Patagonian Giants
The myth of the Patagonian Giants, like other stories about remote, exotic places, captured the European imagination for a very long time. The first mention of this mythical race surfaced in the 1520s from the account of Antonio Pigafetta, chronicler of Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition:
But one day (without anyone expecting it) we saw a giant who was on the shore [near today’s Puerto San Julián, Argentina], quite naked, and who danced, leaped, and sang, and while he sang he threw sand and dust on his head. Our captain [Magellan] sent one of his men toward him, charging him to leap and sing like the other in order to reassure him and to show him friendship. Which he did. Immediately the man of the ship, dancing, led this giant to a small island where the captain awaited him. And when he was before us, he began to marvel and to be afraid, and he raised one finger upward, believing that we came from heaven. And he was so tall that the tallest of us only came up to his waist. Withal he was well proportioned. . . . The captain named the people of this sort Pathagoni.*
The etymology of the word is unclear, but Patagonia came to mean “Land of the Bigfeet.” Magellan seized two of the younger males as hostages to bring back to Spain, but they got sick and died on the journey.
https://library.princeton.edu/visual_materials/maps/websites/pacific/magellan-strait/patgonian-giants.html
Ever since the first Europeans traversed the Magellan Strait in 1520, reports had been received of the tall, robust inhabitants found along its Eastern coast, known today as the Aónikenk. Estimates of their height varied, but they were usually said to be tall, sometimes enormously so. For example, here is Ferdinand Magellan's chronicler, Antonio Pigafetta: [Pinkerton, 1812, pp. 314, 316]
One day when the least we expected any thing of the kind, a man of gigantic figure presented himself before us. […] The man was of such immense stature that our heads scarcely reached to his waist.
and, later:
The captain was anxious […] to transport a race of giants to Europe: with this view he ordered the two others to be arrested […] Nine of our strongest men were scarcely able to cast them to the ground, and bind them, and still even one of them succeeded in freeing himself.
https://patlibros.org/frm/index.php?fun=myth&lan=eng
Antarctic Giants 1 – Multiple Unheard Stories
https://theserapeum.com/antarctic-giants-1-multiple-unheard-stories/
Antarctic Giants 2: Antonio Pigafetta’s Full Account, Chronicler Of Magellan’s Voyage In 1519
https://theserapeum.com/antarctic-giants-2-antonio-pigafettas-full-account-chronicler-of-magellans-voyage-in-1519
Vice-Admiral John Byron (8 November 1723 – 1 April 1786) was a British Royal Navy officer and explorer. He earned the nickname "Foul-Weather Jack" in the press because of his frequent encounters with bad weather at sea.[1] As a midshipman, he sailed in the squadron under George Anson on his voyage around the world, though Byron made it only to southern Chile, where his ship was wrecked. He returned to England with the captain of HMS Wager. He was governor of Newfoundland following Hugh Palliser, who left in 1768. He circumnavigated the world as a commodore with his own squadron in 1764–1766. He fought in battles in the Seven Years' War and the American Revolution. He rose to Vice Admiral of the White before his death in 1786.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Byron
Ferdinand Magellan (/məˈɡɛlən/[3] or /məˈdʒɛlən/;[4] Portuguese: Fernão de Magalhães, IPA: [fɨɾˈnɐ̃w dɨ mɐɣɐˈʎɐ̃jʃ]; Spanish: Fernando de Magallanes, IPA: [feɾˈnando ðe maɣaˈʎanes]; 4 February 1480 – 27 April 1521) was a Portuguese explorer. He is best known for having planned and led the 1519 Spanish expedition to the East Indies across the Pacific Ocean to open a maritime trade route, during which he discovered the interoceanic passage bearing thereafter his name and achieved the first European navigation from the Atlantic to Asia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferdinand_Magellan
Admiral Byron Meeting the Giant Inhabitants (a Mother and child) of Patagonia , South America - Very Unusual - an Original Antique Engraving
https://www.abebooks.co.uk/book-search/title/admiral-byron-meeting-giant-inhabitants/author/admiral-byron-patagonia-original-antique/
The narrative of the Honourable John Byron : (commodore in a late expedition round the world) containing an account of the great distresses suffered by himself and his companions on the coast of Patagonia, from the year 1740, till their arrival in England, 1746 : with a description of St. Jago de Chili, and the manners and customs of the inhabitants : also a relation of the loss of the Wager, man of war, one of Admiral Anson's squadron.
https://archive.org/details/narrativeofhono00byro
America magica : when Renaissance Europe thought it had conquered paradise
https://archive.org/details/americamagicawhe0000maga