210 CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO. 



banks distinguish even the smallest streams by particular 

 names. 



The current produced by the Orinoco, between the main- 

 land and the Island of Trinidad with its asphaltic lake, is 

 so strong, that ships with all sail set, and with a favourable 

 breeze, can with difficulty make way against it. This 

 deserted and dreaded part of the sea is called the Bay of 

 Sadness (Golfo Triste) ; the entrance forms the Dragon's 

 Mouth (Boca del Drago). Here detached cliffs rise like 

 towers above the foaming floods, and seem still to indicate 

 the ancient site of a rocky bulwark ( 3 ), which, before it was 

 broken by the force of the current, united the island of 

 Trinidad with the coast of Paria. 



The aspect of this region first convinced the great dis- 

 coverer of the New World of the existence of an American 

 continent. Familiar with nature, he inferred that so immense 

 a body of fresh water could only be collected in a long 

 course, and " that the land which supplied it must be a 

 continent, not an island." As, according to Arrian, the 

 companions of Alexander, after crossing the snow-covered 

 Paropanisus, ( 4 ) on reaching the Indus imagined, from the 

 presence of crocodiles, that they recognised in that river a 

 branch of the Nile ; so Columbus, unaware of the- similarity 

 of physiognomy which characterises the various productions 

 of the climate of Palms, readily supposed this new continent 

 to be the eastern coast of the far-projecting continent of 

 Asia. The mild coolness of the evening air, the ethereal 

 purity of the starry firmament, the balsamic fragrance of the 

 flowers wafted to him by the land breeze, all led him (as 



