Late July, 1496, 0 degrees latitude at the equator, mouth of the Amazon River.
A tropical wind swept across the deck, carrying the salty reek of the sea, yet mingled with some damp, green, overripe sweetness, like mist beneath giant trees that had yet to disperse. The morning sun rose at the edge of the North Atlantic, but on the southern horizon there was not an endless sweep where sea met sky. The lookout on deck strained his eyes and saw only a dense blue-gray line—the outline of a coast, yet not merely a coast.
"Splash! Splash!"
The boundless river water was as wide as a strait and so deep the bottom could not be seen. Surging waves, carrying the breath of an entire continent, rushed head-on into the Atlantic. Even the color of the surrounding seawater had changed from deep blue into strange muddy-yellow and emerald-green whirlpools. It was as if the earth had melted into a river and flowed from its heart into the sea.
"Lord! Another Great River tens, even hundreds of miles wide! With a Great River so vast, just how long an interior must lie deep in the south? We've explored for more than two months, passing thousands of miles of desolate coastline, from a dozen degrees north all the way to the equator. Without question, this is an extraordinarily broad continent! Only, these endless jungles, scarcely a trace of people, all wild and savage—can this really be the legendary, incomparably wealthy continent of India?"
Bartolomeo Columbus stood at the bow of the mid-sized Caravel, gazing toward the Amazon River mouth that stretched beyond sight. He saw no populous and prosperous tropical towns, no "Indians" with Spice and jewels, only a wild, thriving nature brimming with life.
Flocks of seabirds wheeled in formation, almost enough