T h e governor of the colony has absolute control of
the affairs of the island.
On his third voyage from Spain in 1498, Columbus
took a more southerly and therefore a longer
course than before. He had been two months from
San Lucar and nearly a month from the Cape Verde
Islands; his vessels had been buffeted and badly
shaken, and he was short of w a te r ; he was about to
turn northward to make for the colony on Española,
which he had left two years before, when land was
discerned far to the south-west. There seemed to
be three peaks blending into one mass, and in devout
gratefulness he called it L a Trinidad. There
is a doubtful and unnecessary story that he had
vowed to name the first newly found land for the
Holy Trinity if he should come safely through his
peril and distress. Changing his course southward,
the dauntless navigator made his way down the
eastern coast of a forest-covered island, turned along
its southern shore, passed through a long, narrow
passage, beset with currents, which he called L a
Boca Sierpe (“ Serpent Mouth ” ), into an expanse of
water to which he gave the name of Golfo de la Bal-
ena, or ‘ | Gulf of the Whale. ’ ’ This is now the Gulf
of Paria, lying between the west coast of Trinidad
and the shores of Venezuela. Turning a long, sharp
point that made the entrance so narrow, Columbus
followed the coast of the island, and was surprised to
find so near the equator a land of forests and palm
trees, of luxuriant vegetation and abundant streams
and springs of water. Of the people he said that
they were “ all of good stature, well made, and of
very graceful bearing, with much and smooth
hair. ’ ’
But he could not linger here, his thoughts being
with the forlorn colony at Isabella, left so long in
the care of his brother and possibly at the mercy of
savages. A s he made his way northward out of the
gulf, to his left stretched the whole vast continent of
South America, but he took it to be an insignificant
island, and called it Zeta. He found the northern
passage studded with rocky islands, like huge fangs,
one rising to a height of 1000 feet, dividing it into
channels with perilous currents, and he called it the
Boca Drago, or “ Dragon Mouth.” Then he went
his way across the Caribbean Sea, saw Trinidad no
more, and knew not that he had looked slightingly
upon the shores of a vast continent, which the V en e tian
Vespucci was to visit at this very spot the next
year with Ojeda, one of his own lieutenants, and gain
the credit of discovery. It was Amerigo Vespucci
that gave the name of Venezuela, or ” L ittle
V en ic e ,” to the land of the Orinoco delta, and from
him the designation of both western continents has
been unjustly derived.
T he northern coast-line of Trinidad is fifty-three
miles long, the eastern forty-eight, and the southern
s ix ty -fiv e ; and the western side of the island in a direct
line is about forty-nine miles in extent, but at
the north-west and south-west angles there are long
projections inclosing the Gulf of Paria, and reaching'
within a few miles of the Venezuela coast, and these
extend the northern and southern coast-lines. There
is also a long projection to the north-east. But for