We found that night that the ships swung, caught in a current issuing from the strait before us.  In the morning we made sail and prepared to pass through this narrow way between the two lands, seeing open water beyond.  We succeeded by great skill and with Providence over us, for we met as it were an under wall of water ridged atop with strong waves.  The ships were tossed as by a tempest, yet was the air serene, the sky blue.  We came hardly through and afterwards called that strait Mouth of the Serpent.  Now we were in a great bay or gulf, and still the sea shook us and drove us.  Calm above, around, but underneath an agitation of waters, strong currents and boilings.  Among our mariners many took fright.  “What is it?  Are there witches?  We are in a cauldron!”

Christopherus Columbus himself took the helm of the Esperanza.  Many a man in these times chose to doubt what kind of Viceroy he made, but no man who ever sailed with him but at last said, “Child of Neptune, and the greatest seaman we have!”

We outrode danger and came under land to a quiet anchorage, the San Sebastian and the San Martin following us as the chickens the hen.  Still before us we saw that current ridge the sea.  The Admiral stood gazing upon the southward shore that hung in a dazzling haze.  Now we thought water, now we thought land.  He called to a ship boy and the lad presently brought him a pannikin of water dipped from the sea.  The Admiral tasted.  “Fresh!  It is almost fresh!”

He stood with a kindling face.  “A river runs into sea from this land!  Surely the mightiest that may be, rushing forth like a dragon and fighting all the salt water!  So great a river could not come from an island, no, not if it were twice as large as Hispaniola!  Such a river comes downward with force hundreds of leagues and gathers children to itself as it comes.  It is not an island yonder; it is a great main!”

We called the gulf where we were the Gulf of the Whale.  Trinidad stood on the one hand, the unknown continent on the other.  After rest in milky water, we set sail to cross the width of the Whale, and found glass-green and shaken water, but never so piled and dangerous as at the Mouth of the Serpent.  So we came to that land that must be—­we knew not what!  It hung low, in gold sunlight.  We saw no mountains, but it was covered with the mightiest forest.

Anchoring in smooth water, we took out boats and went ashore, and we raised a cross.  “As in Adam we all die, so in Christ we be alive!” said the Admiral, and then, “What grandeur is in this forest!”

In truth we found trees that we had not found in our islands, and of an unbelievable height and girth.  Upon the boughs sat parrots, and we were used to them, but we were not used to monkeys which now appeared, to our mariners’ delight.  We met footprints of some great animal, and presently, being beside a stream, we made out upon a mud bank those crocodiles that the Indians call “cayman.”  And never have I seen so many and such splendid butterflies.  All this forest seemed to us of a vastness, as the rivers were vast.  There rang in our ears “New!  New!”