Ethiopia dwarfs South America: about 1,131,761 km² km² against 17,840,000 km² km². At true size Ethiopia is about 15.8× larger — the whole of South America fits into Ethiopia roughly 15 times.
The old Mercator map treated both about equally (1× vs 1× inflation), so at least their relative sizes were preserved — even if both were drawn at the wrong absolute scale.
Ethiopia fits 15× into South America.