in no
less danger. But it pleased God, that what they most dreaded should prove
their greatest safety, for the strength of the current carried them clear
through. On Monday the 17th of August, he began to sail westwards along
the northern coast of Paria, in order to stand over afterwards for
Hispaniola, and gave thanks to God who had delivered from so many troubles
and dangers, still shewing him new countries full of peaceable people, and
abounding in wealth, more especially that which he now certainly concluded
to be the continent, because of the great extent of the gulf of Pearls and
the size of the rivers that run into it, making it all deep water, and all
the Indians of the Caribbean islands had told him there was a vast land to
the southward. Likewise, according to the authority of Esdras, the 8th
chapter of the 4th book, if the world were divided into seven equal parts,
one only is water and the rest land.

Sailing along to the westwards on the coast of Paria, the admiral fell
gradually off from it towards the N.W. being so drifted by the current
owing to the calmness of the weather, so that on Wednesday the 15th of
August, he left the _Cabo de las Conchas_, or Cape of Shells to the south,
and the island of _Margarita_ to the west, which name, signifying the isle
of Pearls, he gave to it as by divine inspiration, as close to it is the
isle of _Cabagua_ where an infinite quantity of pearls have since been
found; and he afterwards named some mountains in Hispaniola and Jamaica
the _Gold Mountains_, where the greatest quantity and largest pieces of
that metal that were ever carried into Spain were afterwards found. But to
return to his voyage, he held on his way by six islands which he called
_de las Guardas_, or the Guards, and three others more to the north called
_los Testigos_, or the Witnesses. Though they still discovered much land
in Paria to the westwards, yet the admiral says in his journal that he
could not from this time give such an account of it as he wished, because
through much watching his eyes were inflamed, and he was therefore forced
to take most of his observations from the sailors and pilots. This same
night, the sixteenth of August, the compasses, which hitherto had not
varied, did now at least a point and a half, and some of them two points,
and in this there could be no mistake, as several persons had attentively
observed the circumstance. The admiral admired much at this, and was much
grieved