a. The _Esperanza_ carried a somewhat frank and friendly
crew of mariners and adventurers. Now he would sail south, he said,
until he was under the Equator.

Days of stark blue ocean. Then out of the sea to the south rose a point
of land, becoming presently three points, as it were three peaks. The
Admiral stared. I saw the enthusiasm rise in his face. "Did I not write
and say to the Sovereigns and to Rome that in the Name of the Holy
Trinity, I would now again seek out and find? There! Look you! It is a
sign! Trinidad--we will name it Trinidad."

The next morning we came to Trinidad, and the palms trooped to the water
edge, and we saw sparkling streams, and from the heights above the sea
curls of smoke from hidden huts. We coasted, seeking anchorage, and
at last came into a clear, small harbor, and landing, filled our water
casks. We knew the country was inhabited for we saw the smokes, but no
canoes came about us, and though we met with footprints upon the sand
the men who made them never returned. We weighed anchor and sailed on
along the southern coast, and now to the south of us, across not many
leagues of blue water, we made out a low shore. Its ends were lost in
haze, but we esteemed it an island, and he named it Holy Island. It was
not island, as now we know; but we did not know it then. How dreamlike
is all our finding, and how halfway only to great truths! Cuba we
thought was the continent, and the shore that was continent, we called
"island."

Now we came to a long southward running tongue of Trinidad. Point
Arenal, he named it. A corresponding tongue of that low Holy Island
reached out toward it, and between the two flowed an azure strait. Here,
off Point Arenal, the three ships rested at anchor, and now there came
to us from Holy Island a big canoe, filled with Indians. As they came
near the _Esperanza_ we saw that they were somewhat lighter in hue than
those Indians to whom we were used. Moreover they wore bright-colored
loin cloths, and twists of white or colored cotton about their heads,
like slight turbans, and they carried not only bows and arrows to which
we were used, but round bucklers to which we were not used. They looked
at us in amazement, but they were ready for war.

We invited them with every gesture of amity, holding out glass beads and
hawk bells, but they would not come close to us. As they hung upon the
blue water out of the shadow of the ship, the Admiral would have our
musicians beg