leased in the latter part of September, though he seems not to have been completely restored to the queen's favour for several years. He is described in letters of this time as "hovering between fear and hope," and so late as September, 1594, as "in good hope to return into grace." Yet in 1593 he obtained of the queen a grant of the manor of Sherborne, in Dorsetshire, where he for some time resided.

Sir Walter was a member of the Parliament which met in the spring of 1593, was an active member of several committees, and became distinguished for his eloquence and enlarged views of public policy and of nation

al honour.

To reinstate himself in the favour of his royal mistress, and more rapidly advance his private fortunes, Sir Walter, with full faith in the reported infinite riches of El Dorado, prepared for an expedition into the unknown regions of Guiana. Dejection led him to meditate on new schemes of wealth, and the solitariness of the Tower had given an impulse to his imagination, and substance to his dreams.

The fleet for Guiana set sail Feb. 6th, 1595,* and arrived at Trinidad the 22d of

* [Sir Walter's narrative may be found in Hakluyt, iii., 631-666, and in Cayley's Life of Ralegh-H.]

March. They found a company of Spaniards at Puerto de los Españoles, from whom, and from an Indian cacique who visited him, Sir Walter learned much of the resources and topography of the country. Suspecting the jealousy of the Spaniards, and unwilling to leave an enemy in his rear, he surprised and burned their city of St. Joseph, and detained the governor, Don Antonio de Berreo, a prisoner. He was farther induced to this course by a desire to punish the treachery of Berreo, who had, in violation of his promise, taken prisoners eight of Captain Whidden's men there in 1594. Whidden had been sent by Raleigh on a voyage of discovery. Berreo is described as "a gentleman well descended, who had long served the Spanish king in Milan, Naples, and the Low Countries, very valiant and liberal, of a great assuredness, and of a good heart." Though a captive, Raleigh treated him with the courtesies due to a soldier.

Here Sir Walter spent about a month, and learned that the region he was in search of was six hundred miles farther than he had supposed. He, however, concealed this from his company, and, leaving his ships at Curiapan, on the Island of Trinidad, he embarked VOL. I.-E E

one hundred persons, with provisions for one month, in a small galley, a barge, two wherries, and a ship's boat, and set out in this poor plight for the empire of Guiana. The voyage was wearisome beyond description, "being al driven to lie in the raine, and weather in the open aire, in the burning sunne, and upon the hard bords, and to dresse our meate, and to carry all maner of furniture in them (the open boats), wherewith they were so pestered and unsavoury... that I will undertake there was never any prison in England that could be found more unsavoury and lothsome, especially to myself, who had for many years before been dieted and cared for in a sort far more differing."

The troubles which they began thus to feel at the outset would have dissuaded any ordinary man from pursuing so difficult a scheme. Berreo, too, when informed of Sir Walter's purpose to penetrate into the interior of Guiana, "was stricken into a great melancholy and sadnesse," and represented to him the rivers as of difficult and perilous navigation by reason of shoals and flats, the way long, the current rapid, and the natives at once timid and hostile, and resolved to have no intercourse with Christians. But difficulties seemed only to animate his resolution,

and the prospect of dangers awakened his heroism.

After reaching the mouths of the river, they entered, May 22d, a branch, which, as true knights, they named, from a fancied resemblance, the River of the Red Crosse. In the labyrinth of waters made by the numberless courses of the great river near its mouth, interlacing in every direction, and seemingly flowing every way, they were confused, and might have wandered without end, so like were the islands, and so doubtful which was the main stream. The number of outlets is sixteen, the outermost three hundred miles apart. Near the mouth of the Red Crosse River accident put in their power an old man of the Ciawani, a tribe which lived on the bank. He was familiar with the course of the stream, and served them as pilot. They now "passed up the river with the flood, and anchored during the ebb, and in this sort went onward." For four days the tide aided them, "till they fell into a goodly river, the great Amana.' After this they were forced to row with main strength against a violent current, "every gentleman and others taking their turnes to spell one another at the hour's end." They thus laboured on many days, " in despair and discomfort,

wearied, scorched, and doubtful withal, the air breeding great faintness, the current every day stronger, and ourselves growing weaker and weaker, our bread at the last, and no drinke at all." They were ready every hour to turn back, and kept up the spirits of the men only by "ordering the pilots to promise an end the next day, and used this so long that they were driven to assure them from four reaches of the river to three, and so to the next reach."

In this distress and famine they halted; and, at the instance of their guide, Sir Walter, with a small party, rowed up a branch of the Amana, more than forty miles, to an Indian village, in search of bread. They toiled, "heart-broken and tired, and ready to give up the ghost," from morning "till one o'clock past midnight," when they "saw a light and heard dogs bark at the village." They were kindly received by the few natives then at home, and got "good store of bread, fish, hennes, and Indian drincke." This stream opened to them a new view of the country. Their course hitherto had been up a river thickly bordered with overhanging woods, and beset with prickles, bushes, and thorns. Here they looked out upon "plaines of twenty miles in length, the grasse short and