discovered subsequent to the agreement made with Columbus, was considered
by Fonseca to be open to private enterprise; and he therefore granted
Ojeda a licence to go and explore it. Among those who went with him were
Amerigo Vespucci and Columbus's old pilot, Juan de la Cosa, as well as
some of the sailors who had been with the Admiral on the coast of Paria
and had returned in the caravels which had brought his account of it back
to Spain. Ojeda sailed on May 20, 1499; made a landfall some hundreds of
miles to the eastward of the Orinoco, coasted thence as far as the island
of Trinidad, and sailed along the northern coast of the peninsula of
Paria until he came to a country where the natives built their hots on
piles in the water, and to which he gave the name of Venezuela. It was
by his accidental presence on this voyage that Vespucci, the
meat-contractor, came to give his name to America--a curious story of
international jealousies, intrigues, lawsuits, and lies which we have not
the space to deal with here. After collecting a considerable quantity of
pearls Ojeda, who was beginning to run short of provisions, turned
eastward again and sought the coast of Espanola, where we shall presently
meet with him again.


And Ojeda was not the only person in Spain who was enticed by Columbus's
glowing descriptions to go and look for the pearls of Paria. There was
in fact quite a reunion of old friends of his and ours in the western
ocean, though they went thither in a spirit far different from that of
ancient friendship. Pedro Alonso Nino, who had also been on the Paria
coast with Columbus, who had come home with the returning ships, and
whose patience (for he was an exceedingly practical man) had perhaps been
tried by the strange doings of the Admiral in the Gulf of Paria, decided
that he as well as any one else might go and find some pearls. Nino is a
poor man, having worked hard in all his voyagings backwards and forwards