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LIFE
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[BOOK V I I .
palm-trees, and near it shells of the pearl oyster, from which Columbus thought there might be a valuable pearl-fishery in the neighborhood. While thus cut off from all intercourse with the interior by a belt of swamp and forests, the country appeared to be well peo pled.
Columns of smoke ascended from various parts, which
grew more frequent as the vessels advanced, until they rose from every rock and woody height.
The Spaniards were at a loss to
determine whether these arose from villages and towns, or whe ther from signal fires, to give notice of the approach of the ships, and to alarm the country; such as were usual on European sea shores, when an enemy was descried hovering in the vicinity. For several days Columbus continued exploring this per plexed and lonely coast, whose intricate channels are seldom visited, even at the present day, excepting by the solitary and lurking bark of the smuggler.
As he proceeded, however, he
found that the coast took a general bend to the southwest.
This
accorded precisely with the descriptions given by Marco Polo of the remote coast of Asia.
He now became fully assured that he
was on that part of the Asiatic continent which is beyond the boundaries of the Old World as laid down by Ptolemy.
Let
him but continue his coast, he thought, and he must surely arrive to the point where this range of coast terminated in the Aurea Chersonesus of the ancients.* The ardent imagination of Columbus was always sallying in the advance, and suggesting some splendid track of enterprise. Combining his present conjectures as to his situation with the im perfect lights of geography, he conceived a triumphant route for his return to Spain.
Doubling the Aurea Chersonesus, he should
* The present peninsula of Malacca.