Note 12 — Chapter II · TRINIDAD AND THE ORINOCO

“I do not suppose,” he writes, “that the Earthly Paradise is in the form of a rugged mountain, as the descriptions of it have made it appear, but that it in on the summit of the spot which I have described as being in the form of the stalk of a pear; the approach of it from a distance must be by a constant and gradual ascent; but I believe that, as I have already said, no one could ever reach the top”—except “by God’s permission,” as he asserts elsewhere. “I think also that the water I have described may proceed from it, though it be far off, and that, stopping at the place which I have just left, it forms this lake. There are great indications of this being the Terrestrial Paradise, for its site coincides with the opinions of the holy and wise theologians whom I have mentioned; and moreover, the other evidences agree with the supposition, for I have never either read or heard of fresh water coming in so large a quantity, in closer conjunction with the sea. The idea is also corroborated by the blandness of the temperature, and if the water of which I speak does not proceed from the Earthly Paradise, it appears to be still more marvelous, for I do not believe there is any river in the world so large or so deep.”12