A TRIP TO TRINIDAD. 



377 



Other memories that hover round the isle of 

 Pines, belong to the conquest of Mexico. When 

 Hernan Cortes was collecting his great expedition, 

 his ship, the Oapitana, grounded on one of the reefs 

 of the Jardinillos, while sailing from the port of 

 Trinidad for Cape San Antonio. For five days she 

 was supposed to be lost, when the brave Pedro 

 de Alvarado sent (in November, 1518) from the 

 port of Carenas 1 (Havana) three vessels to his assis- 



power so to do. To the boundaries of the ocean, that were closed 

 with a mighty chain, He gave thee the key," etc. These lines, so 

 full of sublime sentiment and poetry, have reached us only by an 

 ancient Italian translation, for the Spanish original, cited in the 

 " Nautical Biblioteca " of Don Antonio Leon, has not yet been 

 found. We may add other expressions, full of candor, from the lips 

 of him who discovered the New World. "Your highness may 

 believe me," he said, a the globe of the world is not, by very much, 

 so large as the vulgar suppose." On the same occasion, he says, 

 " Seven years did I remain at your court, and during all that time I 

 was told that my scheme was madness itself. Now, when I have 

 opened the way, even tailors and shoemakers ask for grants to go 

 and discover new lands. Persecuted and forgotten as I am, I never 

 think upon Espanola and Paria, but my eyes fill with tears. Twenty 

 years have I been in the service of your highness, and all my locks 

 have whitened, my body has become weak, and now I cannot weep ; 

 weep for this, heaven, and weep for me, earth j weep for me who- 

 ever has charity, truth, justice." — Lett. rar. pp. 13, 19, 34, 37. — H. 

 The reader, will find this letter, in Spanish, in Navarrete's u Cole- 

 cion de Viages," &c, vol. 1, page 299 et sequiter. 

 1 At that time there were two settlements, one at the port of 



