Christopher Columbus and How He Received and Imparted the Spirit of Discovery

by Justin Winsor

1498. August 2.

By the 2d of August the Admiral had approached that narrow channel where the southwest corner of Trinidad comes nearest to the mainland, and here he anchored. A large canoe, containing five and twenty Indians, put off towards his ships, but finally its occupants lay upon their paddles a bowshot away. Columbus describes them as comely in shape, naked but for breech-cloths, and wearing variegated scarfs about their heads. They were lighter in skin than any Indians he had seen before. This fact was not very promising in view of the belief that precious products would be found in a country inhabited by blacks. The men had bucklers, too, a defense he had never seen before among these new tribes. He tried to lure them on board by showing trinkets, and by improvising some music and dances among his crew. The last expedient was evidently looked upon as a challenge, and was met by a flight of arrows. Two crossbows were discharged in return, and the canoe fled. The natives seemed to have less fear of the smaller caravels, and approached near enough for the captain of one of them to throw some presents to them, a cap, and a mantle, and the like; but when the Indians saw that a boat was sent to the Admiral's ship, they again fled.

While here at anchor, the crew were permitted to go ashore and refresh themselves. They found much delight in the cool air of the morning and evening, coming after their experiences of the torrid suffocation of the calm latitudes. Nature had appeared to them never so fresh.

The Gulf Stream.

Boca del Sierpe.

Gulf of Paria.

Boca del Drago.

Columbus grew uneasy in his insecure anchorage, for he had discovered as yet no roadstead. He saw the current flowing by with a strength that alarmed him. The waters seemed to tumble in commotion as they were jammed together in the narrow pass before him. It was his first experience of that African current which, setting across the ocean, plunges hereabouts into the Caribbean Sea, and, sweeping around the great gulf, passes north in what we know as the Gulf Stream. Columbus was as yet ignorant, too, of the great masses of water which the many mouths of the Orinoco discharge along this shore; and when at night a great roaring billow of water came across the channel,—very likely an unusual volume of the river water poured out of a sudden,—and he found his own ship lifting at her anchor and one of his caravels snapping her cable, he felt himself in the face of new dangers, and of forces of nature to which he was not accustomed. To a seaman's senses not used to such phenomena, the situation of the ships was alarming. Before him was the surging flow of the current through the narrow pass, which he had already named the Mouth of the Serpent (Boca del Sierpe). To attempt its passage was almost foolhardy. To return along the coast stemming such a current seemed nearly impossible. He then sent his boats to examine the pass, and they found more water than was supposed, and on the assurances of the pilot, and the wind favoring, he headed his ships for the boiling eddies, passed safely through, and soon reached the placid water beyond. The shore of Trinidad stretched northerly, and he turned to follow it, but somebody getting a taste of the water found it to be fresh. Here was a new surprise. He had not yet comprehended that he was within a land-locked gulf, where the rush of the Orinoco sweetens the tide throughout. As he approached the northwestern limit of Trinidad, he found that a lofty cape jutted out opposite a similar headland to the west, and that between them lay a second surging channel, beset with rocks and seeming to be more dangerous than the last. So he gave it a more ferocious name, the Mouth of the Dragon (Boca del Drago). To follow the opposite coast presented an alternative that did not require so much risk, and, still ignorant of the way in which his fleet was embayed in this marvelous water, he ran across on Sunday, August 5, to the opposite shore. He now coasted it to find a better opening to the north, for he had supposed this slender peninsula to be another island. The water grew fresher as he went on. The shore attracted him, with its harbors and salubrious, restful air, but he was anxious to get into the open sea. He saw no inhabitants. The liveliest creatures which he observed were the chattering monkeys. At length, the country becoming more level, he ran into the mouth of a river and cast anchor. It was perhaps here that the Spaniards first set foot on the continent. The accounts are somewhat confused, and need some license in reconciling them. They had, possibly, landed earlier.