At last a favourable breeze sprang up, enabling the admiral to take a westerly course, the one he most desired, as he had before noticed in his voyages to the Indies that about a hundred miles west of the Azores there was always a sudden change of temperature.[15]
[Footnote 15: I suppose he came into or out of one of those warm ocean rivers which have so great an effect in modifying the temperature of the earth—perhaps into the one which comes from the south of Africa through the Gulf of Mexico, to our own shores, and on which we so much depend.]
TRINIDAD SEEN.
On Sunday, the 22nd of July, in the evening, the sailors saw innumerable birds going from the south-west to the north-east, which flight of birds was a sign that land was not far off. For several successive days birds were seen, and an albatross perched upon the admiral's vessel. Still the fleet went on without seeing land, and, as it was in want of fresh water, the admiral was thinking of changing his course, and, indeed, on Thursday, the 31st of July, had commenced steering northwards for some hours, when, to use his own words, "as God had always been accustomed to show mercy to him," a certain mariner of Huelva, a follower of the admiral's, named Alonzo Perez, happened to go up aloft upon the maintop-sail of the admiral's ship, and suddenly saw land towards the south-west, about fifteen leagues off. This land which he described was in the form of three lofty hills or mountains. It would be but natural to conjecture that, as Columbus had resolved to name the first land he should discover "Trinidad," it was by an effort of the will, or of the imagination, that these three eminences were seen first; but it is exceedingly probable that such eminences were to be seen from the point whence Alonzo Perez first saw land.[16]
[Footnote 16: Cape Cashepou is backed by three peaked mountains, of which a representation is given in Day's West Indies, vol 2, p. 31.]
The sailors sang the "Salve Regina," with other pious hymns in honour of God and "Our Lady," according to the custom of the mariners of Spain, who, in terror or in joy, were wont to find an expression for their feelings in such sacred canticles.
THE PEARL COAST.
The admiral's course, when he was going northwards, had been in the direction of the Carib islands, already well known to him; but with great delight he now turned towards Trinidad, making for a cape which, from the likeness of a little rocky islet near it to a galley in full sail, he named "La Galera." [17] There he arrived "at the hour of complines," but, not finding the port sufficiently deep for his vessels to enter, he proceeded westwards.
[Footnote 17: This point is sometimes placed at the north-east of
Trinidad; but wrongly so. It is now Cape Galeota.—See Humbolt's Examen
Critique, vol. i. p. 310.]
[Illustration: Map of THE PEARL COAST. From about 50 miles west of the
island of Margarita to just east of Trinidad and Tobago; from about 50
miles north of Grenada to 50 miles south of the Orinoco River.]