, for he soon disappeared,--murdered, doubtless, by his people, in consequence of his attachment to the foreigners. The whole description given by Pigafetta of these savages, whom Magellan called Patagonians,--from words indicating the resemblance of their feet, when shod with the skin of the lama, to the feet of a bear,--is now known to be much exaggerated. It is certain that they were by no means so gigantic as he represented them. He adds that they drank half a pail of water at a draught, fed upon raw meat, and swallowed mice alive; that when they were sick and needed bleeding they gave a good chop with some edged tool to the part affected; when they wished to vomit they thrust an arrow half a yard down their throat. The headache was cured by a gash in the forehead. A fearful tragedy was enacted in Port Julian. The four Spanish captains conspired to murder Magellan. The plot was discovered and the ringleaders were brought to trial. Two were hung, another was stabbed to the heart, while a number of their accomplices were left among the Patagonians. Magellan quitted Port Julian in August, 1520, having planted a cross on a neighboring mountain and taken solemn possession of the country in the name of the King of Spain. On the 14th of September, he discovered a fresh-water river, which he named Santa Cruz, in honor of the anniversary of the exaltation of the cross. Here the crew, by Magellan's order, made confession and received the holy communion. On the 21st of October, Magellan made the great discovery which has immortalized his name. He reached a strait communicating between the Atlantic Ocean and the South Sea: consulting the calendar for a name, he called it in honor of the day, the Strait of the Eleven Thousand Virgins. It is now Magellan's Strait. It was enclosed between lofty mountains covered with snow; the water was so deep that it afforded no anchorage. The crew were so fully persuaded that it possessed no western outlet, that, had it not been for Magellan's confidence and persistence, they would never have ventured to explore it. The strait was found to vary in breadth from one mile to ten, and to be four hundred and forty miles in length. During the first night spent in the strait, the Santo Antonio, piloted by one Emmanuel Gomez, who hated Magellan, found her way back into the Atlantic, and returned at once to Spain. The pilot's object was principally to be the first to tell the news of the discovery, and to carry to Europe a specimen of a Patagonian giant, one of whom he had on board of his vessel. On his way he stopped at Port Julian and took up two of the conspirators who had been abandoned there. The Patagonian was unable to bear the change of climate, and died of the heat on crossing the line.