He
says it is about a league and a half between the two capes. This must be
after having passed four little islands which he says lie in the centre
of the channel, although now we do not really see more than two, by which
he could not go out, and there remained of the strait only a league and a
half in the passage. From the Punta de la Lapa to the Cabo de Boto it is
five leagues. Arriving at the said mouth at the hour of tierce,[354-1] he
found a great struggle between the fresh water striving to go out to the
sea and the salt water of the sea striving to enter into the gulf, and it
was so strong and fearful, that it raised a great swell, like a very high
hill, and with this, both waters made a noise and thundering, from east
to west, very great and fearful, with currents of water, and after one
came four great waves one after the other, which made contending
currents; here they thought to perish, no less than in the other mouth of
the Sierpe by the Cape of Arenal when they entered into the gulf. This
danger was doubly more than the other, because the wind with which they
hoped to get out died away, and they wished to anchor, because there was
no remedy other than that, although it was not without danger from the
fierceness of the waters, but they did not find bottom, because the sea
was very deep there. They feared that the wind having calmed, the fresh
or salt water might throw them on the rocks with their currents, when
there would be no help. It is related that the Admiral here said,
although I did not find it written with his own hand as I found the
above, that if they escaped from that place they could report that they
escaped from the mouth of the dragon, and for this reason that name was
given to it and with reason.

It pleased the goodness of God that from the same danger safety and
deliverance came to them and the current of the fresh water overcame the
current of the salt water and carried the ships safely out, and thus they
were placed in security; because when God wills that one or many shall be
kept alive, water is a remedy for them.[355-1] Thus they went out,
Monday, August 13, from the said dangerous Gulf and Mouth of the Dragon.
He says that there are 48 leagues from the first land of La Trinidad to
the gulf which the sailors discovered whom he sent in the caravel, where
they saw the rivers and he did not believe them, which gulf he called "de
las Perlas," and this is the interior angle of all the large