extreme hot, the river bordered with very high trees that kept away the air, and the current against us every day stronger than other: but we evermore commanded our pilots to promise an end the next day, and used it so long as we were driven to assure them from four reaches of the river to three, and so to two, and so to the next reach; but so long we laboured as many days were spent, and so driven to draw ourselves to harder allowance, our bread even at the last, and no drink at all; and our men and ourselves so wearied and scorched, and doubtful withal whether we should ever perform it or no, the heat increasing as we drew towards the line; for we were now in five degrees.

The further we went on, (our victual decreasing, and the air breeding great faintness,) we grew weaker and weaker, when we had most need of strength and ability; for hourly the river ran more violently than other against us, and the barge, wherries, and ship's boat of captain Gifford and captain Calfield had spent all their provisions, so as we were brought into despair and discomfort, had we not persuaded all the company that it was but only one day's work more to attain the land, where we should be relieved of all we wanted; and if we returned, that we were sure to starve by the way, and that the world would also laugh us to scorn. On the banks of these rivers were divers sorts of fruits good to eat, flowers and trees of that variety as were sufficient to make ten volumes of herbals. We relieved ourselves many times with the fruits of the country, and sometimes with fowl and fish: we saw birds of all colours, some carnation, some crimson, orange tawny, purple, green, watched, and of all other sorts, both simple and mixed; as it was unto us a great good passing of the time to behold them, besides the relief we found by killing some store of them with our fowling pieces, without which, having little or no bread, and less drink, but only the thick and troubled water of the river, we had been in a very hard case.

Our old pilot of the Ciawani (whom, as I said before, we took to redeem Ferdinando) told us, that if we would enter a branch of a river on the right hand with our barge and

wherries, and leave the galley at anchor the while in the great river, he would bring us to a town of the Arwacas, where we should find store of bread, hens, fish, and of the country wine, and persuaded us, that departing from the galley at noon, we might return ere night. I was very glad to hear this speech, and presently took my barge, with eight musketeers, captain Gifford's wherry, with himself and four musketeers, and captain Calfield with his wherry and as many, and so we entered the mouth of this river; and because we were persuaded that it was so near, we took no victual with us at all. When we had rowed three hours, we marvelled we saw no sign of any dwelling, and asked the pilot where the town was; he told us a little further. After three hours more, the sun being almost set, we began to suspect that he led us that way to betray us, for he confessed that those Spaniards which fled from Trinedado, and also those that remained with Carapana in Emeria, were joined together in some village upon that river. But when it grew towards night, and we demanding where the place was, he told us but four reaches more: when we had rowed four and four we saw no sign, and our poor watermen, even heart-broken and tired, were ready to give up the ghost; for we had now come from the galley near forty miles.

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At the last we determined to hang the pilot, and, if we had well known the way back again by night, he had surely gone; but our own necessities pleaded sufficiently for his safety for it was as dark as pitch, and the river began so to narrow itself, and the trees to hang over from side to side, as we were driven with arming swords to cut a passage through those branches that covered the water. We were very desirous to find this town, hoping of a feast, because we made but a short breakfast aboard the galley in the morning, and it was now eight o'clock at night, and our stomachs began to gnaw apace; but whether it was best to return or go on we began to doubt, suspecting treason in the pilot more and more; but the poor old Indian ever assured us that it was but a little further, and but this one turning and that turning; and at last, about one o'clock after mid

night, we saw a light, and rowing towards it we heard the dogs of the village. When we landed, we found few people; for the lord of that place was gone with divers canoes above four hundred miles off, upon a journey towards the head of Oroonoko, to trade for gold, and to buy women of the cannibals, who afterward unfortunately passed by us, as we rode at an anchor in the port of Morequito, in the dark of night, and yet came so near us, as his canoes grated against our barges. He left one of his company at the port of Morequito, by whom we understood that he had brought thirty young women, divers plates of gold, and had great store of fine pieces of cotton cloth, and cotton beds. In his house we had good store of bread, fish, hens, and Indian drink, and so rested that night; and in the morning, after we had traded with such of his people as came down, we returned towards our galley, and brought with us some quantity of bread, fish, and hens.

On both sides of this river we passed the most beautiful country that ever mine eyes beheld; and whereas all that we had seen before was nothing but woods, prickles, bushes, and thorns, here we beheld plains of twenty miles in length, ⚫ the grass short and green, and in divers parts groves of trees by themselves, as if they had been by all the art and labour in the world so made of purpose: and still as we rowed, the deer came down feeding by the water's side, as if they had been used to a keeper's call. Upon this river there were great store of fowl, and of many sorts: we saw in it divers sorts of strange fishes, and of marvellous bigness; but for lagartos it exceeded; for there were thousands of those ugly serpents, and the people call it for the abundance of them the river of Lagartos, in their language. I had a negro, a very proper young fellow, that, leaping out of the galley to swim in the mouth of this river, was in all our sights taken and devoured with one of those legartos. In the meanwhile our companies in the galley thought we had been all lost, (for we promised to return before night,) and sent the Lion's Whelp's ship's boat with captain Whiddon to follow us up the river; but the next day, after we had rowed up

and down some fourscore miles, we returned, and went on our way up the great river, and, when we were even at the last cast for want of victuals, captain Gifford being before the galley and the rest of the boats, seeking out some place to land upon the banks to make fire, espied four canoes coming down the river, and with no small joy caused his men to try the uttermost of their strengths, and after a while two of the four gave over, and ran themselves ashore, every man betaking himself to the fastness of the woods; the two other lesser got away while he landed to lay hold on these, and so turned into some by-creek, we knew not whither those canoes that were taken were loaden with bread, and were bound for Marguerita in the West Indies, which those Indians, called Arwacas, purposed to carry thi ther for exchange: but in the lesser there were three Spaniards, who having heard of the defeat of their governor in Trinedado, and that we purposed to enter Guiana, came away in those canoes: one of them was a cavallero, as the captain of the Arwacas after told us, another a soldier, and the third a refiner.

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In the meantime nothing on the earth could have been more welcome to us, next unto gold, than the great store of very excellent bread which we found in these canoes; for now our men cried, Let us go on, we care not how far. After that captain Gifford had brought the two canoes to the galley, I took my barge, and went to the bank's side with a dozen shot, where the canoes first ran themselves ashore, and landed there, sending out captain Gifford and captain Thyn on one hand, and captain Calfield on the other, to follow those that were fled into the woods; and as I was creeping through the bushes I saw an Indian basket hidden, which was the refiner's basket; for I found in it his quicksilver, saltpetre, and divers things for the trial of metals, and also the dust of such ore as he had refined; but in those canoes which escaped there was a good quantity of ore and gold. I then landed more men, and offered five hundred pounds to what soldier soever could take one of those three Spaniards that we thought were landed: but our labours were in vain in

that behalf; for they put themselves into one of the small canoes, and so, while the greater canoes were in taking, they escaped: but seeking after the Spaniards we found the Arwacas hidden in the woods, which were pilots for the Spaniards, and rowed their canoes: of which I kept the chiefest for a pilot, and carried him with me to Guiana, by whom I understood where and in what countries the Spaniards had laboured for gold, though I made not the same known to all: for when the springs began to break, and the rivers to raise themselves so suddenly, as by no means we could abide the digging of any mine; especially for that the richest are defended with rocks of hard stone, which we call the white spar, and that it required both time, men, and instruments fit for such a work; I thought it best not to hover thereabouts, lest, if the same had been perceived by the company, there would have been by this time many barks and ships set out, and perchance other nations would also have gotten of ours for pilots, so as both ourselves might have been prevented, and all our care taken for good usage of the people been utterly lost by those that only respect present profit; and such violence or insolence offered, as the nations which are borderers would have changed their desire of our love and defence into hatred and violence. And for any longer stay to have brought a more quantity, (which I hear hath been often objected,) whosoever had seen or proved the fury of that river after it began to arise, and had been a month and odd days, as we were, from hearing ought from our ships, leaving them meanly manned above four hundred miles off, would perchance have turned somewhat sooner than we did, if all the mountains had been gold, or rich stones: and, to say the truth, all the branches and small rivers which fell into Oroonoko were raised with such speed, as, if we waded them over the shoes in the morning outward, we were covered to the shoulders homeward the very same day; and to stay to dig out gold with our nails had been opus laboris, but not ingenii: such a quantity as would have served our turns we could not have had, but a discovery of the mines to our infinite disadvantage we had made,