Passing the Canaries, in two months and six days they sighted the little island of Deseada, [19] the _vestibule_ of the great Caribbean archipelago, touched at Guadaloupe, wound their way among the group called the Virgins, turning to the south made for Margarita, [20] then famous for its pearl fisheries, and from thence sailed to St. Juan de Porto-rico. Here the fleet was divided into three squadrons. One was to go to Porto-bello, on the Isthmus of Panama, another to the coast of South America, then called Terra Firma, and the third to Mexico, then known as New Spain. This latter squadron, to which Champlain was attached, coasted along the northern shore of the island of Saint Domingo, otherwise Hispaniola, touching at Porto Platte, Mancenilla, Mosquitoes, Monte Christo, and Saint Nicholas. Skirting the southern coast of Cuba, reconnoitring the Caymans, [21] they at length cast anchor in the harbor of San Juan d'Ulloa, the island fortress near Vera Cruz. While here, Champlain made an inland journey to the City of Mexico, where he remained a month. He also sailed in a _patache_, or advice-boat, to Porto-bello, when, after a month, he returned again to San Juan d'Ulloa. The squadron then sailed for Havana, from which place Champlain was commissioned to visit, on public business, Cartagena, within the present limits of New Grenada, on the coast of South America. The whole _armada_ was finally collected together at Havana, and from thence took its departure for Spain, passing through the channel of Bahama, or Gulf of Florida, sighting Bermuda and the Azores, reaching Saint Lucar early in March, 1601, after an absence from that port of two years and two months. [22] On Champlain's return to France, he prepared an elaborate report of his observations and discoveries, luminous with sixty-two illustrations sketched by his own hand. As it was his avowed purpose in making the voyage to procure information that should be valuable to his government, he undoubtedly communicated it in some form to Henry IV. The document remained in manuscript two hundred and fifty-seven years, when it was first printed at London in an English translation by the Hakluyt Society, in 1859. It is an exceedingly interesting and valuable tract, containing a lucid description of the peculiarities, manners, and customs of the people, the soil, mountains, and rivers, the trees, fruits, and plants, the animals, birds, and fishes, the rich mines found at different points, with frequent allusions to the system of colonial management, together with the character and sources of the vast wealth which these settlements were annually yielding to the Spanish crown.