It was one of those pleasant exterior-interiors which Moorish architects had introduced to Spain and the Spaniards had carried with them to the New World.
Here that council of war, composed of six men in all, deliberated until late that night upon the plan of action which Captain Blood put forward.
The great freshwater lake of Maracaybo, nourished by a score of rivers from the snow-capped ranges that surround it on two sides, is some hundred and twenty miles in length and almost the same distance across at its widest.

It is--as has been indicated--in the shape of a great bottle having its neck towards the sea at Maracaybo.
Beyond this neck it widens again, and then the two long, narrow strips of land known as the islands of Vigilias and Palomas block the channel, standing lengthwise across it.

The only passage out to sea for vessels of any draught lies in the narrow strait between these islands.

Palomas, which is some ten miles in length, is unapproachable for half a mile on either side by any but the shallowest craft save at its eastern end, where, completely commanding the narrow passage out to sea, stands the massive fort which the buccaneers had found deserted upon their coming.
In the broader water between this passage and the bar, the four Spanish ships were at anchor in mid-channel.

The Admiral's Encarnacion, which we already know, was a mighty galleon of forty-eight great guns and eight small.