Mali dwarfs South America: about 1,258,185 km² km² against 17,840,000 km² km². At true size Mali is about 14.2× larger — the whole of South America fits into Mali roughly 14 times.
The old Mercator map treated both about equally (1.1× vs 1× inflation), so at least their relative sizes were preserved — even if both were drawn at the wrong absolute scale.
Mali fits 14× into South America.