When they thought they had sufficiently secured their favor, they represented to Ojeda that their coast was subject to invasion from a distant island, the inhabitants of which were cannibals, and carried their people into captivity, to be devoured at their unnatural banquets. They besought Ojeda, therefore, to avenge them upon these ferocious enemies. The request was gratifying to the fighting propensities of Alonzo de Ojeda, and to his love of adventure, and was readily granted. Taking seven of the natives on board of his vessels, therefore, as guides, he set sail in quest of the cannibals. After sailing for seven days he came to a chain of islands, some of which were peopled, others uninhabited, and which are supposed to have been the Caribbee Islands. [Then ensues Vespucci's account of the fight, with the substitution of Ojeda as captain in command.] His crew being refreshed, and the wounded sufficiently recovered, Ojeda made sail and touched at the island of Curacao, which, according to the accounts of Vespucci, was inhabited by a race of giants, "every woman appearing a Penthesilia, and every man an Antei." As Vespucci was a scholar, and as he supposed himself exploring the regions of the extreme East, the ancient realm of fable, it is probable his imagination deceived him, and construed the formidable accounts given by the Indians of their cannibal neighbors of the islands into something according with his recollections of classic fable. Certain it is that the reports of subsequent voyagers proved the inhabitants of the island to be of the ordinary size. Proceeding along the coast, he arrived at a vast, deep gulf, resembling a tranquil lake, entering which he beheld, on the eastern side, a village, the construction of which struck him with surprise. It consisted of twenty large houses, shaped like bells, and built on piles driven into the bottom of the lake, which in this part was limpid and of but little depth. Each house was provided with a draw-bridge, and with canoes, by which the communication was carried on. From these resemblances to the Italian city, Ojeda gave to the bay the name of the Gulf of Venice, and it is called at the present day Venezuela, or Little Venice. The Indian name was _Coquibacoa_. [In this connection Irving quotes freely from Vespucci's account of the Lake Dwellers, and also gives entire his description of the Spaniards' entertainment by Indians of the interior.]