I have not told you, Juan Lepe, but I hold that now
we begin to come to where our Mother Earth herself climbs,
and climbs auspiciously!"
"That we come to great mountains?"
"No, not that, though there may be great mountains. But
I have thought it out, and now I hold that the earth is not
an orb, but is shaped, as it were, like a pear. It would take
an hour to give you all the reasons that decide me! But
I hold that from hereabouts it mounts fairer and fairer, until
under the line, about where would be the stem of the pear,
we come to the ancient Earthly Paradise, the old Garden
of Eden!"
I looked to the southward. Certainly there is nowhere
where there is not something!
He gazed over the truly azure and beauteous sea, and
the air blew soft and cool upon our foreheads, and the
fragrance which came to us from land seemed new. "Would
you not look for the halcyons? Trinidad! Holy Island!
We approach, I hold, the Holy Mountain of the World.
And hark to me, Juan Lepe, make vow that if it be permitted
I will found there an abbey whence shall arise perpetual
orison for the souls of our first parents!"
We found that night that the ships swung, caught in a
current issuing from the strait before us. In the morning
we made sail and prepared to pass through this narrow
way between the two lands, seeing open water beyond.
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