The first is the size of the mountains.  It is claimed that they are very great and this was the opinion of Columbus, who discovered them.  He had also another theory, asserting that the terrestrial paradise was situated on the top of the mountains visible from Paria and Boca de la Sierpe.  He ended by convincing himself that this was a fact.  If these mountains are so immense, they must contain extensive and gigantic reservoirs.

If such be the case, how are these reservoirs supplied with water?  Is it true, as many people think, that all fresh waters flow from the sea into the land, where they are forced by the terrible power of the waves into subterranean passages of the earth, just as we see it pour forth from those same channels to flow again into the ocean?

This may well be the explanation of the phenomenon, since, if the reports of the natives be true, nowhere else will two seas, separated by such a small extent of land, ever be found.  On the one side a vast ocean extends towards the setting sun; on the other lies an ocean towards the rising sun; and the latter is just as large as the former, for it is believed that it mingles with the Indian Ocean.  If this theory be true, the continent, bounded by such an extent of water, must necessarily absorb immense quantities, and after taking it up, must send it forth into the sea in the form of rivers.  If we deny that the continent absorbs the excess of water from the ocean, and admit that all springs derive their supply from the rainfall which filters drop by drop into mountain reservoirs, we do so, bowing rather to the superior authority of those who hold this opinion, than because our reason grasps this theory.

I share the view that the clouds are converted into water, which is absorbed into the mountain caverns, for I have seen with my own eyes in Spain, rain falling drop by drop incessantly into caverns from whence brooks flowed down the mountainside, watering the olive orchards, vineyards and gardens of all kinds.  The most illustrious Cardinal Ludovico of Aragon, who is so devotedly attached to you, and two Italian bishops, one of Boviano, Silvio Pandono, and the other, an Archbishop whose own name and that of his diocese I am unable to recollect, will bear me witness.  We were together at Granada when it was captured from the Moors, and to divert ourselves we used to go to some wooded hills, whence a murmuring rivulet flowed across the plain.  While our most illustrious Ludovico went bird-hunting with his bow along its banks, the two bishops and I formed a plan to ascend the hill to discover the source of the brook, for we were not very far from the top of the mountain.  Taking up our soutanes, therefore, and following the river-bed, we found a cavern incessantly supplied by dropping water.  From this cavern, the water formed by these drops trickled into an artificial reservoir in the rocks at the bottom where the rivulet formed.  Another such cave filled by the dew is in the celebrated