A TRIP TO TRINIDAD. 



365 



" Evangelist" by Columbus, and the island of Santa 

 Maria by other navigators of the sixteenth century. 

 It is celebrated for the excellent mahogany which it 

 produces. 



We sailed east-southeast through the Don Cristo- 

 bal channel, to make the rocky shores of Cay de 

 Piedras, and clear the archipelago which the Spanish 

 pilots, from the earliest times of the conquest, have 

 called the Jardines and Jardinillos. The true Jar- 

 dines de la lieina (the Queen's gardens), nearer to 

 Cape Cruz, are divided from the archipelago which 

 I am about to describe, by thirty-five leagues of open 

 sea. Columbus gave them this name in 1494, when, 

 during his second voyage, he was fifty-eight days 

 struggling with the winds and currents between the 

 Isle of Pines and the eastern cape of Cuba. He 

 described these islands as being " green, filled with 

 trees, and very beautiful." 



And in truth a portion of these misnamed gardens 

 is very beautiful, for the voyager varies the scene 

 momently, and the verdure of some of the islets 

 borrows a new splendor from the contrast with others 

 that present to the eye only white and arid sands. 

 The surface of these, heated by the rays of the sun, 

 seems to undulate as though it were water, and by 

 the contact with the strata of air of unequal tempera- 



