s
and smaller birds were continually seen passing from south-west to
north-east. As provisions were beginning to run low, Columbus decided
on the 31st July to alter his course to north-by-east, in the hope of
reaching the island of Dominica. But at mid-day his servant Alonso
Perez, happening to go to the masthead, cried out that there was land in
sight; and sure enough to the westward there rose three peaks of land
united at the base. Here was the kind of coincidence which staggers
even the unbeliever. Columbus had promised to dedicate the first land
he saw to the Trinity; and here was the land, miraculously provided when
he needed it most, three peaks in one peak, in due conformity with the
requirements of the blessed Saint Athanasius. The Admiral was deeply
affected; the God of his belief was indeed a good friend to him; and he
wrote down his pious conviction that the event was a miracle, and
summoned all hands to sing the Salve Regina, with other hymns in praise
of God and the Virgin Mary. The island was duly christened La Trinidad.
By the hour of Compline (9 o'clock in the evening) they had come up with
the south coast of the island, but it was the next day before the
Admiral found a harbour where he could take in water. No natives were
to be seen, although there were footprints on the shore and other signs
of human habitation.

He continued all day to sail slowly along the shore of the island, the
green luxuriance of which astonished him; and sometimes he stood out from
the coast to the southward as he made a long board to round this or that
point. It must have been while reaching out in this way to the southward
that he saw a low shore on his port hand some sixty miles to the south of
Trinidad, and that his sight, although he did not know it, rested for the
first time on the mainland of South America. The land seen was the low
coast to the west of the Orinoco, and thinking that it was an island he
gave it the name of Isla Sancta.

On the 2nd of August they were off the south-west of Trinidad, and saw
the first inhabitants in the shape of a canoe full of armed natives, who
approached the ships with threatening gestures. Columbus had brought out
some musicians with him, possibly for the purpose of impressing the
natives, and perhaps with the idea of making things a little more
cheerful in Espanola; and the musicians were now duly called upon to give
a performance, a tambourine-player standing on the forec