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Voyages and discoveries of the companions of Columbus
Voyages and discoveries of the companions of Columbus Author:Washington Irving Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER IV. Discovery of the Gulf of Venezuela—Transactions there— Ojeda explores the Gulf—Penetrates to Maracaibo. His crew being refreshed and the wounde... more »d sufficiently recovered, Ojeda made sail, and touched at the island of Curazao, which, according to the accounts of Vespucci, was inhabited by a race of giants, " every woman appearing a Penthesilea, and every man an Antaeus." As Vespucci was a scholar, and as he supposed himself exploring the regions of the extreme East, the ancient realm of fable, it is probable his imagination deceived him, and construed the formidable accounts given by the Indians of their cannibal neighbours of the islands, into something according with his recollections of classic fable. Certain it is that the reports of subsequent voyagers proved the inhabitants of the island to be of the ordinary size. Proceeding along the coast he arrived at a vast deep gulf, resembling a tranquil lake; entering which, he beheld on the eastern side a village, the construction of which struck him with surprise. It consisted of twenty large houses, shaped like bells, and built on piles driven into the bottom of the lake, which, in this part was limpid and of but little depth. Each house was provided with a drawbridge, and with canoes by which the communication was carried on. From these resemblances to the Italian city, Ojeda gave to the bay the name of the Gulf of Venice: and it is called at the present day Venezuela, or little Venice: the Indian name was Coquibacoa. Vespucci.—Letter to Lorenzo de Pier Francisco de Medicis. When the inhabitants beheld the ships standing into the bay, looking like wonderful and unknown apparitions from the deep, they fled with terror to their houses, and raised the drawbridges. The Spaniards remained for a time gazing wit...« less