scorn.

if we returned that we were sure to starve by the way, and that the world would also laugh us to 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 farther. 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 Trinidad, and also those that remained with Carapana in Emeria, were joined together in some village upon that river. 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 heartbroken and tired, were ready to give up the ghost; for we had now come from the galley near forty miles.

But

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 farther, and but this one turning, and that turning, and at last about one o'clock after midnight 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 400 miles off, upon a journey towards the head of the Orinoco to trade for gold, and to buy women of the cannibals, who afterwards unfortunately passed by us as we rode at an anchor in the port of Morequito in the dark

In

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. 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 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, who leaping out of the galley to swim in the mouth of this river,' was in all our sights taken and devoured by one of those lagartos. 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 Whelps 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 strength, 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 of these, and so turned into some by creek,