At length anchoring, abundance of water was obtained from a limpid brook, and traces of animals were seen, which must have been those of deer, though supposed to be those of goats.
When coasting the island, he now for the first time saw, stretching away to the south, that mighty continent of which he had so long been in search, it being the land near the many mouths of the Oronoco; supposing it, however, to be an island, he called it La Isla Santa. On the 2nd of August he cast anchor near the south-west portion of Trinidad. As the ships approached this place, a large canoe, with five and twenty Indians on board, put off from the shore.
He in vain tried to induce the savages to come on board, by offering them looking-glasses, glass, beads of polished metal, and glittering trinkets. They remained gazing in mute wonder at the ships, but kept their paddles ready to make off at the least attempt to approach them. They were young, well formed, and naked, excepting fillets of cotton bound round their heads, and coloured cloths about their loins. Besides their bows and arrows, they carried bucklers,—an article of armour now first seen among the inhabitants of the New World.
Believing that they might be affected by music, Columbus ordered the band to strike up; but the Indians, mistaking the sounds as a sign of hostility, seized their bows and let fly a shower of arrows. The discharge of a couple of crossbows, however, put them to flight. They afterwards approached the other ships, but had conceived an especial fear of that of the Admiral.
Columbus, supposing himself to be in the seventh degree of latitude, though actually in the tenth, expected to find the inhabitants similar to the natives of Africa, under the same parallel,—black, with crisp hair,—and was astonished at finding these natives even fairer than those met with farther north.
The ships brought up at Point Arenal, the nearest to the mainland, between which and the island Columbus observed, night and day, a current flowing at a tremendous speed, boiling and raging to such a degree that he thought it was crossed by a reef of rocks. From its dangerous appearance he gave to it the name of Boca del Sierpe—the Serpent’s Mouth. He feared that the current from the east would prevent his return, while his ships might be lost on the supposed rocks, should he attempt a passage.
That night, while kept awake by his illness, he heard a terrible roaring from the south, and beheld the sea heaped up and covered with foam, like a huge watery ridge the height of the ships, rolling towards them. As this furious surge approached, rendered more terrible in appearance by the obscurity of night, he trembled for the safety of his vessels. His own ship was lifted up to such a height that he feared she would be overturned, while another was torn from her anchorage. The crews expected to be swallowed up, but the surge passed on and gradually subsided.
Early in the morning he sent the boats to sound the water at the Serpent’s Mouth, and to his great joy several fathoms were found; the currents and tides setting both ways, either to enter or return. A favourable breeze springing up, he entered the tranquil expanse between Trinidad and the mainland of Paria, and, to his great surprise, he here found the water fresh.
He continued northward towards a mountain at the north-west point of the island, and here beheld two lofty capes, one projecting from the island of Trinidad, the other at the end of the long promontory of Paria, which, supposing it to be an island, he named Isla de Gracia. Between these capes was another channel beset with rocks, among which the current forced its way with roaring turbulence, to which he gave the name of Boca del Dragon.
Not wishing to encounter it, he steered along the inner side of the promontory, round which, fancying that it was an island, he expected to get, and then to be able to strike northward for Hispaniola.