To make matters worse, scarcity of provisions began to be experienced, and it was then decided to winter in the shelter of the river St. Julian. It was in October, 1520, before a fresh start could be made, and on the 21st of that month a channel was discovered, the careful navigation of which for thirty-eight days, amid shoals and innumerable islands, brought them, amid great rejoicing, once more into the open sea, proving the theory maintained by Columbus to his dying day to be so far, at any rate, correct. But Magellan, like all his predecessors, sadly miscalculated the distance between the remote East and the far West, and after taking in such supplies of provisions as were obtainable, renewed his voyage with a light heart, and in full expectation of reaching land in a week or two at longest. Days grew into weeks, and the weeks passed into months, and still no break on the monotonous horizon. The sufferings of the crew were horrible, as food and water became gradually exhausted, and they had to subsist at last by gnawing anything into which they could get their teeth. To turn back was certain destruction, as they could not possibly last out the time necessary to cover the distance already traversed. To go forward, therefore, was their only chance of salvation; and after a passage of ninety-eight days land was sighted on March 18, and the most dreaded of their dangers passed. They had sailed into a group of islands, not the Moluccas as they had anticipated, but the Islas de las Pintados; so called from the custom of the natives of painting or tattooing their naked bodies, and subsequently re-christened the Philippines, in honor of the heir to the Spanish throne, who afterward reigned as Philip II. Magellan was not destined to reap the fruits of his enterprise, nor to suffer the punishment subsequently inflicted on some of the survivors. He found the natives among whom he first landed friendly disposed, but rightly suspected them of treachery. Desirous, however, of conciliating them as far as possible, he entered into their quarrel with a tribe in a neighboring island, and, in the attack which he led against it, was slain.