188 CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO. 



cisco Lemaur, who made a trigonometrical survey of the Bay of 

 Xagua. I have been farther to the South in the group of islands 

 called the Jardines del Rey (the King's Gardens), making astrono- 

 mical observations for latitude and longitude ; but I have never been 

 at Xagua itself. 



( 3 ) p. 171. "The ancient site of a rocky bulwark" 

 Columbus, whose unwearied spirit of observation exerted itself in 



every direction, propounds in his letters to the Spanish monarchs a 

 geognostical hypothesis respecting the forms of the larger Antilles. 

 Having his mind deeply impressed with the strength of the east and 

 west equinoctial current, he ascribes to it the breaking up of the 

 group of the smaller West Indian islands, and the singularly length- 

 ened configuration of the sputhern coasts of Porto Rico, Haiti, Cuba, 

 and Jamaica, which all follow almost exactly the direction of parallels 

 of latitude. On his third voyage (from the end of May 1498 to the 

 end of November 1500), in which, from the Boca del Drago to the 

 Island of Margarita, and afterwards from that island to Haiti, he 

 felt the whole force of the equinoctial current, " that movement of 

 the waters which is in accordance or conformity with the movement 

 of the heavens movimiento de los cielos," he says expressly that 

 the island of Trinidad had been torn from the main land by the 

 violence of the current. He alludes to a chart which he sends to 

 the monarchs a " pintura de la tierra" by himself, which is often 

 referred to in the celebrated lawsuit against Don Diego Colon respect- 

 ing the rights of the Admiral. " Es la carta de marear y figura que 

 hizo el Almirante senalando los rumbos y vientos por los quales vino 

 & Paria, que dicen parte del Asia" (Navarrete Viages y Descubri- 

 mientos que hicie"ron por mar los Espanoles, t. i. pp. 253 and 260 ; 

 t. iii. pp. 539 and 587.) 



( 4 ) p. 171. " Over the snow-covered Paropanwis" 

 Diodorus's descriptions of the Paropanisus (Diodor. Sicul. lib. 



xvii. p. 553, Rhodom.) might almost pass for a description of the 

 Andes of Peru. The army passed through inhabited places where 

 snow fell daily ! 



