At length, after struggling for upwards of forty days since leaving
the Cape of Honduras, to make a distance of about seventy leagues, they
arrived on the 14th of September at a cape where the coast making an
angle, turned directly south, so as to give them an easy wind and free
navigation. Doubling the point, they swept off with flowing sails and
hearts filled with joy; and the admiral, to commemorate this sudden
relief from toil and peril, gave to the Cape the name of _Gracias a
Dios_, or Thanks to God.[133]




Chapter III.

Voyage along the Mosquito Coast, and Transactions at Cariari.

[1503.]



After doubling Cape Gracias a Dios, Columbus sailed directly south, along
what is at present called the Mosquito shore. The land was of varied
character, sometimes rugged, with craggy promontories and points
stretching into the sea, at other places verdant and fertile, and watered
by abundant streams. In the rivers grew immense reeds, sometimes of the
thickness of a man's thigh: they abounded with fish and tortoises, and
alligators basked on the banks. At one place Columbus passed a cluster of
twelve small islands, on which grew a fruit resembling the lemon, on which
account he called them the Limonares. [134]