第21章 THE DISCOVERY OF GUIANA(16)

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 (alligators and caymans) 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 with 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 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 canoas 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 canoas that were taken were loaded with bread, and were bound for Margarita in the West Indies, which those Indians, called Arwacas, proposed to carry thither for exchange; but in the lesser there were three Spaniards, who having heard of the defeat of their Governor in Trinidad, and that we purposed to enter Guiana, came away in those canoas; one of them was a cavallero, as the captain of the Arwacas after told us, another a soldier and the third a refiner.

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 canoas; for now our men cried, "Let us go on, we care not how far." After that Captain Gifford had brought the two canoas to the galley, I took my barge and went to the bank's side with a dozen shot, where the canoas first ran themselves ashore, and landed there, sending out Captain Gifford and Captain Thyn on one hand and Captain Caulfield 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 canoas which escaped there was a good quantity of ore and gold. I then landed more men, and offered five hundred pound 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 canoas, and so, while the greater canoas 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 canoas. 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 stones, 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 the 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 aught from our ships, leaving them meanly manned 400 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 Orenoque 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 our 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, and that could have been the best profit of farther search or stay; for those mines are not easily broken, nor opened in haste, and I could have returned a good quantity of gold ready cast if I had not shot at another mark than present profit.