"Fresh! It is almost fresh!" He stood with a kindling face.

"A river runs into sea from this land! Surely the mightiest that may be, rushing forth like a dragon and fighting all the salt water! So great a river could not come from an island, no, not if it were twice as large as Hispaniola! Such a river comes downward with force hundreds of leagues and gathers children to itself as it comes.

It is not an island yonder; it is a great main!" We called the gulf where we were the Gulf of the Whale.

Trinidad stood on the one hand, the unknown continent on the other.

After rest in milky water, we set sail to cross the width of the Whale, and found glass-green and shaken water, but never so piled and dangerous as at the Mouth of the Serpent.